Before the Revolution, 1683–8

Prince George’s first visit to England seems to have been in 1669 when he was described as ‘a very fair young prince’.¹ Whether he was even then considered to be a suitable match for the young Princess Anne is unclear. During the 1670s James, duke of York, was almost certainly exploring the possibility of finding her a Catholic husband and at one stage seems to have been interested in marrying her to the ‘prince of Florence’, presumably Ferdinando, son and heir apparent to the despotic Cosimo III of Tuscany.² Another candidate for her hand was Prince George of Hanover (later George I). In the autumn of 1682 Anne herself seems to had a somewhat indiscreet relationship with John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham). Quite how indiscreet remains a matter for speculation. Some whispered that ‘his proceedings … spoil her marrying to anybody else’; some that he had written her a letter; some ‘will have his crime only ogling’; while yet others blamed rivalries at court.³ Mulgrave was stripped of his offices and forbidden the court.⁴

The news that George and Anne were to be married spread rapidly in May 1683. The marriage was a diplomatic triumph for the French, who were then in alliance with Denmark and whose interests required a counter-balance to the marriage of Anne’s older sister Mary (later Mary II) to William of Orange (later William III). Criticisms of the marriage were somewhat muted by George’s Protestantism and his reputation for bravery but the obvious French interest and the generalized distrust of York’s military pretensions and the danger posed by his acquisition of a potential general as a son-in-law created considerable suspicion.⁵ York did nothing to dispel such anxieties, smugly declaring that ‘I am the better pleased with it because I find the loyal party here do like it, and the Whigs are as much troubled at it.’⁶ The pro-French context led first to a rumour that Parliament was to be asked to disinherit the Princess Mary in favour of Anne and then, when the marriage was delayed, to suggestions that Anne would marry the newly widowed Louis XIV instead.⁷

It was agreed from the outset that George and Anne would live in England. The existence of many Danish surnames in the list of his servants suggests that the prince never forgot his origins but he nevertheless became ‘so hearty an Englishman that it was visible to all who were about him’.⁸ The success of the marriage was attributed by Roger Morrice to Prince George’s sexual prowess and Anne’s lust, but it is clear that the couple soon formed a close and devoted relationship.⁹ So close were they that it is difficult to treat them as other than a single entity. They were given residences at the Cockpit in Whitehall and at Wandsworth in Surrey. They were also ranked at the same level as York and his duchess, thus having precedency over the prince and princess of Orange. Rumours that George was to be made duke of Gloucester, lord high admiral, and general of all the forces proved to be unfounded. The prince’s income was variously said to be £40,000 or £45,000 a year and Anne was said to receive a further £20,000 in her own right; it was further said that Prince George would live better than his brother the king of Denmark.¹⁰ Like that of Anne’s older sister, the marriage treaty was a conventional one, focused on the couple’s future financial security. It did not include any reference to the constitutional position of Prince George in the event that Anne became queen.

Neither Charles II nor James II offered Prince George an opportunity of sitting in the House of Lords. He was kept at a distance from the centre of power – perhaps because he was a foreigner, perhaps because of his own lack of ability and ambition, or perhaps because he and his wife were known to be committed Protestants. James made a number of attempts to convert his daughter and son-in-law. In March 1686 Anne seems to have given the French envoy Bonrepaux some indication of vacillation, leading him to speculate on the possibility of cutting her older sister Mary out of the succession.¹¹ In May, following the birth of his granddaughter, Anne Sophia, James took at least one and possibly more Catholic priests to see (and presumably baptize) the baby. Variant accounts of the incident leave it impossible to know whether James removed the priest(s) himself on viewing his daughter’s distress or whether they were expelled by Prince George.¹² James also told Princess Mary that he was considering legitimating his Catholic younger son by Arabella Churchill, Henry FitzJames, by act of Parliament. The ostensible reason was to remove the canon law bar on his admission to orders, but the potential of a threat to the succession was nevertheless implicit.¹³ In December 1687 there was even a rumour that both Mary and Anne would be declared illegitimate.¹⁴

George and Anne not only felt increasingly insecure but found the ostentatious Catholicism of James II’s court so distasteful that they preferred to withdraw from court life rather than to endure its active pro-Catholic proselytizing. They became the focus of the as yet somewhat amorphous Protestant opposition, forming a close circle of friends, including John Churchill*, Baron Churchill (later duke of Marlborough), his wife, Sarah (who came to exercise considerable influence over Anne), George Churchill^‡, and Sidney Godolphin*, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin. Despite their shared commitment to the Anglican Church, the couple did not get on well with Anne’s uncles, Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and regarded both with considerable suspicion.

It is not clear whether or not Prince George resented the lack of an English peerage. He does not at this stage appear to have sought naturalization and his reputation as a somewhat indolent and rather stupid, if congenial, character suggests that he may well have been happy with the other, albeit relatively empty, honours that were conferred on him. He was made a knight of the garter in 1684 and on York’s accession as king in 1685 he was added to the privy council. Anne’s resentment of her father and his Catholic advisers led to a virtually complete estrangement by the spring of 1687, yet James II seems never to have suspected his daughter and son-in-law of disloyalty to his regime. On the contrary, the deterioration in Prince George’s health led instead to considerable speculation about the possibly imminent chances of persuading a widowed Anne to remarry, this time to a Catholic prince.¹⁵

In the summer of 1687 Prince George returned to Denmark, ostensibly on account of his health. His willingness to undertake the expense of such a journey surprised Roger Morrice and it may be significant that his brother Christian V was to support the invasion of William of Orange the following year.¹⁶ Superficially at least, the prince and princess showed little sign of opposition to the policies of James II. In December 1687 Prince George complied with the king’s wishes and dismissed Robert Leke*, 3rd earl of Scarsdale, from his service though he was said to have remarked that he would have no other servant foisted upon him. Scarsdale had already been removed from his other offices for his failure to return satisfactory answers to the three questions.¹⁷ Yet by July 1688 (if not before) George and Anne, and their friends the Churchills, almost certainly knew that William of Orange had been invited to intervene in English political affairs, with armed force if necessary. Anne had been conducting a secret correspondence with her sister for several months and was in close contact with at least three of the seven signatories to the invitation: Henry Compton*, bishop of London, Edward Russell*, the future earl of Orford, and Henry Sydney*, later Viscount Sydney. She and her husband were probably also in touch with two others, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), and William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, both of whom later helped ensure her safety.

Revolution and its aftermath, 1689–1702

Anne was appalled at the prospect of a Catholic heir and cast doubts on the reality of her stepmother’s pregnancy long before the birth of her half-brother and the invention of the myth of the warming pan.¹⁸ The couple continued to dissemble. In October 1688 Prince George was present at the meeting of the privy council which drew up the proclamation to restore corporations; he was also present to hear the testimony of witnesses to the birth of the prince of Wales. Prince George refused to accept a commission in James II’s army, believing that the Dutch invasion would provoke widespread desertion and/or mutiny. On 18 Nov. Anne assured her brother-in-law of her and her husband’s support ‘in this so just an undertaking’.¹⁹ Six days later George went over to William of Orange; Anne soon followed. George defended his conduct by reference to the need to defend the Protestant religion from its enemies ‘backed by the cruel zeal and prevailing power of France’.²⁰ In his memoirs James II affected to have been unconcerned at this defection but, given the pivotal position that George and Anne occupied in Protestant circles, the loss of their support must have been a crippling blow to his confidence, and the Danish ambassador reported that it left him in total consternation.²¹

Since he did not possess an English peerage Prince George was unable to play a direct role in the deliberations of the House of Lords concerning the decision to offer the crown to William and Mary. William’s claim to rule had some justification in English and European marriage law whereby a wife’s inheritance became part and parcel of the husband’s estate. His claim was not only accepted but encouraged by his wife: Danby reported that ‘she would take it extremely unkindly, if any, under a pretence of care for her, would set up a divided interest between her and the Prince’. Mary herself declared she had always believed ‘that women should not meddle in government’.²² Anne’s view of the succession was very different: she believed that William had usurped her place in the succession. She and her husband were active behind the scenes in a somewhat botched attempt to protect that place.²³ What they did not do was to campaign for the rights that Prince George had gained by his marriage and for his future political status, perhaps because to do so would have amounted to a tacit justification of William’s claim.

On 6 April 1689 Prince George was created duke of Cumberland. A bill for his naturalization was rushed through Parliament and received the royal assent on 9 April. He took his seat on 20 Apr. and was then present on approximately a quarter of sitting days, being named to three committees. His commitment both to the new regime and to settling peace between the northern Protestant states was further demonstrated by his part in facilitating the Treaty of Altona in June 1689. The duke of Gottorp (in his capacity as duke of Holstein) refused to sign the treaty unless lands in Holstein that had been seized by Denmark were returned free of encumbrances. The lands in question, valued at £25,000 a year, had been granted to George and Anne on their marriage with the proviso that they would descend to Anne if widowed and thereafter to any surviving children. Prince George willingly acquiesced in a request that he should forego possession when William of Orange promised either to secure financial compensation from Holland and its allies or to pay the sum owing himself. Trusting to William’s honour, George failed to insist on a detailed agreement that would include an agreed valuation and specify what proportion of the debt would be borne by each of the allies.²⁴ He also appears to have been instrumental in promoting a treaty between England and Denmark which ensured that Danish troops would be available to assist the new regime either in France or Ireland.²⁵ In July he voted to adhere to the Lords’ amendments to the bill for reversing Titus Oates’ conviction for perjury.

Prince George attended the brief session of 1689–90 on nearly 85 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions and to three select committees. His high attendance over this session may have been linked as much to his quarrels with the new king and queen as to the business before Parliament. His relationship with William and Mary deteriorated rapidly, partly because of Anne’s resentment over changes to her position in the succession and partly because of quarrels over money. The failure of negotiations over his wife’s financial settlement was part of the problem. According to a pamphlet published in 1693 William had promised Anne £100,000 a year on condition that she gave up her right to the crown for the term of his life even if he outlived Queen Mary, but had then reneged on his promise. Anne also expected to receive half of her father’s extensive and profitable Irish lands.²⁶ The commencement of a dispute over the value of the lands which Prince George had sacrificed to secure the passage of the Treaty of Altona soured relations still further. To the prince and princess it seemed that William, jealous that Anne’s claim to the throne was so much stronger than his own, was determined to keep them in subjection ‘by endeavouring to make them both depend upon him for bread’.²⁷ The quarrel was carried into the Commons and resulted in an address to the crown in December 1689 asking that a pension of £50,000 a year be settled on the couple.²⁸ The king’s decision the following month to grant the title of ‘highness’ to Prince George was perhaps meant to mollify the couple but suspicions remained deep on both sides.²⁹ Mary suspected that her sister was trying to build a political interest of her own and it seems likely that William, acutely aware of his own unpopularity, similarly feared Prince George’s intentions.

During the first session of the 1690 Parliament Prince George was present on a third of sitting days and was named to the committees for privileges and petitions. His absences between the end of March and early May were probably caused by illness and then by preparations to join William’s forces in Ireland. Parliament was adjourned on 23 May and on 3 June Prince George left for Ireland.³⁰ He served at the battle of the Boyne in July but was upset and disappointed by William’s indifference to his help, especially as it seems that his presence was instrumental in preventing a mutiny by William’s Danish troops.³¹ When Parliament resumed for the second session in October 1690 Prince George’s attendance rose to over three-quarters of sitting days and he was again appointed to the committees for privileges and petitions. He was also appointed to three select committees. On 6 Oct. Carmarthen (as Danby had become) recorded that ‘I hope the prince will attend a business which so much concerns the crown, and on him will depend, or must otherwise be spoken to’, Robert Sutton, 2nd Baron Lexinton, master of the horse to the prince and John Berkeley*, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, groom of the stole to the prince.

Shortly after Parliament adjourned on 5 Jan. 1691 Prince George was appointed as one of the commissioners to act in the king’s absence but that compliment to his status was more than offset by William’s refusal to allow Prince George to go to sea as a naval volunteer.³² There was also the matter of the king’s continuing failure to settle compensation for the Holstein lands. Prince George’s consent to the arrangement had been secured by Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and it was to a somewhat embarrassed Nottingham that he turned for help. Nottingham found himself cast as honest broker, ‘which I do the more willingly because the King promised to see this debt paid and ’twill not be for his majesty’s advantage that this matter should grow cold, but be determined while the parties are willing to pay their quota’. Nottingham’s intervention secured a settlement for 340,000 rix dollars or crowns (£85,000), half of which was to be paid by William himself and the remainder by his allies. Prince George, who professed considerable respect for Nottingham’s upright and honest character and who appreciated his friendship, reluctantly accepted the settlement on condition of receiving prompt payment. William acknowledged the debt (and an obligation to pay 6 per cent interest until it was paid) by a privy seal issued in July 1691.³³

Achieving agreement perhaps emboldened Prince George to test his standing still further. In August 1691 he asked the king to bestow one of the vacant garters on Marlborough (as Churchill had become). His request was echoed by the princess. Both phrased their letters in such a way as to make it clear that they would interpret a refusal as a personal slight.³⁴ It is not clear whether William even bothered to reply. He had always been suspicious of Marlborough, suspected that he was in correspondence with the exiled king, resented his denigration of Dutch favourites, and blamed him for the alienation of the prince and princess.

During the 1691–2 session Prince George was present on 69 per cent of sitting days and was named to the committee for privileges. His close friendship with Marlborough ensured that his attendance was far more consistent after Marlborough was dismissed from office on 20 Jan. 1692 and forbidden the court. Marlborough’s dismissal was associated with ‘great intrigues’ at the prince and princess’s Cockpit residence and an illicit correspondence with the Jacobite court.³⁵ Anne’s determination to defy the king and queen by retaining Lady Marlborough in her service and her subsequent withdrawal to Sion House created further problems. Prince George continued to attend meetings of the privy council and worked hard on keeping lines of communication open although it is clear that he backed his wife’s decision.³⁶

Parliament was prorogued in April 1692 amid fears of a Jacobite invasion sponsored by the French. Although it is extremely unlikely that the prince and princess were actively involved in plotting against William and Mary, many Jacobites anticipated their support: one intercepted letter declared that Prince George had actually seized the Tower of London and it was reported that he had also received money from the king of France. The death of Anne’s newborn son provided an opportunity for the queen to attempt a reconciliation but the resulting interview left both sisters feeling slighted and the queen’s resolution never to return to ‘proud Sion’. After Marlborough’s arrest on a charge of treason the following month the prince and princess expected to follow him to the Tower. In a blatant attempt to capture public sympathy they used Carmarthen and Edward Stillingfleet*, bishop of Worcester, as go-betweens.³⁷

Prince George appeared at court on the king’s return in October 1692, having first checked that his presence could be welcome.³⁸ He and his wife were by now acutely aware that their household had been infiltrated by court spies but were perhaps less aware that Richard Kingston, who was posing as a Jacobite agent, was actually reporting back to Nottingham.³⁹ They also faced social humiliation. Acting on instructions from the queen, Henry Compton, bishop of London, told the minister of St James’s church that ‘considering the terms the princess is upon with the king and her majesty he should not bow to her royal highness from the pulpit, nor say prayers for, nor use those public respects that are practised towards the royal family at Whitehall’.⁴⁰

During the 1692–3 session, Prince George was present on two-thirds of the sitting days. Although he was listed as present on 10 Nov. 1692 when Marlborough’s detention was debated he was not named to the committee to draw up an order on the debate and it is difficult to know what role he played when he was present on subsequent days. Nevertheless he was by now edging cautiously into open opposition. He voted consistently in favour of the bill for free proceedings in Parliament and on 3 Jan. 1693 registered his protest at its rejection. He also opposed the attempt of the court supporter Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, to obtain a divorce from his Catholic, Tory, and suspected Jacobite wife. The circulation at this time of the now lost Vindication of the Princess of Denmark – the ‘scandalous pamphlet’ mentioned above concerning an allegation that William had promised £100,000 a year to the princess in return for foregoing her right to the crown during his life – underlines the intensification of the prince and princess’s opposition to the court. Remarks in the pamphlet were said to border on treason.⁴¹ The royal quarrels naturally affected their entourage: Prince George’s master of the horse, Robert Sutton*, 2nd Baron Lexinton, and his groom of the stole, John Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, were reluctant to follow the prince and princess into obscurity and both urged the dismissal of Lady Marlborough. In January 1693 Lexinton was variously reported either to have resigned or to have been dismissed. He was promptly appointed to William’s bedchamber. It was now openly said that Prince George was ruled by his wife and that she increasingly resembled her father, in that her obstinate favour for Lady Marlborough paralleled the way in which James II loved Father Petre more than those of his own blood.⁴²

Prince George was present for only half the sitting days of the 1693–4 session and there is little evidence of his activities. The dispute over Lady Marlborough continued, as did its effect on the prince’s household. In March 1694 Lexinton’s successor, Basil Fielding*, 4th earl of Denbigh, also resigned and went over to the court.⁴³ Despite reminders, the king still made no attempt to pay the Holstein debt.⁴⁴ Prince George’s attendance over the 1694–5 session plummeted still further: he was present on only a third of sitting days. His absences were concentrated in the period between 22 Dec. 1694 and 11 Feb. 1695, which suggests that they were linked to the death of the queen on 28 Dec. 1694 and the prince and princess’s subsequent reconciliation with William III. A number of senior courtiers, including John Somers*, later Baron Somers, Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and Thomas Tenison*, newly appointed archbishop of Canterbury, seem to have been instrumental in securing the rapprochement, though given William’s somewhat shaky claim to rule and the more general problem of the succession it was scarcely possible for the estrangement to continue. On 8 Jan. 1695 Prince George was ‘kindly received’ by the king and by the end of March Marlborough too was reconciled to the court. The reconciliation was of necessity somewhat superficial. William continued to be jealous of Anne’s superior claim to the throne. For her part Anne despised her brother-in-law, dubbing him Caliban in her letters to Lady Marlborough, and resented his continuing failure to recognize her claim to her father’s Irish properties or to make any attempt to pay the debt due on the Holstein properties. In the unsettled state of affairs following Mary’s death, Jacobite sympathizers speculated that the king’s departure on campaign in the spring might be deemed an abdication and predicted that he would have to take Prince George with him to prevent a possible coup d’état in his absence.⁴⁵ Perhaps it was this nascent fear that lay behind William’s refusal to appoint Prince George to the council of regency that ruled in his absence.

During the first session of the 1695 Parliament George was present on just under 39 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committee for privileges – the first committee to which he had been named since November 1691 – and signed the Association, acknowledging William as the right and lawful king on 28 Feb. 1696. He missed the opening days of the 1696–7 session, arriving on 30 October; overall he was present on just over 55 per cent of sitting days. While it is difficult to match all his attendances to subject matter it is clear that one of the issues that interested him was the trial of Sir John Fenwick; on 23 Dec. 1696 he voted in favour of Fenwick’s attainder. He was also interested in the subsequent furore about the role of Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (and later 3rd earl of Peterborough), in the case.

Outside the public world of Parliament and the court the fragile relationship between the prince and princess and the king remained strained throughout 1697. Personal jealousies apart, the king’s continuing failure to accede to the prince and princess’s financial demands was enough in itself to create considerable ill will. Negotiations over what was to become the Peace of Ryswick prompted Prince George to agitate for payment of the Holstein debt (which with arrears of interest now amounted to nearly £120,000). His wife, still anxious to obtain her father’s Irish lands, attempted to dissuade members of the Irish Parliament from passing the bill to confirm outlawries in the belief that it effectively confirmed William’s grant of those lands to Elizabeth Villiers, now Lady Orkney. Although she failed to carry her point, her campaign did worry those charged with managing Irish affairs as they had not anticipated any opposition. A direct appeal to the king to prevent the bill receiving privy council confirmation also failed.⁴⁶ William’s refusal to pay over the whole of the parliamentary grant intended for the upkeep of the young duke of Gloucester and his interference in the choice of officials for Gloucester’s household also enraged the prince and princess.⁴⁷

Prince George was present for the opening of the new session of Parliament on 3 Dec. 1697 and was appointed to the committee for privileges. He was then absent until 13 December. His attendance during the session was sporadic, amounting overall to just over a third of sitting days. Neither his attendance nor his absences necessarily related to political issues: his absence in early December was probably linked to Anne’s miscarriage on 7 Dec. and a two-week absence in April 1698 was caused by his attendance on the king at Newmarket.⁴⁸

Prince George took his seat again at the opening of the 1698 Parliament on 6 December. He was named to the committee of privileges but was subsequently present for only a quarter of sitting days. Over the winter and early spring of 1698–9 the issue that most appears to have caught his attention was that of prohibiting the export or distilling of corn but it is also possible that he was interested in a number of cases relating to the navy. He was present on 24 Mar. 1699 for discussions on the method of trial for Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun (on an indictment for killing Captain Coote) but although he was reported to have watched the procession bringing Mohun to Westminster he was not present for the trial.⁴⁹

During the 1699–1700 session Prince George was present for just 28 per cent of sitting days. He attended the opening of Parliament on 16 Nov. when he was again named to the committee for privileges. He was then absent for much of the remainder of the year, even though the Commons had the payment of his Holstein debt under consideration and used the occasion to attack the arrangements for the education of the young duke of Gloucester.⁵⁰ He did attend on 4 Dec. 1699 to hear the preliminary arguments in the case concerning Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, but was not named to the subsequent committee and was not present when the bishop’s application for parliamentary privilege was turned down on 6 December. It seems likely that he may have been influenced by the attorney general’s declaration of the king’s interest in the issue.

The prince’s subsequent sporadic attendances appear to have been largely issue-related. He was present for most of the debates on the Darien settlement (although he was absent on 12 Feb. when the king replied to the address on that subject). His attendances also appear to be linked to the revival of the Norfolk divorce bill and the question of union with Scotland. Prince George was thought to be in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation but according to the attendance list was not present at any of the readings of the relevant bill. Although the session did not end until 11 Apr. 1700 he ceased his attendances on 19 March. In July 1700 his only surviving child, the duke of Gloucester, died of smallpox, precipitating a potential succession crisis. Although he and Anne almost certainly reassured the exiled King James that they would somehow ensure the succession of Anne’s young half-brother, there is little doubt that in reality both supported the Hanoverian option, with its inbuilt guarantees for continuing the line of Protestant monarchs.⁵¹

Prince George was present for the formal opening of the first 1701 Parliament on 12 Feb. 1701 but, like Princess Anne, seems to have spent much of the year in seclusion and mourning. He was present on only eight days of the four-month session and there is little evidence to suggest reasons for his attendance on those days. It was said that he and his wife were instrumental in concealing the countess of Anglesey from her thuggish husband, James Annesley*, 3rd earl of Anglesey, yet Prince George took no part in the debates over her bill to secure a separation.⁵² Nor does he seem to have played any part in parliamentary discussions of the major political issues of the day, such as the impeachment of the Whig lords or the passage of the Act of Settlement, although in the case of the Act of Settlement Princess Anne’s approval of the measure is well documented.⁵³ There is no indication that Prince George was consulted by William over his plans for the Grand Alliance: the assumption appears to have been that neither the prince nor his wife would ever play an active part in strategic political or military decision-making and that at the king’s death the ministry would effectively fall under the dominance of Marlborough. During the second 1701 Parliament Prince George was present on just one day, 9 Jan. 1702.

Consort to the queen, 1702–8

The death of William III on 8 Mar. 1702 opened up speculation about Prince George’s role in government and the concept of the crown matrimonial. The precedent supplied by three previous consorts of queens regnant (Philip of Spain and William of Orange in England and Henry Darnley in Scotland) suggested that he should be declared king, either as king consort or with full regal powers. The precise status of consorts was uncertain and obscured still further by legal conceits that applied to the inheritance of estates in the two kingdoms, such as the courtesy of England and the courtesy of Scotland. This was almost certainly why Philip of Spain’s role as monarch had been defined by statute. There is evidence that a proposal to make George king was under discussion in some elite circles. An anonymous pamphlet declared that it was both unprecedented and unnatural for a husband to be subject to his wife and went on to suggest that declaring George to be king would block Jacobite pretensions. The proposal outlined in the pamphlet was that during Anne’s lifetime he would be king consort but that he would possess full regal powers after her death. Somewhat disingenuously, considering the state of Anne’s health, the author of the pamphlet also suggested that she would outlive both the Electress Sophia and Sophia’s son, the future George I. There would therefore be no effect on the eventual succession of the House of Hanover.⁵⁴

Within days of the king’s death it had been suggested that Prince George might take charge of the allied troops and that he would need the status of kingship for such a post to be viable.⁵⁵ Rumours were also said to have reached the court of Hanover to the effect that such a proposal would be introduced during the session that opened in October 1702.⁵⁶ The proposal was never debated in Parliament. This may have been because of the visible deterioration in Prince George’s health, caused by a serious pulmonary illness in August 1702 that was ascribed to asthma. A course of the waters at Bath did little to alleviate his condition and he was again gravely ill in October. A more likely explanation is that the decision to grant Prince George an annuity of £100,000 a year for life and to exempt him from those clauses of the Act of Settlement prohibiting foreigners from holding public office were sufficiently controversial in themselves without going into issues that would almost certainly have been seen as a Tory attempt to overthrow the Act of Settlement. There are hints of a complex series of negotiations behind the scenes involving Prince George’s claim to kingship, his projected annuity, and Tory attempts to penalize occasional conformity.⁵⁷ It was perhaps as some compensation for the lack of a formal constitutional position that Anne loaded her husband with high offices, underlining that in her eyes at least he played an important role in the public life of the nation. It has been argued that the failure to recognize Prince George as king represented a significant, albeit unremarked, development in consitutional thought, in that it rested on the concept of kingship as an office rather than as an estate.⁵⁸

Although Prince George seems never to have made a concerted attempt to build a parliamentary grouping, his appointment as warden of the Cinque Ports enabled him to exercise (or attempt to exercise) influence over the 1702 elections in the Cinque Port constituencies in favour of Tories, through his deputy, Charles Finch*, 4th earl of Winchilsea. His many offices and the size of his household also ensured influence over several Members of the Commons. They included Sir Benjamin Bathurst^‡, John Berkeley^‡ (4th Viscount Fitzhardinge [I]), Hugh Boscawen^‡, Anthony Carey^‡ (5th Viscount Falkland [S]), Walter Chetwynd^‡, Charles Churchill^‡, George Churchill^‡, George Clarke^‡, Spencer Compton^†, (later earl of Wilmington) Thomas Conyers^‡, William Ettrick^‡, Francis Godfrey^‡, Francis Godlophin^‡, Henry Grahme^‡, Edward Nicholas^‡, Charles Seymour^‡, Edmund Webb^‡, Thomas Richmond Webb^‡, and John Richmond Webb^‡. His election in 1703 as high steward of Colchester also gave him influence in that constituency.

Prince George was present for the opening of Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702. He was absent for the queen’s speech the following day but attended again on 22 Oct. when he took the oaths. He was again ill in November, so ill that he was reported dead.⁵⁹ He next attended Parliament on 4 and 7 Dec., when the bill to prevent occasional conformity was debated in a committee of the whole House. As a Lutheran and occasional conformist himself he was known to have personal qualms about the bill. It is said that although he voted for it he told Thomas Wharton*, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, the teller for the non-contents, that ‘My heart is vid you’. The story has been related since at least the mid-eighteenth century but no original manuscript source has yet been traced.⁶⁰ It is at least in part apocryphal since Prince George was not present to vote at any of the readings of the bill. If it has any basis in truth then it probably refers to a vote taken in the committee of the whole House on 4 Dec. when Wharton acted as teller for the contents on a resolution to amend the bill. However in an entry that appears to refer to Somers’ unsuccessful motion on 3 Dec. that the committee on the bill be instructed ‘that this bill extend to no other persons than the Test Acts’. William Nicolson*, of Carlisle, recorded that ‘Prince George came into the House to countenance the Bill and divided with the Not Contents’.⁶¹ It seems highly likely therefore that he did, at the queen’s bidding, speak in favour of it; in January 1703 Nottingham certainly listed him as one of the supporters of the bill.

Prince George’s next attendance, on 16 Jan. 1703, was also related to the issue of occasional conformity. On that day the two Houses met in a free conference to discuss the amendments that had been proposed by both sides. The surviving division list shows that Prince George voted against insisting on the (Whig) peers’ amendment to the penalty clause. As indicated above, it seems likely that the occasional conformity bill was being used by the queen as a lever to obtain concessions for her husband. Cary Gardiner reported that Parliament was ‘hot’ about occasional conformity,

but are finding out a way to keep Prince George in without taking oaths, and ’tis further said the Queen will desire the Parliament to make some settlement for a maintenance for the Prince during his life, and ’tis believed she will gain both these points, but will keep her word that she will let the Dissenters enjoy the liberty of conscience, tho’ not preferments.⁶²

Prince George’s ninth and final attendance of the session was on 17 Feb. 1703, when the main business related to the attack on Charles Montagu*, earl of Halifax, and the debate over Sir George Rooke’s conduct during the Cadiz expedition.

In October 1703 Godolphin predicted ‘great clamours’ in the ensuing Parliament about the mismanagement of naval affairs which would prove to be ‘particularly uneasy’ to Prince George.⁶³ Despite this prediction George’s attendance fell still lower. He was present on only four days of the 1703–4 session: 10 Nov. and 17 Dec. 1703 and 13 and 20 Mar. 1704. Thus he was not present when the occasional conformity bill was lost on 14 Dec., even though Sunderland had listed him as a supporter of the bill. His attendance on 17 Dec. and 20 Mar. may have been linked to debates over the Scotch Plot, but the variety of business discussed on 10 Nov. and 13 Mar. makes it more difficult to identify the issues that attracted his attention.

Despite his low parliamentary profile, Prince George seems to have taken an active interest in foreign affairs and in November 1704 was promoting a marriage between his niece, the princess of Denmark, and Frederick I of Prussia.⁶⁴ His only attendances during the 1704–5 session were on 7 and 10 Feb. 1705, which coincided with the second and third readings of the place bill; the suggestion that he would support the tack seems to have been entirely misplaced. In March Prince George replaced Winchilsea with the Whig Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland, as his deputy in the Cinque Ports in order to manage the elections there.⁶⁵ The prince was ill once more in March 1705, this time with gout.⁶⁶ His health continued to be so precarious that rumours of his death again circulated in September 1705.⁶⁷

Prince George was present for the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705. Despite his apparent disengagement from everyday politics, behind the scenes he was active in lobbying for the election of John Smith as Speaker of the Commons and dismissed his secretary, George Clarke^‡, for refusing to promise his vote for Smith.⁶⁸ In all he was present for ten days over the course of the session. He attended the House on 12 Nov. when the question of a union with Scotland was debated, and again on 15 Nov. when the issues before the House concerned a possible invitation to Princess Sophia and the Protestant succession. Further attendances on 19, 20, 21, and 30 Nov., 6 Dec. 1705, and 29 and 31 Jan. 1706 also coincided with debates on the Protestant succession. He was sufficiently in touch with events to learn of, and then to prevent, a duel between Halifax and Carmarthen in December 1705 but his health continued to deteriorate. In May 1706 Anne told Marlborough that the prince was unable to write to congratulate him on his victories because of a cold and ‘shortness of breath’.⁶⁹ The letter that the prince wrote on his recovery a fortnight later is suggestive of a continuing interest in foreign affairs. He expressed his satisfaction with Marlborough’s praise of the Danish troops and went on to assure him that ‘nothing shall be wanting on my part to persuade their master to follow the interest of England in everything’.⁷⁰

Prince George attended the House just twice more before his death: on 3 Feb. 1707 and for the opening of the first British Parliament on 23 Oct. 1707. He was thus present for the assault by John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, on the ministry. Perhaps he took some pleasure in the way in which Haversham specifically exempted him from criticism, declaring that Prince George ‘owes not his commission to the favour of any great minister whatsoever, nor is he within reach of their power; he stands upon a much more unshaken and firm foundation’.⁷¹ He was, however, incensed by the Whig attack on his management of the navy, although, since in practice he was in the habit of delegating almost all responsibility, the real target was George Churchill. In the crisis of February 1708, Prince George emerged from the shadows for once and played a crucial role in persuading the queen to dismiss Harley and to support her in resisting Junto demands.⁷² Had more papers of the period survived it is possible that they would illuminate similar activities at other times, for according to Westmorland it was Prince George’s role to keep his wife ‘from being beguiled to her dishonour by sycophants that were about her all the time of his life’.⁷³

Prince George died later that year, on 28 Oct. 1708, after a week’s sickness and ‘a very tedious life of illness for some years’. Spitting blood, dropsy, and asthma all played a part in his demise.⁷⁴ For those, like Westmorland, who supported the rule of the duumvirs, his death explained the political crises of the next few years for now there was no one to protect the queen from ‘whisperers’ and to help her ‘to stand by those who had so successfully carried on her affairs’. Westmorland declared that ‘no sooner was he dead but she sullied the great glory she had gained during her reign before, by bringing in a party not able to support her and to go on with the war she was engaged in for the liberties of Europe’.⁷⁵

Although his health had been in decline for several years, Prince George had not made a will. The queen had to obtain the advice of the 12 judges, who agreed that Prince George’s estate should be distributed in accordance with the provisions of the intestacy statute, with half his estate going to the queen and the remainder to be divided between his next of kin.⁷⁶ After payment of his debts the residue of his estate amounted to £39,000. These calculations excluded the old question of the Holstein debt, about which the administrators professed themselves baffled. Despite the Commons vote of 1698 it was not clear whether the debt had ever been paid. If the debt remained then it ought to be paid by the queen, yet the lands in question had been settled on her in jointure. The administrators sought legal advice but whether the problem was ever settled remains a mystery.⁷⁷

The only son of the future King George I, Georg August was brought up between his family’s principal residences in Hanover and nearby Herrenhausen. His childhood was blighted by the scandalous circumstances of his parents’ separation following his mother’s affair with Count Philipp Christoph von Königsmarck: the latter’s mysterious disappearance and Sophia Dorothea’s immurement in the castle of Ahlden. News of the scandal was current in England.⁷ Prince Georg August’s subsequent poor relations with his father may have stemmed in part from this traumatizing event. He also resented his lack of involvement in the management of the electorate once he had attained adulthood and his father’s refusal to allow him a military career until he had produced an heir. In 1705 the electoral prince, as he was known after his father’s accession as elector of Hanover, married the Protestant heroine, Caroline of Ansbach. The new electoral princess had achieved fame as an upholder of the faith after her refusal to convert to Catholicism to marry the future Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI.⁸ That year, Prince Georg was also included in speculation that he might accompany his grandmother, Dowager Electress Sophia, to England to help secure her claim to the throne as part of the Act of Settlement. Sir Rowland Gwynne^‡, though, advised that should Sophia come over the prince should remain in Hanover:

it would be advisable to let him live here in quiet, till he has issue. He is bred up here in great virtue and sobriety, but if he came into England, might be exposed to many temptations, which a young prince of a gay temper, who has a great deal of fire might not, perhaps, resist, where he would see a quite different world from what he sees here.⁹

In the event the motion for summoning over the heir presumptive failed to be carried and Sophia herself made plain her disinclination to travel without the queen’s consent.¹⁰

Relations between the courts of Hanover and St James remained awkward for the ensuing few years. In March 1706 the Hanoverians took umbrage at the proposed method of conveying the naturalization bill to them and the offer of a garter (available by the death of the prince’s maternal grandfather, the duke of Celle) to the electoral prince as ‘paying them with trifles instead of calling them over’. The elector proposed instead that the bill should be presented without ceremony while a herald should travel to Hanover with his son’s garter.¹¹ In the event the prince was invested with the garter in June during the diplomatic mission headed by Charles Montagu*, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, though he was not installed formally for another four years (by proxy).¹² There were similar difficulties over the proposal to promote Prince Georg to the peerage later that year. There seems to have been initially some thoughts of him being created duke of Clarence, but Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, dismissed this as a ‘snivelling project’. He claimed to have ‘stifled that at birth and hindered it being offered’, probably in response to objections raised by John Holles*, duke of Newcastle.¹³ By the beginning of October Harley was able to advise the English resident in Hanover, Emanuel Scrope Howe^‡, husband of the natural daughter of Prince Rupert*, duke of Cumberland, that the letters patent had passed; but it was not until December that the prince was elevated to the peerage as duke of Cambridge and not until the beginning of 1707 that Harley wrote to Howe again with the patent of creation to be presented to the prince.¹⁴

The following year Cambridge played a conspicuous part in the opening action of the battle of Oudenarde, serving under John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough, in command of a squadron of Hanoverian dragoons.¹⁵ It was almost immediately after this that there were renewed manoeuvrings to have a member of the Hanoverian family summoned over to England to settle in advance of the Hanoverian succession to the throne, whether it was in the person of his grandmother, his father or (as the first heir of the Hanoverian line to be younger than Queen Anne) himself. The queen, who had herself effectively run a reversionary interest before her own accession, made plain her extreme displeasure at the notion. She warned Marlborough that whoever might propose such a course of action in Parliament, Whigs or Tories, she would ‘look upon neither of them as my friends, nor would never make any invitation neither to the young man, nor his father, nor grandmother’. Having heard that Cambridge intended to make a visit at the close of the campaigning season, she requested that Marlborough would find a way to discourage it so that she would not need to refuse him permission.¹⁶

During the final years of the queen’s reign, Cambridge increasingly became a focus for political point-scoring, particularly for those eager to see him granted his writ of summons to the Lords. In January 1712 Oxford (as Harley had become) presented a bill to the House for granting Cambridge precedence above all other peers.¹⁷ The bill for settling the precedence of Cambridge, the dowager electress and the elector was given the royal assent the following month.¹⁸ The next year it was mooted that Cambridge’s son, Prince Frederick Louis^†, later Prince of Wales, could be sent for as ‘a sure and present pledge for the security of that succession’, which it was thought could not ‘be reasonably objected against’.¹⁹ In the spring of 1714 Cambridge’s anomalous position as a duke thus far denied his seat in the House was brought to a head when the Hanoverian resident, Baron Schütz, demanded of the lord chancellor, Simon Harcourt*, Baron (later Viscount) Harcourt, a writ of summons for the duke for the forthcoming session of Parliament. Harcourt responded that a writ had never been denied, nor as yet demanded, and referred the matter to the queen for her approval.²⁰ Writing of the affair to Thomas Harley in Hanover, Oxford expatiated on the queen’s annoyance at the proceeding, which she conceived was intended ‘to insinuate to all her subjects that though she has often declared to her people the friendship she has for the House of Hanover, yet they will not accept it’. He also underlined that Schütz had now shot his bolt and was no longer in a position to do anything for the heir presumptive. Thus, while a writ was despatched along with Oxford’s diatribe it was made patently clear that Cambridge was not expected to act on it.²¹ To make matters doubly sure, it was reported that Henry Paget*, 4th Baron Paget (later earl of Uxbridge), was to travel to Hanover to prevent Cambridge from responding to the summons.²² Personal letters from the queen to the dowager electress and the elector also made plain her disquiet at the notion of Cambridge appearing in England.²³ The controversy sparked discussion in London over whether or not Cambridge would come over, though as one commentator put it ‘I believe the one that says he is to come knows as little as the other that is of the contrary opinion’.²⁴

Once it was apparent that Cambridge would not come in time to take his seat in the Lords, the parties began to make what capital out of the affair they could. Both the Whigs and Oxford’s enemies within the administration put it about that the scheme had all along been the lord treasurer’s. Others suggested that although it had been a Whig device they had backed away from the notion fearful that once in England, Cambridge might not espouse their interests.²⁵ Oxford’s heir reported in early May that some Whigs were still confidently reporting Cambridge’s imminent arrival, but he concluded that ‘his father and grandmother are both wiser than to let him come’.²⁶ A message from Hanover from the dowager electress and elector disavowing any knowledge of the affair was accounted ‘the best cordial’ that could be given the queen who by then was suffering from poor health allegedly brought on in part by the strain of the business.²⁷ Once the queen’s condition improved, a compromise arrangement was put about in mid-May by which Cambridge might be permitted to come over but not before Parliament had risen.²⁸ Further schemes and stratagems continued to circulate into the early summer amid mutual recriminations, not least among certain Whigs who were dismayed that the prince had not been, as expected, en route when the writ was despatched which they had hoped might wrong-foot their opponents.²⁹

The court at Hanover was undoubtedly offended by the response from Britain. Schütz’s actions stemmed in part from pressure from the Whigs but he was also responding to an instruction from the dowager electress. The elector played a more cautious hand. He was more intent on securing confirmation of the succession and confined himself to voicing the desire that some member of his house might be permitted to attend the queen, which according to Samuel Molyneux^‡ was ‘the only step made to support the demand of the prince’s writ’.³⁰ The prince’s own response is not known but attention was soon after distracted by the death of Dowager Electress Sophie, relegating to second place concerns about Cambridge travelling to England.³¹

Communications relating to Cambridge’s writ as a peer continued to feature in despatches until shortly before the queen’s death, which at last put an end to the business. When the new king set out to claim his throne, Cambridge accompanied him. They arrived at Greenwich on 17 Sept. at a rather low key ceremony. Ten days later the prince was elevated prince of Wales, as the first of a number of notables to receive coronation honours. His wife and daughters joined him over the ensuing months but his only son (next heir but one to the throne), Prince Frederick, was left behind in Hanover to act as a symbol to the electorate of the family’s continuing commitment there. Once in England, the prince of Wales, conversant in French and English, was quick to capitalize on his position to build up a political following.³² Details of his role as head of a significant opposition grouping and his later role in Parliament as king will be dealt with in the second part of this work.

Cavalier general, 1642-67

Charles Gerard was a great-grandson of Elizabeth I’s attorney-general Sir Gilbert Gerard^‡, who established the family seat at Gerard’s Bromley in Staffordshire. The main branch of the family was represented by the Barons Gerard of Gerard’s Bromley; Charles was of a cadet branch which had been established in Halsall in Lancashire since his father bought the estate in 1625. He raised a foot regiment for the king at the commencement of the Civil Wars and was quickly in the thick of the fighting. He caught the eye of Charles I’s nephew and leading commander, Prince Rupert*, later duke of Cumberland, who made him commander-in-chief of the royalist forces in the six counties of south Wales. During his campaign there of 1644-45 Gerard became renowned both for his effective military tactics and for his brutality. In the face of complaints from the local population of Gerard’s excessive exactions, Charles I, taking refuge in Wales after the defeat at Naseby, was forced to dismiss him from this post. He compensated him by putting him in charge, as lieutenant-general, of all the cavalry remaining in the royalist army and by creating him on 8 Nov. 1645 Baron Gerard of Brandon, Suffolk. He had no known connection with Suffolk, and Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, who is hostile to Gerard throughout his history of the civil wars, claimed that he chose that title after reasoning that ‘because there was once an eminent person called Charles Brandon, who was afterwards made a duke, he would be created baron of Brandon, that there might be another Charles Brandon who had no less aspiring thoughts than the other’.¹⁸ Gerard remained principally loyal to his patron and commanding officer Rupert, sharing his temporary disgrace in late 1645 and later joining him in exile after the fall of Oxford the following year.

In late 1648 he was appointed vice-admiral, under Rupert, of the royalist navy at Helvoetsluys. He did not sail with the fleet in January 1649, though, and remained at The Hague where shortly after the execution of Charles I he was made a gentleman of the bedchamber to the new king.¹⁹ Gerard spent much of the 1650s either in the service of the French army or wandering between the courts and capitals of northwest Europe. It was during this period that he married the Frenchwoman Jeanne de Civelle, daughter of an equerry to the queen mother Henrietta Maria. By 1657 he was back at the court of the exiled Charles II, when he was commissioned to raise a troop of horse to serve as life guards to the king. ²⁰ As captain of this body Gerard led his troops into London at the restored king’s triumphal entry into the capital on 29 May 1660. His positions as captain of what was now considered the first troop of the Life Guards and as gentleman of the bedchamber in the restored regime were confirmed shortly afterwards. He soon received other marks of royal favour. On 29 July he was granted the reversion of the office of remembrancer of first fruits and tenths and on 15 May 1661 he was made keeper of Enfield Chase, although this latter post was to engage him for many years in suits with William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, who also had claims to the office. He received a pension of £100 charged on the customs receipts from 1662 and at the end of that year briefly served as an envoy-extraordinary to the court of France. His French wife was made a lady-in-waiting to the queen, Catherine of Braganza, although she was to lose this position in March 1663 for the folly of telling the queen details of the king’s affair with Lady Castlemaine. ²¹

Gerard of Brandon first sat in the Convention on 15 June 1660, where he immediately set to work reclaiming and augmenting his estate with the same determination which he had shown during the wars. Three days after his first appearance the House ordered his estate to be discharged from sequestration. He then moved to have a bill passed confirming to him the restoration of all his estates held as of 23 Oct. 1641. His request was exempted from the restrictions of the pending indemnity bill. It was first introduced on 8 Aug. and committed five days later. It was delayed while the committee tried to set a date from which his ownership of the properties would be reckoned. This was eventually determined to be 20 May 1642, and the revised bill was passed by the House on 27 August. It was returned unamended from the Commons on 5 Sept. and received the royal assent eight days later.²² The success of his bill is in contrast to the similar bill of Gerard’s Lancashire neighbour and local rival Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, which sought the forcible restitution of his lands sold under duress during the Interregnum. The principal difference between the bills, and the reason why Gerard’s quickly succeeded whereas Derby’s, after many twists and turns and attempts, ultimately failed, was that Gerard’s did not seek to reclaim lands which he had legally granted or sold during the 1650s. It sought only to reclaim those that had been illegally seized and confiscated by the ‘usurping’ authorities. Seeing this bill through appears to have been Gerard’s principal concern in the Convention. Otherwise, he does not appear to have been particularly active.

Gerard attended 43 per cent of the sitting days of the first session of the new Parliament elected in 1661. His position as an ex-cavalier keen to reward his old colleagues and punish his former enemies is suggested by his nomination to consider the bills to determine the pains and penalties for those excepted from the Act of Indemnity, to distribute the £60,000 raised for ‘loyal and indigent’ officers of the late war, and to repeal the acts of the Long Parliament. Identification of Gerard of Brandon’s activities in the House until the end of 1667 is slightly complicated by the intermittent presence there of his distant cousin Charles Gerard*, 4th Baron Gerard of Bromley, but Gerard of Bromley sat infrequently and was not a major figure in the House. He missed some sessions altogether. Gerard of Brandon even held his cousin’s proxy from 13 June 1661 for the remainder of the 1661-62 session.²³

During these early years of the Restoration Gerard of Brandon tried to augment his fortunes by acquiring the Gawsworth estate in Cheshire, lands that were to embroil him and his descendants in protracted, bitter and controversial litigation for almost a century. In 1643 Gerard’s maternal uncle, Sir Edward Fitton^‡, 2nd bt., who owned the lucrative estate of Gawsworth, had died childless. In his will of 1641 Sir Edward had left the estate to a distant Irish cousin, William Fitton, in order to keep the family name attached to the property. Gerard pushed for his own right to the property through his mother, Fitton’s sister, but war and exile impeded his ability to do so and in the 1650s William Fitton’s son and heir, Alexander, who had sided with Parliament to secure possession, took over the property. When Gerard returned, high in the king’s favour, he worked to reverse this situation, with little regard to the legality of his means. In Cheshire itself he produced forged documents casting doubts on Fitton’s legal tenure of the estate.²⁴ In May 1661 he brought in a bill in chancery against William and Alexander Fitton claiming that Sir Edward on his death bed had invalidated his 1641 will assigning the estate to the Fittons and in a later will of 1643 (only recently ‘discovered’) had bequeathed the property to Gerard. Lord Chancellor Clarendon (as Hyde had become) decreed in June 1662 that the validity of the first will had to be tried in king’s bench, and for this trial Gerard and his associates threatened and cajoled a notorious forger, Abraham Granger, to testify that he had forged the 1641 will on Alexander Fitton’s orders. Granger played his part well, the jury found in Gerard’s favour and chancery awarded the property to Gerard.²⁵ Fitton decided to strike back and in 1663 arranged for the unlicensed publication of a short work, A True narrative of the Proceedings … between Charles Lord Gerard of Brandon and Alexander Fitton, esq, which took the form of Granger’s confession of his perjured testimony and of Gerard’s tactics to acquire it. ²⁶ Gerard was incensed and took the matter to his peers in the House. After being almost entirely absent for the months of March to May in the session of 1663, Gerard began to attend assiduously from 12 June and on 20 June petitioned the House to take action against this libellous pamphlet against one of their own. Three days later, Granger’s writing having been submitted to the House, the matter was referred to the committee for privileges. On 26 June the Committee heard copious testimony (comprising seven folio sides in the committee minute book) from the parties involved in the publication of this work. All insisted it was an open and unsolicited confession of Granger, afflicted by a heavy conscience for what he had done to Fitton. Following the report the next day, the House resolved that Gerard was ‘free from any scandal mentioned in the said narration’ which was judged ‘to be a mere scandal, and a conspiracy and confederacy contrived by wicked persons, against the honour of his lordship, and false in every part’. When counsel for both Fitton and Gerard were heard at the bar on 2 July, the House further branded the publication ‘false, odious and infamous’, and declared that Gerard deserved reparations for the damage done to his reputation. A week later, after further argument from both counsel, the House passed down its heavy punishment on Fitton. He was to be fined £500, imprisoned in king’s bench until he could produce the elusive Granger for questioning and find sufficient sureties for his good behaviour. He also faced the additional threat of further legal action from Gerard, who was declared ‘clear and free’ of all the allegations in the libel. On 11 July the House further ordered that copies of the pamphlet were to be burned at both New Palace Yard in Westminster and in the market place in Chester, and that the content of the libel was not to be entered in the Journal ²⁷ Fitton was unable to find the money or sureties to stand for him. He was imprisoned for his debt, where he remained for the next 20 years.

At the same time in July 1663 as Gerard’s proceedings against Fitton were occupying the House, George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, brought articles of impeachment against his old enemy, Clarendon. Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, forecast that Gerard of Brandon would oppose Bristol’s attempt against Clarendon, while a contemporary newsletter writer, Thomas Salusbury, placed Gerard among Bristol’s supporters. Both these conflicting reports are plausible. Bristol had been one of Prince Rupert’s foremost antagonists in the royalist camp during the Civil Wars and Gerard would have had little reason to countenance Bristol’s Catholicism or calls for religious toleration. A few days after the affair of the impeachment, Gerard of Brandon joined with other zealous Anglicans in signing, on 25 July, the protest against a measure that would allow those subscribing to the Act of Uniformity to limit their agreement with its terms only to outward practice and obedience.²⁸ Yet there are other indications that Gerard’s dislike of Clarendon was longer-lasting and stronger. They had quarrelled during the years of exile and Samuel Pepys^‡ later heard of an incident from the early days of the Restoration when Gerard reported to the king some unwise comments the lord chancellor had made about him.²⁹ Thomas Salusbury, placed Gerard among Bristol’s supporters drawn from ‘the nobility, disobliged (not to say abused) by the chancellor’, who were discontented with the scant reward they had received at the Restoration.³⁰

After the prorogation of 27 July Alexander Fitton’s three accomplices in the publication of the libel against Gerard – Edward Lloyd, John Cade and John Wright – were also arrested. Upon their pardon and release by order of the king in August they adamantly refused to pay the serjeant-at-arms and other of the House’s officials the accustomed fees, ‘accompanied with high and threatening language’. During the following session, on 9 May 1664, the House heard the petition of its officials against this treatment and ordered that these three were to pay the officers the fees owing them or risk being recommitted.³¹ He came to just under half of the sittings of the following session of 1664-65 and to only five of the sitting days of the session of October 1665. He was present in Westminster Hall on 30 Apr. 1666 when he was part of the court of the lord high steward to judge in the trial of Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, whom he found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.³²

Gerard once again attended just under half of the sittings in 1666-67. On 30 Oct. 1666 he was assigned to be part of the delegation from the House to present the king with the address requesting the prohibition of French imports and the following day he joined John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse, in introducing Richard Arundell*, to the House as Baron Arundell of Trerice. During this session his opposition to Clarendon was revealed once again. On 10 Nov. 1666 Arthur Annesley*, earl of Anglesey, included Gerard in a list of royal servants acting against the wishes of the lord chancellor and the court by aggressively supporting the Irish cattle bill.³³ On 27 Nov. he registered his proxy with George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, the leading advocate of the bill and one of Clarendon’s particular adversaries in the House. This proxy was vacated by Gerard’s return to the House on 5 December. On 20 Dec. he was added to the existing committee assigned to draw up reasons for insisting on the House’s rejection of the word ‘nuisance’ in the Irish cattle bill. On 3 Jan. 1667 Gerard, recently commissioned general of the militia entrusted to defend Hampshire and the Isle of Wight from a Dutch invasion, was granted leave to be absent for a time. That same day Gerard gave his proxy to his new military commander-in-chief, Prince James*, duke of York, but it was not entered in the proxy register until 8 January.³⁴ On 7 Feb. York presented Gerard’s complaint that two of his menial servants had been assaulted in March 1665, during time of privilege of Parliament.³⁵ The matter, though, was quickly dropped by the prorogation the following day. Following the peace with the United Provinces during the summer, Gerard came to 82 per cent of the meetings in the winter of 1667, which saw the impeachment of Clarendon by the Commons. Gerard joined in the attack and signed the protest of 20 Nov. against the decision not to commit Clarendon without specific articles of treason laid against him. On 7 Dec. he was placed on the large committee to consider the bill for banishing and disabling the former lord treasurer.

The William Carr affair, 1667-71

By that time Gerard himself was mired in controversy and distrust and had himself become a target of the Commons. As early as 1663 the king himself began to have suspicions that Gerard was using his company of the Life Guards and the pay allotted to them for his own profit. In October 1663 Pepys recorded that when Charles II decided to muster his own Guards himself ‘he found reason to dislike their condition to my Lord Gerard, finding so many absent men or dead pays’. On 9 Dec. 1667 the stationer John Cade, who had already been punished for his involvement in the publication of Fitton’s libel in 1663, told Pepys ‘my Lord Gerard is troubled for several things in the House of Commons’, which prompted Pepys to comment that ‘it seems this lord is a very proud and wicked man’. ³⁶ Cade knew of the petition that William Carr, former clerk of Gerard’s company of Guards, had tried to submit to the House of Commons that day. Carr alleged that for at least the past six years he had been advancing Gerard for his own use large sums of money, at least £2,000 p.a., from the pay intended for the Guards, and that Gerard had been selling offices in the Guards for a healthy profit. When he had recently confronted Gerard to settle his account, the baron had threatened ‘that if he [Carr] ever spoke or revealed the advantage of the profits of the troop, and would not comply with his lordship’s desires, he [Gerard] would rip up his guts, and could now hang him, for that he was now a general, and could hang and draw, and none could question him’. Carr alleged that Gerard had sent troops to his house to terrorize his family and to seize incriminating papers. Carr had fled abroad, which gave Gerard the opportunity to accuse him of desertion, but had recently returned under the protection of George Monck*, duke of Albemarle. When Carr had first tried to present his petition before the Commons, some of Gerard’s thugs waylaid him en route to St Stephen’s Chapel, wounded him and seized his petition in the precincts of Westminster Abbey.³⁷ Carr had his petition printed and distributed to members of the Commons before trying again on 16 Dec. and Pepys reported from Westminster on that day that the Commons were ‘very hot’ about the charges levelled in Carr’s printed petition. Unfortunately for Carr he had had his printed charges publicly distributed before first having presented them to the Commons. On that basis, on 17 Dec., the lower house decided not to commit the petition for further consideration.³⁸

Gerard informed the House on 16 Dec. 1667 both of the paper’s derogation of a peer and of Carr’s insulting solicitation to the Commons alone. The petitioner saw the lower House as ‘the only hopes and protectors of England’, as his case could ‘be that of any commoner under the tyranny of a great lord’. Carr and his accomplices were interrogated before the committee for privileges on 17 Dec. and the day afterwards, following the report from committee, Carr was heard at the bar before the whole House. The lords sentenced him to be fined £1,000, while copies of the offending paper were to be publicly burned. Carr was sentenced to be placed in the pillory for three consecutive days at central locations in the metropolis, with a notice over his head detailing his offence: ‘For publishing several scandalous and libellous papers against the Lord Gerard of Brandon, a peer of this realm, and reflecting upon the honour and justice of His Majesty and the House of Peers.’³⁹ Judging by Pepys’s reaction, the politically engaged public sided with Carr against the House’s draconian punishment. At Westminster on 19 Dec. Pepys heard ‘how the House of Lords with great severity, if not tyranny, ordered poor Carr (who only erred in the manner of the presenting his petition against my Lord Gerard, it being first printed before it was presented …) to stand in the pillory two or three times … and be imprisoned I know not how long’. He even reported the false rumour that the House had ordered Carr’s ears to be cut off. Pepys later saw Carr standing in the pillory at the Exchange, ‘the Lords having ordered this with great injustice, as all people think’.⁴⁰ Carr did not accept his punishment quietly and sometime in very late 1667 or early 1668 publicized his allegations against Gerard and his mistreatment by the House in a work, An occasional dialogue at a coffee-house, between Philanax Britannicus, and Calophilus Anglus, two loyal English gentlemen, in which he adopted the authorial name ‘Coffo-Philo’.

Determined to rid himself of the troublesome Carr once and for all on 6 Feb. 1668 Gerard started proceedings against Carr in king’s bench under three indictments: felony (for desertion of his military service, even though Carr was never a soldier) and two of forgery.⁴¹ ‘All do say’, Pepys reported, ‘that my Lord Gerard, though he designs the ruin of this man, will not get anything by it’ and on 8 Feb. the diarist was able to record that ‘the great talk is of Carr’s coming off in all his trials, to the disgrace of my Lord Gerard to that degree, and the ripping up so many notorious rogueries and cheats of my Lord’s that my Lord it is thought will be ruined’. Pepys saw the whole Carr episode as emblematic of

the madness of the House of Commons … and much more, the base proceedings (just the epitome of all our public managements in this age) of the House of Lords, that ordered him to stand in the pillory for those very things, without hearing and examining, which he hath now, by the seeking of my Lord Gerard himself, cleared himself of in open court, to the gaining himself the pity of all the world, and shame for ever to my Lord Gerard.⁴²

Previously the stationer John Cade had also told Pepys on 20 Jan. 1668, before Parliament resumed from its winter recess, ‘how my Lord Gerard is likely to meet with trouble the next sitting of Parliament, about Carr being set in the pillory, and I am glad of it’. ⁴³ Gerard first sat in the reconvened session on 10 Feb. and came to 69 per cent of the sittings until the adjournment of 9 May. He was named to only two committees on legislation, and undoubtedly his principal concern during this time was the continuing turbulence over his and the House’s treatment of Carr. The Commons did harry him after his defeat in king’s bench and on 21 Feb. referred to its committee of grievances Carr’s new petition against the peer and revived consideration of a petition from Alexander Fitton first submitted on 12 Dec. 1667, which had not been dealt with at the time because of the press of Clarendon’s impeachment.⁴⁴ Fitton’s petition questioned the House’s jurisdiction over him in 1663, while the allegations in Carr’s petition, concerning his knowledge of Gerard’s coercion of Granger to testify falsely in the Fitton case, were made publicly available, and Pepys thought that the petition ‘will, all do believe, ruin him [Gerard] – and I shall be glad of it’.⁴⁵ The petition languished in committee for some time but was revived in early April, so that on 23 Apr. Gerard, informing the House that ‘scandalous informations against him [had been] exhibited to the House of Commons’, requested the leave of the House in order to defend himself before the Commons. Again, the petition probably became lost in the press of other business, but Carr took his battle with Gerard into other arenas and, perhaps with the assistance of Alexander Fitton, tried to lampoon Gerard and his blustering greed in an overdrawn farce, Pluto furens & vinctus, or, The raging devil bound, published in 1669 but perhaps performed as early February 1668.⁴⁶ In 1670 an unlicensed and clandestine publication appeared (with a suspicious Amsterdam imprint), Carr’s Case, being a brief relation of the cause and sufferings of Mr William Carr. This was again submitted to the House of Commons, ‘who are the representatives of all the commons of England’, and included ‘a plea against the pretended jurisdictions and singular proceedings of the House of Lords, in which may be seen the just rights of every commoner and free-born subject of England’. It rehearsed Carr’s account of Gerard’s underhand dealings as captain of the Guards, and delighted in detailing his intemperate and violent actions, including the abusive language he directed towards his general, Albermarle, behind his back. The bulk of it was taken up with a detailed treatise, complete with references to legal precedents and extracts from Coke’s Institutes, taking issue with the House’s claims for original jurisdiction and denying its right to try commoners at all. Undoubtedly this was written with the ongoing fight between the two houses over Skinner v. East India Company in mind and in the arguments and petitions of 1668-71 what started out as a personal feud between Gerard and those he had wronged, such as Fitton and Carr, quickly took on larger constitutional issues because of Gerard’s reliance on his peers to punish those who dared to confront him on his corrupt practices.

By September 1668 the numerous allegations against Gerard had become too much even for his patron the king. Gerard agreed to sell his commission as captain of the first troop of Life Guards to the king’s natural son James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, for £8,000 and to purchase Monmouth’s residence of Chiswick House in Acton.⁴⁷ Furthermore, in September 1668 he was granted by John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, the manor of Northallerton in Yorkshire.⁴⁸ He had an existing interest there through his extended family, as his first cousin Sir Gilbert Gerard^‡, bt, who had been a lieutenant in the Life Guards until dismissed with his captain in 1668, was married to one of Cosin’s daughters as well as being member for Northallerton in all of Charles II’s parliaments. He remained a close associate of Sir Gilbert Gerard throughout the subsequent years. Gerard of Brandon retained his position in the bedchamber, where he maintained his reputation for harshness and vindictiveness. In November 1668 he saw in the queen’s privy chamber a ‘Mr Cornewall’, who had testified against him before a parliamentary committee in the William Carr matter, and he ‘came across the room to him and swore desperately at him threatening him that his footmen or porters should slit his nose, etc.’ Cornewall took the matter to king’s bench with the result that ‘even soldiers and those of my lord’s own kindred very much blame my lord, and so hath his Majesty’. Years later the earl of Anglesey, coming into the king’s bedchamber for business on 5 Jan. 1674, was ‘saucily used by my Lord Gerard’ and reported this behaviour to the king once summoned to his presence.⁴⁹

Court supporter, 1669-79

Gerard came to 57 per cent of the sitting days of both the sessions of 1669 and of 1670-71. He was most active in the latter session when he was named to 24 committees on legislation and two for investigation, including the large committee assigned in the first days of the session to investigate the fall of rents and decay of trade. On 13 Jan. 1671 he chaired the committee on the bill to allow the underage Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, to settle a jointure of certain Lincolnshire manors on his prospective bride Dorothy, daughter of John Ferrers^‡. He reported the bill as fit to pass the following day, but it soon became a moot point as the marriage failed to go through. ⁵⁰ From the time of the turbulent session beginning 4 Feb. 1673 his attendance in the House increased substantially. He attended all but two of the meetings of the two sessions of 1673, when he was placed on four committees on legislation. He also held the proxy of Lionel Cranfield*, 3rd earl of Middlesex, from 1 Mar. 1673 until vacated upon the earl’s return on 17 March. On 5 Mar. he was also placed on the large committee assigned to prepare an address of advice to the king regarding his referral of the controverted matter of the Declaration of Indulgence to ‘a parliamentary way by bill’. In the following session of early 1674 Gerard came to 86 per cent of the sittings and was named to three committees. At this time he was still a follower, or at least friend, of Buckingham, who had held his proxy back in December 1667. On 14 Jan. 1674 it was Gerard who presented to the House the duke’s answer to the petition of the trustees of the young Charles Talbot*, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, requesting the House to take action against Buckingham for the murder of Shrewsbury’s father and his continuing cohabitation with his mother.⁵¹ He was later, on 6 Feb., placed on the committee of 12 members assigned to determine the conditions of the security of £10,000 Buckingham and the dowager countess of Shrewsbury were to enter into to prevent them from cohabiting.

He attended 95 per cent of the sittings in spring 1675, with six committee nominations, including that for the bill to confirm letters patent for his colleague Prince Rupert. He held the proxy of Robert Montagu*, 3rd earl of Manchester, from 28 May for the remainder of the session. He came to 80 per cent of the sittings in the session of autumn 1675, with only two committee nominations. The lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), considered Gerard an important part of the ‘court and church’ party he was trying to construct. Something of Gerard’s importance to Danby may be suggested by his presence in a list of ciphered names in the lord treasurer’s correspondence, among such other important figures as the king, the duchess of Portsmouth and Roger Boyle^‡, earl of Orrery [I].⁵² In the spring of 1675 Danby considered him as a court supporter of his controversial test bill, which aimed to further discriminate against those refusing to conform to the Church of England. He may even have intended Gerard to speak in the House for the bill. Certainly Gerard did not sign any of the protests against the measure, and he even requested from the clerk of the parliaments, John Walker, senior, a copy of the protest of 21 Apr. and its signatories, perhaps to know the bill’s enemies.⁵³ Similarly Gerard in the following session voted against the motion of 20 Nov. for an address to the crown requesting the dissolution of Parliament.⁵⁴ In the spring of 1677 Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, labelled the loyal courtier Gerard ‘vile’ in his political analysis of the House.

Shaftesbury drew up this list while imprisoned for making the claim when Parliament reassembled on 15 Feb. 1677 that the long prorogation of 15 months automatically led to a dissolution. Gerard himself was present for 87 per cent of the meetings of this session of 1677-78. He missed only one day of proceedings in the sittings of spring 1677, when he was named to 29 committees on legislation, as well as to the committee established on the second day of the session to investigate the circumstances of the publication of the libels arguing that Parliament was dissolved. He also held the proxy of John Wilmot*, 2nd earl of Rochester, from 20 Feb. to 3 Mar. 1677. He was undoubtedly a prime mover in the bill to naturalize his children born in France during his exile, Charles Gerard*, later 2nd earl of Macclesfield, and Elizabeth. In September 1678 the latter married Gerard’s distant cousin, the dissolute Digby Gerard*, 5th Baron Gerard of Bromley, who, fortunately for the purposes of distinguishing Gerard of Brandon’s activities in Parliament, never sat in the House from the time of his succession in December 1667, as he only came of age in 1683 and died the following year in a drinking match. The bill for the Gerard children, first introduced on 21 Feb. 1677, was eventually replaced and superseded by a more general bill for the ‘naturalizing of children of his Majesty’s subjects born in foreign countries’, which was first read on 2 Mar. and reported from committee as fit to pass 11 days later. The Commons’ proviso to the bill was rejected when it was brought up to the House on 3 Apr. by Gerard’s cousin Sir Gilbert Gerard, but after a few conferences the Commons relented and Sir Gilbert was able to deliver another version of the bill on 9 Apr. of which the House approved. It received the royal assent on 16 Apr., the day of adjournment.⁵⁵ On 13 Apr. Gerard was appointed to the committee to draw up heads for a free conference at which the House was to insist on its amendments to the bill to raise money for warships. He does not appear to have taken part in the ensuing conferences which saw the House, with great reluctance, recede from its amendments in order to ensure the passage of this supply bill in time for the adjournment. The session reconvened for business on 28 Jan. 1678. Gerard was present from the second day and proceeded to sit for 80 per cent of the sittings and was named to five committees. He again held Rochester’s proxy, from 31 Jan. to the peer’s return to the House on 25 February. Gerard, with the majority of the House, found Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter in his trial in Westminster Hall on 4 April.⁵⁶

On 23 Mar. he was placed on the committee to draw up reasons to be presented in conference why the House could not agree to the word ‘immediately’ in the Commons’ address to the king urging him to declare war on France. This is an indication that from this time Gerard’s contemporaries looked to him once more for his military expertise and experience. He was commissioned a colonel of his own regiment of horse for the threatened war with France on 15 Feb. 1678 and in May was made lieutenant general of all the English forces, perhaps on Monmouth’s recommendation. ⁵⁷ It may have been because of this important military appointment that on 7 May 1678 Gerard took the oaths and subscribed to the declaration against transubstantiation required by the 1673 Test Act publicly in the House. He attended just over three-quarters of the sittings of May-July 1678, being appointed to 11 committees on legislation, and 80 per cent of the following session of the autumn of 1678, during which he was named to five committees on legislation. He was involved in the investigations into the Popish Plot. He and fellow military officer Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I] (Baron Butler of Moore Park), were assigned by the House on 8 Nov. to search the queen’s residence at Somerset House for arms, papers and Catholic servants of the queen. The following day they reported to the House that the only suspicious item they could find there was a box of cartridges in the rooms of one of the queen’s retainers, who claimed they were only to be used for fireworks. Gerard was later, on 11 Nov., placed on the committee to inspect the circumstances of these cartridges more fully. Fuelled by his dislike of Catholicism he went against the court temporarily by voting on 15 Nov. in favour of placing the declaration against transubstantiation under the same penalties as the oath of allegiance in the test bill. He himself took the necessary oaths and declarations according to the Test Act on 2 December. Otherwise he still acted as a follower of the court. On 26 Dec. he voted to insist on the House’s amendment to the disbandment bill, which would place the funds raised in the exchequer rather than the chamber of the City of London, and the following day he voted against Danby’s commitment.

Danby continued to consider the baron an ally in the House during the first Exclusion Parliament, and appears to have assigned him to be managed by his own son Peregrine Osborne*, Viscount Osborne of Dunblane [S] (later 2nd duke of Leeds). Initially Gerard did not disappoint Danby’s expectations, as he was a diligent attender. He came to five of the six days of the brief and abortive session from 6 to 13 Mar. 1679 and then to 93 per cent of the session which eventually met for business on 15 Mar., during which time he was placed on five committees on legislation as well as the large committee to receive information regarding the Plot. Perhaps it was in his role as a member of this committee and a military commander that on 27 Mar. Gerard was delegated by the House to request the king to dismiss Humphrey Weld, suspected to be a Papist, from his command of Portland Castle. In the first weeks of the Parliament Gerard opposed the Commons’ attempt to commit and then, following Danby’s going into hiding, attaint the former lord treasurer. Gerard had little time for the Commons’ demand on 21 Mar. that Danby be committed immediately pending his impeachment proceedings. This would have forced the House to rescind its previous vote of 27 Dec. 1678 and the period of time they had set within which Danby was to remain at liberty to respond to the articles of impeachment. In a speech redolent of his brusque, abusive manner, and his bitter memories of the 1640s, Gerard argued:

All that I find to make any change in this matter is that the House of Commons comes now to prosecute the impeachment of my lord treasurer upon that which you have voted to be no treason. In ’41 the attorney general impeached the five members and he was clapped by the heels for doing it. We should have some regard therefore to ourselves. The other House as they called it, though they were cobblers and tinkers, they were concerned for one another. Let this noble lord have fair play for his life. Will you blow him away with noise and then say he is guilty? You have given [him] time for his answer, and we are now engaged by our word for seven days.⁵⁸

In the first two weeks of April he consistently voted against the Commons’ bill threatening the former lord treasurer with attainder if he did not surrender himself once he had gone into hiding, as well as the House’s eventual and reluctant decision to agree with the attainder. Following Danby’s turning himself in Gerard took part in the debates throughout late April and May about the procedures to be followed in the trials of Danby and the five Catholic peers. On 24 Apr. he was placed on the committee to consider the response to the Commons’ objections to the answers submitted by these peers. Later, in a debate of 7 May 1679, he defended the right of the bishops to sit and vote in the House during trials which involved capital punishment, arguing that ‘when they are quiet the government [is] quiet. They have kept faithful to it’.⁵⁹ He voted on 10 May with the majority against the motion to appoint a joint committee of both Houses to consider the methods of trying the impeached lords, and the following day acted as a manager at two free conferences which further discussed this matter. At the end of the second conference of the day, the House relented and agreed to a joint committee, to which Gerard was not appointed. On the day of prorogation, 27 May, he probably once again voted to affirm the right of the bishops to hear capital cases tried by the House.

Exclusionist and earl, 1679-89

Following the prorogation, and eventual dissolution, of Parliament, Gerard significantly altered his political allegiances. During the summer of 1679 he turned decisively against the Catholic duke of York, and began to espouse the cause of his friend and military colleague, the Protestant pretender Monmouth. There had long been signs of Gerard’s attachment to Monmouth and dislike of York such as when, in September 1678, he had refused to serve under York’s favourite, Louis de Duras*, 2nd earl of Feversham, who was acting as Monmouth’s second in command.⁶⁰ Gerard’s was one of the first regiments targeted for disbandment in January 1679, ‘by which you may see whose regiments they [the government] have least confidence of’.⁶¹ In June, when Monmouth was given command of the army to suppress the Scottish covenanters, he turned to Gerard and another rebel of September 1678, Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, to raise forces and serve under him.⁶² By the summer of 1679 Gerard was clearly a follower of Monmouth and his pretensions to the succession.

Seeing Gerard going over to Monmouth’s camp, Charles II tried to bind him more tightly to the court by raising him in the peerage. On 21 July 1679 Gerard of Brandon became earl of Macclesfield by letters patent. The title had been entered in the docket book originally as earl of Newberry but this was subsequently crossed out and replaced by Macclesfield.⁶³ Gerard probably decided on the Macclesfield title, apparently at the last moment, as a way of reinforcing his claim to Gawsworth by linking him to the royal forest in Cheshire near that estate. Despite the honour, Macclesfield continued his close association with the duke and in September it was noted that he was the only person of Monmouth’s quality who attended him on board the ship that was to take him to his exile. It was further conjectured that Macclesfield, and not York, would replace Monmouth as general of all the forces, but this plan was quickly foiled when the privy council passed an order in October that disabled Macclesfield from ever acting as the duke’s deputy.⁶⁴

In the second Exclusion Parliament the new earl of Macclesfield, introduced under that title on 21 Oct. 1680 between Charles Sackville*, 6th earl of Dorset, and John Granville*, earl of Bath, defended Monmouth’s pretensions and voted consistently for exclusion and other measures against Catholics in general and the duke of York in particular. He came to 86 per cent of the sittings of this session, was appointed to four committees on legislation. He was most noticeable on 15 Nov. when he took part in the debate on the exclusion bill brought up from the Commons. According to the rough jottings on the debate made by Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, Macclesfield’s arguments all had a military and martial context, both in the concerns he expressed and the precedents and metaphors he used. ‘This bill may be good; with a bent sword one may hit an enemy’ was his first contribution to debate. He later raised the topic of the safety of the present king and those assigned to guard him, citing the precedent of the murder of Henri III of France by a ‘papist priest’. He both voted and protested against the motions leading to the rejection of the bill at its first reading that day. ⁶⁵ A week later, on 23 Nov. he entered his protest against rejecting the establishment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider the state of the kingdom. On that same day he was added to the committee to draw up a Protestant Association against Catholic plotting. He voted the Catholic peer William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, guilty of treason on 7 December. He also signed the protests of 7 Jan. 1681 against the attempts to save the lord chief justice, William Scroggs, from commitment and suspension from his office pending his impeachment.⁶⁶ Macclesfield continued siding with the exclusionists in the third Exclusion Parliament, of which he attended all but one sitting. On 26 Mar. he was made a reporter for a conference discussing the suspect manner in which some bills had not received the royal assent in the previous session and he also protested against the decision to proceed against Edward Fitzharris by common law and not by impeachment. He was later one of the many spectators to attend the proceedings against Fitzharris in king’s bench on 7 May.⁶⁷

In early 1681 it had been rumoured that the earl would be removed from all his offices at court. He temporarily ‘made his peace’ with the king, but at the end of August Macclesfield was dismissed as a gentleman of the bedchamber, as ‘the king is resolved thoroughly to purge his family from disaffected persons’.⁶⁸ This only strengthened his commitment to the cause of Monmouth and the Whigs. He and his sons Charles Gerard*, styled Viscount Brandon since his father’s elevation in the peerage (later 2nd earl of Macclesfield), and Fitton Gerard*, later 3rd earl of Macclesfield, led Cheshire in giving Monmouth a rapturous reception during his visit to Chester in September 1682. ⁶⁹ This trip was also potentially treasonous, in that it was in part a cover for Monmouth to consult with Macclesfield and his sons, as well as other Whig peers in Cheshire such as George Booth*, Baron Delamer, about the plans being discussed for a joint rising in London and the west. According to the later testimony of the Whig turncoat Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), Macclesfield was a prominent actor in the plans for a rising and was even given a prominent military command: it was intended that he should fall upon the rear of the king’s forces with his troops after a march through the capital. At one point he even, as Grey of Warke alleged, advocated York’s murder as a means to frighten the king. This suggestion apparently so horrified Monmouth, that he claimed that he ‘should never have any esteem for my Lord Macclesfield while he lived’.⁷⁰ Nevertheless Monmouth was still dining in the company of Macclesfield and other Whigs (as recorded by Anglesey) in late May 1683. Following the discovery of the Rye House Plot, Macclesfield was anxious to kiss the king’s hand as an act of loyalty.⁷¹ Nevertheless the grand jury at the Cheshire assizes on 17 Sept. 1683 presented him, his son Brandon and about 30 other Whigs for disaffection to the government and for promoting sedition. George Jeffreys*, later Baron Jeffreys, subsequently bound them over. Macclesfield, as usual, counter-attacked through litigation. In February 1684 he had the foreman of the jury, Sir Thomas Grosvenor^‡, 3rd bt, and another of its members, John Starkey, arrested on charges of scandalum magnatum, seeking £10,000 in damages. The case was not heard before the Exchequer until April and was finally settled in November, when the court judged against Macclesfield, deciding that the grand jury was immune from such legal proceedings as ‘no action lies against an officer doing his duty’.⁷²

In order to further its campaign against Macclesfield the government released Alexander Fitton from prison, where he had been languishing for over 20 years. Fitton presented a bill of review to chancery in late 1684 resuscitating the old dispute over the Gawsworth estate. Surprisingly, considering the political mood of the time, the lord keeper, Francis North*, Baron Guilford, dismissed the bill on the basis that Fitton had waited too long to submit it for review. Fitton took advantage of the new Parliament of James II to appeal and brought in his petition for a reversal of chancery’s decree on 23 May 1685. It was referred to the committee for petitions which reported back on 27 May that the case should be heard before the whole House and that Macclesfield should submit his answer. On 1 June the House granted Macclesfield permission to print the statement of his case and his answer was read before the House two days later. After counsel for both sides had been heard before the bar on 5 June the House also decided against Fitton and dismissed his petition.⁷³

Macclesfield was otherwise largely inactive in James II’s Parliament, although he came to 64 per cent of the sittings, and was named to eight committees, in what he must have perceived as a hostile environment. He does not appear to have been actively involved or implicated in Monmouth’s Rebellion. The duke’s agent Robert Cragg would later testify in December 1689 that when he was in the Netherlands in the spring discussing with Monmouth potential supporters in England, the duke expressed doubts as to whether Macclesfield would be willing to take up arms for his rebellion, ‘for he was old, and his blood was cool’.⁷⁴ After Sedgemoor the government arrested Macclesfield’s son Brandon and confined him to the Tower for his suspected role in the uprising. Macclesfield appears to have initially been left at liberty, but his period of grace did not last long and by late August 1685, on the information of Grey of Warke, he was summoned to court for early September to answer for his previous involvement in Whig conspiracies.⁷⁵ He was nowhere to be found and when he was absent at a call of the House on 16 Nov. the House passed an order demanding his presence by 7 Dec. ‘as he will answer the contrary to this House, at his uttermost Peril’. He was certainly out of the country by this point, finding a home at the court of William of Orange. In his absence, and unable to answer the charges against him, a sentence of outlawry was passed against him. Brandon had been condemned to death in November 1685 for his shadowy involvement in the rebellion but, after a long series of reprieves of execution, the king pardoned him in August 1687, largely in an attempt to enlist him as a dependent in his attempt to push through his religious policies in Lancashire. To bind Brandon to him more tightly, in January 1688 James granted him his father’s estate, which had been forfeited to the crown.⁷⁶

Reprising his old role, Macclesfield became captain of William’s bodyguard in exile and during the descent on England entered Exeter with the prince and his other English followers ‘with all the grandeur and solemnity they could’.⁷⁷ He led William’s bodyguard in the prince’s triumphant entry into the capital, just as he had done previously for Charles II, and continued in his position as one of William’s closest advisers, associates and dining companions.⁷⁸ He was one of the 11 peers chosen by William to discuss what should be done with James after his return from Faversham following his abortive attempt at flight and at the meeting at Windsor Castle on 17 Dec. 1688 Macclesfield joined with other Whigs such as Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), and Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, in insisting that the king should be placed in the Tower, for his attempt at flight amounted to a ‘dissolution of the government’ and an abdication of his kingship.⁷⁹ George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, noted that Macclesfield spoke in the debate on 24 Dec. on the whereabouts of the king, which led to the address of the lords to the Prince of Orange requesting him to take on the administration of public affairs and to summon a Convention. Halifax though did not record the content of Macclesfield’s intervention.⁸⁰ Macclesfield’s own, perhaps ambivalent, attitude towards his part in the Revolution is revealed in an anecdote recounted later by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, in his memoirs. Macclesfield (‘of a haughty spirit’) was furious in the early days of 1689 when John Churchill*, Baron Churchill (later duke of Marlborough), dared to disband the regiment of horse commanded by Macclesfield’s son Brandon, which had been conferred on him by James II after his pardon. Ailesbury himself admitted that Brandon ‘never swerved from his duty, not even at the Prince of Orange’s landing, although his father came over with the prince, and in the Army with him’. For this reason Marlborough felt able to disband the regiment of a commander who showed insufficient ‘zeal’ for the prince and did not defect with his troops. ‘My Lord’, Ailesbury records Macclesfield expostulating to Churchill, ‘if my son had done such a base action, after having had his life given him so graciously, I would have been the first that would have shot him in the head. Hark you, my Lord, I have been a rebel for so acting against the king, but, by God, my Lord, I never was a traitor’.⁸¹

Convention, 1689

The Convention was by far the busiest period of Macclesfield’s long parliamentary career. He came to 88 per cent of the sittings, when already at the age of 70, and from the start was at the forefront of all affairs before the House. From January 1689 until his death five years later he was named to just about every committee established by the House on days when he was present. His increased activity was largely owing to his concern to ensure the establishment of the new Williamite regime, and to have his revenge on the Tories of the 1680s who had persecuted him. On the very first day of the Convention he was named to the committee of 14 assigned to draw up an address of thanks for William of Orange’s letter to the assembled members. Throughout late January and early February Macclesfield worked to ensure that William and Mary became king and queen. In the debate on the regency on 29 Jan. it was noted that ‘the Lords were very warm in their disputes’ and that Macclesfield contributed to the ‘several sharp speeches … some of which made the bishops a little uneasy’ made that day.⁸² On 31 Jan. he voted in the committee of the whole House in favour of the motion to insert in the resolution brought up from the Commons words declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen and, after the House had been resumed, signed the dissent from its rejection of the words ‘vacant’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’. He continued to vote in favour of these words until they were eventually accepted by the House on 6 February. Two days later he was appointed a manager for the conference to draft the Declaration of Rights as well as the oaths which were to be sworn to the new king and queen. On 12 Feb. Macclesfield was again made a manager for a conference at which the House was to present to the Commons its draft of the proclamation declaring the new king and queen. The following day, William and Mary were offered the crown. On 1 Mar. he was placed on the committee of seven members assigned to draw up an answer to the king’s notification to the House that he had deemed it a necessity to detain more suspected enemies of the new regime. He was a manager for a conference on the Commons’ address to the king expressing their commitment to the king’s cause and their willingness to expend their lives and fortune to assist him, and was assigned on 8 Mar. to help compose and present to the king the House’s thanks to William’s response to this address.

For his support more rewards came his way. His outlawry was quickly reversed and he was sworn to the Privy Council on 14 February. He was made lord lieutenant of all the counties of Wales, both north and south, as well as of the border counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Monmouthshire. In addition he briefly, and controversially, served as lord president of the council of Wales from 21 Mar. until its abolition in July. To these offices he added in October that of custos rotulorum of Herefordshire, Monmouthshire and Breconshire. His son Brandon was given the post of lord lieutenant of Lancashire so that, between them, father and son were entrusted with defending most of the long and vulnerable west coast of the country from invasion from Ireland. Both were energetic in their pursuit of Catholics and Jacobites in these areas and in promoting the selection of Whigs for local offices and for parliamentary seats, especially in bitterly divided boroughs such as Bristol, where Macclesfield took an especial interest. The copious correspondence of the Harley family, whose members were prominent in the administration of the Marcher counties, is peppered with references to Macclesfield and his activities there.⁸³

Macclesfield also had his own concerns in the House. He was exercised over the derogation of the peerage and on 28 Jan., early on in the Convention, he complained to the committee for privileges that members of the Commons were daring to keep their hats on in the presence of peers. While he was certain of the inferior place of the commoners, he thought that the peers and the king were at the same level and that new year’s presents should be given reciprocally between members of the nobility and the king. He later asserted to the committee that the peers had long enjoyed the privilege of keeping their hats on in the presence of the king in the playhouse or the king’s chapel if he himself were covered. He continued to press for the rights of the peers to keep their heads covered in the presence of the monarch during further discussion of the matter in the committee of the whole House and in the committee for privileges. He was backed up by George Howard*, 4th earl of Suffolk, and Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, who could rely on their own memory of customs and procedures in Charles II’s court. This was enough for the committee for privileges and on 16 Apr. it was ordered to report to the House that ‘by the information of persons of great honour and credit that when the king was present at plays and put on his hat, the peers of the realm there present did so likewise, and also at such times when the king used to walk abroad covered, they did likewise cover’. However, no such official report appears in the Journal.⁸⁴

Macclesfield, with his heightened sense of the peerage’s privilege, was even more concerned with what he saw as the inferior courts’ breach of privilege in their proceedings against the nobility (and himself in particular). On 28 Jan. in the committee for privileges he complained ‘that the peerage is invaded in their trials’, ‘that a peer hath not so fair a trial as a commoner’ and that the peers ought to be tried only in Parliament. Furthermore he pointed out that in times past a delegation from the House – two earls, one prelate and two barons – would attend the courts in Westminster Hall ‘to see wherein was any failure in justice’. These complaints, made in the first week of the Convention, may have been what helped to spur the House to consider the many bills of 1689-90 dealing with the regulation of trials and justice, both among the peerage and in the courts of Westminster Hall.⁸⁵ Macclesfield himself was named to the select committee to consider the bill for regulating the trial of peers on 27 Feb. and in the committee of the whole House on 4 Mar. he was a teller for the division on the motion whether an amendment, concerning the minimum number of lords necessary to try a peer outside time of Parliament, should be maintained. His opposite teller was Stamford, another Whig.⁸⁶ Macclesfield pursued his complaints against his treatment before the privy council and the court of king’s bench in the committee for privileges. On 22 Apr., he reported that he had been part of the delegation from the lords, first mentioned in his intervention on 28 Jan., to inspect the courts in Westminster Hall. That same day he produced a legal opinion regarding the illegality of the sentence of outlawry that was decreed against him in 1685, which the committee returned to him, ‘until he thinks fit to bring his own case (which he now takes notice of) in writing before the committee’. Shortly afterwards Macclesfield employed his friend from their Exclusionist days, Sir William Williams^‡, bt, as his counsel to help him reverse the various judgments found against him in the period of the Tory reaction. Williams appears to have used Macclesfield as a witness in his own attempt to reverse the charge of scandalum magnatum laid against him in 1686.⁸⁷ As other peers such as William Cavendish*, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, began to come forward with their stories of mistreatment by the courts under James II, Macclesfield and his grievances appear to have dropped from the forefront of the committee for privilege’s attention. ⁸⁸ However, all these proceedings, and particularly Macclesfield’s initial examination of ‘the delays and grievances’ of the Westminster courts led eventually to the framing of the bill to redress irregularities in the courts, and Macclesfield maintained his interest in this issue during the long gestation of this and other acts concerning the reform of the legal system. On 17 Jan. 1690 he offered to the select committee considering the bill for irregularities in the Westminster courts a bill ‘for regulating the law’. Another bill introduced to the committee that day, perhaps by Macclesfield as well, was for the regulation of the courts of justice, and this was probably the genesis of the later ‘Act for the benefit of the subject regulating the practice and execution of the law’, to whose select committee Macclesfield was named on 5 Apr. 1690.⁸⁹ His animus towards the courts, and the administration of justice in recent years, was clear. In late March 1690 Macclesfield suggested that ‘the twelve judges’ were obvious candidates for exemption from the indemnity bill.⁹⁰

Macclesfield had other reasons to be aggrieved against his treatment in the courts during his exile under James II. In 1683 he had applied to chancery to redeem part of the Gawsworth estate which had been mortgaged in 1640 and which had been, for a consideration of £2,400, assigned to Alexander Fitton’s father-in-law William Joliffe as a trustee for Fitton and his wife, Joliffe’s daughter. Macclesfield tried to fight back after chancery decreed that he would have to pay this initial consideration of £2,400, with interest for all the ensuing years, as part of his redemption, but he could not pursue his defence after his flight. During this time Lord Chancellor Jeffreys voided the earl’s injunctions against Fitton’s proceedings and stopped the hearing of the master in chancery’s report on the case because of Macclesfield’s outlawry. Now Macclesfield took advantage of the more sympathetic political environment and on 15 Mar. 1689 submitted his appeal that these decrees against him be overturned. Fitton could not submit his answer because he was in Ireland in arms against the new regime, but the House decided on 20 Apr. to continue with consideration of the appeal in any case. Counsel was heard on 2 May and the following day the House ordered that the case be referred back to the commissioners of the Great Seal to rehear the case in chancery, as it transpired that no official decree had ever been enrolled by Jeffreys and the case involved the technicalities of chancery’s proceedings.⁹¹ Macclesfield was later at the receiving end of a petition as his estranged daughter-in-law Anne Mason, now separated from Brandon, submitted a petition on 13 July complaining that Macclesfield had never fulfilled his part of the original marriage settlement in suffering recoveries of various of his Cheshire lands for her jointure. She requested that Macclesfield be forced to waive his privilege in any impending legal action, but the House decided to leave the matter wholly in the hands of Macclesfield himself.⁹²

Macclesfield was involved in a number of other pieces of legislation that came before the House. He was a teller on 25 Mar. 1689 for a division at the report stage of the bill to establish commissioners for the Great Seal and on 10 June he told in the division whether counsel should be called in as the House considered the case of Barnardiston v. Soames. In this latter case he also signed the protest of 25 June against the decision to uphold the Exchequer’s reversal of the original judgment. On 15 Mar. he was named to the committee to draft a clause for the bill for abrogating oaths which would remove the requirement of the sacramental test for holding office. On 20 Mar., when this clause was reported to the House from committee, he was a teller, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, telling on the opposing side, in the division on whether to leave this clause unchanged. One month later, on 20 Apr., he and Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), were the only two peers to dissent from the House’s insistence on an amendment that would give the king the power to dispense incumbents in clerical livings from taking the oaths to the new regime. He was later appointed a manager for a free conference on this bill on 24 April.⁹³ On 14 Mar. he was named to the select committee for the toleration bill and was a manager for a conference on the House’s amendments to this bill on 22 May. He was also a manager for conferences on the amendments to the bill for an additional poll held on 27 and 31 May. On 13 July he was placed on the committee to draw up reasons for the House’s insistence on its amendments to the Bill of Rights concerning the succession of the crown in the House of Hanover and three days later he helped to manage the conference where these reasons were presented. He was one of the signatories of a petition presented on 23 July to the Commons from Charles II’s former gentlemen of the bedchamber requesting that the grants and pensions bestowed on them in their letters patent not be infringed by the bill for settling the revenue by new impositions on sugar, tobacco, coffee and tea. He was sufficiently concerned by this bill that he reported to the House himself the results of a conference on 25 July at which the Commons explained in detail their opposition to the House’s amendments to the bill. He was later that day placed on the committee to draw up reasons for insisting on the amendments. He again served as representative of the House in a conference on the bill to attaint their majesties’ enemies held on 2 and 5 August. He and Stamford were delegated on 3 Aug. to attend the king to present him with an address requesting that a formal proclamation be issued demanding that Edward Griffin*, Baron Griffin, surrender himself to the House. On 19 Aug. he was a teller, Nottingham again telling for the other side, in a division at the report stage of the bill to prohibit trade with France on the question whether to agree to a clause setting the price of French wines.⁹⁴

The cause that seemed to exercise him most, though, was the attempt by the House to reject or place stringent conditions on the reversal of the two punitive judgments against Titus Oates of 1684 and 1685. When the case first came up in late May 1689 Macclesfield acted as one of Oates’s foremost defenders. On 25 May he protested against the resolution that Oates’s printed apologia, ‘The Case of Titus Oates’ was a breach of the privilege of the House and on 31 May he voted to reverse the two judgments and subscribed to the lengthy protest when this motion was rejected. He was appointed on 6 June to a committee of six members assigned with drafting an address requesting the king to grant a pardon to Oates, on the basis that he had already suffered sufficient punishment. The bill to reverse the judgments came up from the Commons in July and quickly became a point of contention in the House again. On 10 July Macclesfield was one of the 16 peers who dissented to all the decisions made that day in the debate on amendments to the bill. Two days later he subscribed to both parts of the lengthy and strongly-worded protest against the House’s amendments, which the protesters felt were too weak in their condemnation of the judgments, and the proviso which forbade him from ever testifying in a court of law again. The Commons also disagreed with the proviso and a series of conferences were held to discuss them. On 27 July the Commons requested another free conference on this matter for that day, but this request was rebuffed by the House, a decision which was greeted by another dissent signed by Macclesfield and a small band of five other determined Whig peers. The free conference was held instead on 29 July and upon its report the following day Macclesfield voted against insisting on the proviso. He entered his protest when the House decided instead to adhere to it.

Macclesfield continued his busy career in the House in the second session of the Convention, where he came to all but three of the meetings. In a list compiled by the marquess of Carmarthen (as Danby had become) between October 1689 and February 1690, he was reckoned to be an opponent of the court. In a debate on the Bill of Rights on 23 Nov., he was one of 12 who protested against the rejection of a proviso that would invalidate all royal pardons upon impeachments of the House of Commons which did not have the concurrence of both houses of Parliament. On 13 Dec. he was a teller, Monmouth telling for the opposing side, in the division in the committee of the whole House considering the bill for a land tax on the question whether to add a clause. On 11 Jan. he once again told, this time on the question whether to refer the debt at issue in the cause of Fountaine v. Coke to a trial at law.⁹⁵ He was most concerned with the proceedings of the committee for inspections, established on 2 Nov. 1689 to search into the misdeeds of the Tory reaction and the reign of James II – the judicial ‘murders’ of leading Whigs, the quo warranto proceedings against corporations, and other such matters. Macclesfield was among the large group of peers nominated to attend this committee and in the House on 13 Nov. he was a teller in a division on the proposal to summon the infamous John Wildman^‡ from the Commons to attend the committee in its enquiries. Grey of Warke (whose testimony in 1685 had earlier prompted Macclesfield’s flight to the Netherlands) told for the other side in this division.⁹⁶ He was personally affected by the proceedings of the committee, especially when a sub-committee was established on 7 Dec. to hear the evidence of Robert Cragg, one of Monmouth’s agents in the spring of 1685, about the attempts of James II’s government to ‘suborn’ him after his arrest into testifying against Macclesfield, Delamer, Stamford and other associates of Monmouth. It appeared from Cragg’s testimony submitted to the committee and reported to the House on 11 Dec. that he knew nothing of any involvement of Macclesfield in the planned uprising and that the late government had not had the earl principally in its sights, concentrating its ire on Delamer.⁹⁷ In this mood of invoking past injustices, Macclesfield on 23 Dec. insisted that the trial and judicial ‘murder’ of Stephen College should be examined by the House as well, after James Bertie*, earl of Abingdon, had insisted that anybody who said that College’s trial had not been fair was a liar.⁹⁸ On 23 Jan. 1690 Macclesfield also dissented from the decision to remove from a clause in the bill to restore corporations the statement that the surrendering of charters to Charles II and James II had been illegal, for ‘the putting out those words seems to be the justifying of the most horrid action that king James was guilty of during his reign’.

William III’s Parliament, 1690-94

Macclesfield, lord lieutenant of all of Wales and the marcher counties, tried to exercise a political interest for Whig candidates during the elections to William III’s first Parliament in the spring of 1690. However, he often found himself up against long-entrenched local and regional interests with which he, as an interloper, could not successfully compete. His greatest interest may well have been in the Shropshire borough of Ludlow, where he had been based as lord president of the council of Wales before its abolition in July 1689. Here he was able to see through the election of the Whig, and former Exclusionist, Silius Titus^‡, in a by-election in January 1691, after the first election which had seen the return of two Tories (and the defeat of his younger son Fitton) had been declared void.⁹⁹

Macclesfield himself missed only one sitting throughout the brief session of spring 1690 and on 5 Apr. registered his protest against the House’s decision to amend wording in the bill for making the Convention a full Parliament. He also dissented from the decision of 13 May not to allow counsel for the City of London more time to prepare and present their case regarding James II’s quo warranto proceedings against the corporation. Much of his attention in this session was taken up with his further litigation against his political enemies from the previous reign. On 7 Dec. 1689 Macclesfield had brought in a writ of error against the judgment found against him in Exchequer in 1684 concerning his bill of scandalum magnatum against the members of the Cheshire grand jury. He named one of these jurymen, John Starkey, as the defendant in his writ. Starkey did not submit his answer quickly and the hearing of the case was constantly postponed. Even when counsel were to be heard before the bar on 11 Apr. 1690, only one representative for Starkey appeared and quickly admitted that he was insufficiently instructed in the case and requested another postponement.¹⁰⁰ Counsel was finally heard at the bar on 15 April. In the hearings between 15 and 25 Apr. before the House and in the select committee appointed to consider the matter, the question quickly went beyond the actual merits of Macclesfield’s writ of error and to larger constitutional issues concerning the House’s original jurisdiction, Macclesfield having submitted his writ to the House before lodging an appeal in exchequer or any other inferior court. The question the House put to the committee considering the matter upon its report of 21 Apr. was ‘whether the Lords may proceed to correct errors before they have been brought before the treasurer and chancellor in the Exchequer chamber’. The House eventually agreed with the opinion of the lord chief justice, Sir John Holt, that the writ ‘does not lie in Parliament till a judgment be given in the exchequer chamber’. On 25 Apr. it was ordered that Macclesfield’s writ should be withdrawn and returned to the exchequer, to follow the ordinary course of law.¹⁰¹

The period between sessions saw the disastrous Allied defeat at the naval battle of Beachy Head on 30 June 1690. The investigation into the debacle was assigned to a committee consisting of Macclesfield, Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, Sir Robert Howard^‡, Sir Henry Goodricke^‡ and Sir Thomas Lee^‡, which on 19 July reported that the English admiral, Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, alone had been responsible for the defeat.¹⁰² Macclesfield’s attendance declined slightly in the 1690-91 session of Parliament beginning on 2 Oct. 1690, as he came to only 78 per cent of the meetings. On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower. Carmarthen commented that he was ‘easy for the reasons of the earl of Bath’, that is ‘ made [to] follow the king's mind by what he holds under him’.¹⁰³ On 30 Oct. he signed the protest against the passage of the bill to clarify the powers of the Admiralty commissioners to conduct Torrington’s court martial with the same powers as a single lord high admiral. Despite his part in the damning report of Torrington’s conduct, Macclesfield appears to have been concerned by the retroactive justice inherent in the bill, by which Torrington would be tried by an authority which had not existed at the time he had committed the offences with which he was charged. He may also have been concerned at Torrington’s loss of privilege of peerage, as he could now be court martialled, and perhaps even executed, by a collection of commoners.¹⁰⁴ On that same day, 30 Oct., Macclesfield also dissented from the decision to discharge Salisbury and Peterborough from their bail. On 18 Dec. he was made a manager for a conference on the bill to prevent Salisbury from cutting off his entail. He also continued his long-held interest in the reform of the courts and legal system. On the last day of October he was added to the committee considering a bill for the regulation of the court of Chancery and on 29 Nov. he was named to another committee assigned after debate in a committee of the whole House to consider the bill as it then stood in order to determine whether it should be amended or an entirely new bill introduced.

His attendance dropped off significantly in the 1691-92 session, down to 40 per cent. This was most likely because he was ‘sick’, the reason given for his absence at a call of the House on 2 Nov. 1691. He assigned his proxy on 28 Nov. to John Vaughan*, 2nd Baron Vaughan (3rd earl of Carbery [I]), who like Macclesfield had an interest in the government of Wales. It was vacated on 29 Dec. on Macclesfield’s return to the House. He was back to his usual level of attendance in 1692-93, when he came to 87 per cent of the sittings. During this session he was involved in the investigation into the state of the armed forces that followed William III’s request in his speech to both houses for ‘advice’ in the further conduct of the war, as the Allies had suffered a series of disasters and disappointments in both land and sea campaigns the previous summer. The Prussian envoy reported to his masters that in the last days of November 1692 Macclesfield, ‘a great Whig and not at all a Jacobite’, told the committee of the whole House that although he had previously been a general, his great age now gave him the liberty to say whatever he liked without being suspected of any interest. He then launched into an attack on the predominance of the Dutch: ‘it was true that they placed Dutchmen everywhere, and that he did not despair of seeing a Dutchman as secretary of state, nor even to see others as bishops’. These ‘sarcasms’, as Bonet termed them, contributed to the ‘advice’ of the House requesting the king to limit the appointment of general officers in the army to those born in England.¹⁰⁵ On 7 Dec., Macclesfield joined the protest against the decision not to establish a joint committee with the Commons to examine the papers on the conduct of the summer’s naval campaign submitted by Secretary of State Nottingham. Three days later he was placed on the House’s own committee to study the papers. On 20-21 Dec. he participated in conferences with the Commons dealing with these papers and the committee’s findings, and in the second conference the Commons took the unusual step of announcing its vote praising the admiral of the previous summer’s campaign, Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford. This was seen as unprecedented as the Commons’ vote had been unsolicited and was not the ostensible subject for which the conference had been convened. On 22 Dec. Macclesfield was a member of the large committee assigned to search for precedents for such behaviour in conferences and a week later, after the committee’s report, he was again placed on the committee to consider whether the Commons had acted ‘according to usual proceedings’. The committee reported the following day and a conference on this matter, for which Macclesfield was a manager, was held on 4 Jan. 1693.

By this time other matters were preoccupying Macclesfield and the House. Macclesfield voted to commit the controversial place bill on the last day of December 1692, but when the vote for its passage came on 3 Jan. 1693 he was, according to Ailesbury, one of those ‘lords that went away and for the bill’. This view is corroborated by Bonet, who claimed that Macclesfield, ‘although a great Whig, wished to please the court and absented himself’ from the vote.¹⁰⁶ The previous day he had voted against giving a reading to the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. On 19 Jan. he joined over 20 other peers in objecting to the House’s abandonment of its amendments to the land tax bill. He subscribed to the dissents from the resolution to recede from them without even referring them to consideration by the committee for privileges. In February Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, who in 1691 had married, and then quickly separated from, Macclesfield’s grand-daughter Charlotte Orby, appeared before the House accused of the murder of William Mountfort. Whatever Macclesfield may have felt about Mohun’s abandonment of his grand-daughter, he acquitted the young man of murder.¹⁰⁷ On 6 Mar. the earl was one of nine peers dissenting from the decision not to communicate to the Commons the informations about the deplorable state of government and the military in Ireland heard at the bar four days previously. He further subscribed his name to the protest of 8 Mar. against rejecting provisos to the bill for reviving the Licensing Act which would allow printers to publish books without a license from the Stationers’ Company, providing that the author’s and printer’s name were printed in the book. In the very last days of the session he was involved in conferences. On 10 Mar. he was appointed a reporter for the discussions on the House’s amendments to the duchy of Cornwall bill and after the report of the conference he was placed on the committee to draw up reasons why the House insisted on its amendment. Four days later he was again a reporter, this time for the conference on the amendments to the bill to prohibit trade with France and to encourage privateers, after which the House agreed with the lower house’s changes so the bill could pass before the prorogation of that day.

When Parliament resumed on 7 Nov. Macclesfield was as active as usual. His involvement was cut short by his death two months later, having attended 35 sittings. During those final two months he chaired a meeting of the committee for privileges on 20 Nov. which heard the petition for breach of privilege of Piers Mauduit, Windsor Herald at Arms. It was probably Macclesfield who reported to the House the next day the committee’s decision that Mauduit should receive privilege of Parliament. This matter may have been the source of the debate two days later, on 23 Nov., on the rights of the king’s servants, when Macclesfield protested against the House’s resolution that it would not receive any further petitions for protection from the king and queen’s servants. On 13 Dec. he was one of only seven who dissented from the House’s affirmation of the court of king’s bench’s judgment in favour of Simon Harcourt^‡ in the case of Fox v Harcourt.¹⁰⁸ His suspicion of the inferior courts of Westminster Hall may again be evident in his protest of 22 Dec. against the resolution to allow Isabella, dowager duchess of Grafton, and her trustee William Bridgeman, to withdraw their petition in the cause Bridgeman v Holt. He and his fellow protesters thought an order should have been given to investigate further the previous proceedings in this cause in king’s bench so that a criminal prosecution could be brought against that court’s judges. In the first week of 1694 he was still busy in the House. On 3 Jan. he was a manager for the conference concerning the Smyrna fleet disaster the previous summer and two days later, his last in the House, he was again a manager for a conference on the amendments to the place bill, after which the House agreed with the clause proposed by the Commons.

On that same day, Friday 5 Jan., he enjoyed a dinner with the king and the visiting dignitary Prince Louis of Baden, but shortly after he was overtaken with a fit of vomiting. He died during the night of Sunday 7 Jan., ‘not having been sick two hours’. He was 75 years old, and a correspondent of Sir Ralph Verney^‡ marvelled that ‘my lord Macclesfield has lived as fast as any man, therefore I wonder he attained to old age’.¹⁰⁹ He died intestate but his eldest son and heir apparent Viscount Brandon was entrusted with the administration of the estate.¹¹⁰ The new earl of Macclesfield inherited the estates and houses in Lancashire, Cheshire and Gerard Street in Westminster. He also inherited his father’s ruthless and determined character, which had served Macclesfield well on the battlefield, but often to less advantage in the courts of Westminster Hall and in the House of Lords.

The details of Gerard’s early life are obscure. Following the death of his father in 1640, Gerard was entrusted to the care of his maternal uncle, Mildmay Fane*, 2nd earl of Westmorland.³ It was presumably Westmorland’s influence that led to Gerard entering his guardian’s former college, Emmanuel, Cambridge, in 1649. Given his college admittance in 1649, it is unlikely that it was this Baron Gerard who that year was appointed gentleman of the bedchamber to the exiled Charles II. It is likely that the Gerard appointed to this post was the 4th Baron’s distant cousin Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield), who had left England for the continent in 1647 and who held military office with the exiled court during the 1650s. It seems likely that Schoenfeld’s attribution of activity at the exiled court to the 4th Baron of Gerard’s Bromley is similarly mistaken.⁴

Little more is known of Gerard’s activities both in and out of Parliament until the upper House was restored in 1660. Even then his recorded contribution to the proceedings of the Lords is meagre and complicated by confusion with Gerard of Brandon. In 1660 he was included on the analysis of the upper House by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as a Catholic.⁵ Wharton’s reasons for classing Gerard as such are unclear. No contemporary evidence has been found to support Wharton’s assertion and at least one source directly contradicts him. A survey of Staffordshire gentry dating from the early 1660s described Gerard’s ‘affections civil and military’ as being ‘loyal and orthodox’, in comparison to a number of leading Staffordshire figures who were listed simply as ‘Roman Catholic’.⁶ It is possible that he was the Gerard who had interests in the Tanfield colliery in Durham.⁷

Gerard took his seat in the House of Lords on 27 Apr. 1660 and began a lacklustre parliamentary career. He was present at just under half of the sittings in the first session of the Convention and his attendance thereafter was sporadic. In only one session, that of 1666-7, did he attend even a third of the total sittings, and he made no appearance at all at the sessions of 1661-2 and 1665. He was granted leave of absence on 11 June 1661; two days later he registered his proxy in favour of Gerard of Brandon.⁸ In July 1663 Wharton listed a ‘Lord Gerard’ as a likely opponent of the impeachment attempt on Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, by George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol. It is unclear whether this forecast related to Gerard of Gerard’s Bromley or Gerard of Brandon. The only occasion upon which it can be stated with any certainty that the former is known to have expressed an opinion in the House came on 23 Jan. 1667, when he was one of those who dissented from the decision to reject a right of appeal to the Lords in the bill establishing a court for resolving disputes concerning houses burnt down by the Fire of London.

By the time he had signed this dissent, Gerard’s health had begun to falter. On 1 Oct. 1666, and again on 29 Oct. 1667, he was granted leave of absence on grounds of ill health. Although he was able to attend two sittings each in November and early December 1667, the improvement in his health was short-lived. He died in London on 28 Dec. 1667, intestate. Administration of his estate was granted to his widow, who on three occasions during the 1670s (2 Dec. 1670, 4 Apr. 1677 and 14 Mar. 1678) petitioned the Lords claiming either privilege of peerage or privilege of Parliament for herself. On two of these occasions she appears to have been using privilege to protect men who were liable to arrest, one on a charge of felony. Gerard was buried on 25 Jan. 1668 in the family vault in Ashley, Staffordshire.⁹ His title and estates descended to his only son.

Viscount Brandon, 1679-89

Charles Gerard was born in Paris in the late 1650s during the exile of his royalist father. He followed his father in pursuing a military career and, perhaps assisted by his early years in France and his French mother’s connections, served as a volunteer in the French army under the prince of Condé in the early 1670s. Officially an alien owing to his birth on French soil, he was naturalized by an act of Parliament in April 1677.⁸ He was later commissioned, while still probably underage, lieutenant colonel and then colonel of his father’s cavalry brigade in 1678-9. Father and son shared a quarrelsome, violent and ruthless character, and the younger man first became notorious for his drunken murder of a footboy in St James’s Park in May 1676, for which act he was eventually granted a royal pardon.⁹ He was up to his violent ways again by December 1677 when he was wounded when acting as a second to Thomas Butler*, earl of Ossory [I] (and Baron Butler of Moore Park in the English peerage), in a duel.¹⁰ He again followed his father by turning his back on the court, which had favoured the Gerards for so long, and becoming a member of the opposition in 1679-81. In the Commons, as the Member for Lancashire, where the family had its origins and owned the estate of Halsall, he consistently voted against the wishes and interests of the court. In a bid to win back Gerard of Brandon’s support, Charles II in July 1679 raised him in the peerage, creating him Viscount Brandon and earl of Macclesfield. From this point Macclesfield’s eldest son, Charles Gerard, took the courtesy title of Viscount Brandon, under which name he became well known over the following years.

Throughout the early 1680s Brandon placed himself deeper into trouble with his activities against James Stuart*, duke of York.¹¹ He and his father and brother Fitton Gerard, later 3rd earl of Macclesfield, were among the most enthusiastic acolytes of James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, and played host to him when he visited Chester in the summer of 1682.¹² Even more damaging was Brandon’s shadowy involvement in the conspiracies of 1682-3; in early July 1683 he was imprisoned under suspicion of treason. He entered a writ of habeas corpus in late October 1683, was released on bail in late November and was finally discharged owing to lack of evidence in February 1684.¹³ He went to Flanders in the spring of 1684 for the Spanish campaign and while there maintained his dangerous contacts with the exiled Monmouth.¹⁴ Brandon was suspected of having made preparations for involvement in the duke’s failed uprising in the summer of 1685 and James II’s ministers were able to convince the Whig, Ford Grey*, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke, ignominiously captured in flight after the battle of Sedgemoor, to testify against Brandon. Grey of Warke commented in his written confession that ‘I never saw a man so zealous for a rebellion, that kept his word and engagements no better, than my Lord Brandon’.¹⁵ Brandon was found guilty of treason on 26 Nov. 1685, which amounted to attainder, and sentenced to death two days later.¹⁶ James II granted him a reprieve and his date of execution was constantly postponed until in January 1687 the king ordered his release from captivity (on bail of £30,000) and pardoned him on 4 August.¹⁷ With the king’s support, Brandon tried to reverse his attainder by bringing in a writ of error in November 1687, but years later it was noted that this writ of error was phrased in such a way – making mention of Brandon’s supposed crimes against James II when in fact he had been charged with treason against Charles II – that could render it, and the attainder’s reversal, invalid.¹⁸ In January 1688 James II further granted Brandon control of the estate of his father Macclesfield. Macclesfield had been outlawed in late 1685 for his own support of Monmouth and his flight from the country.¹⁹

Such generosity on the part of James II was hardly altruistic, as the king used his control over Brandon’s life as a way of winning him over to furthering the royal policy in Brandon’s territorial base of Lancashire and Cheshire. Brandon, in gratitude, became a willing and energetic servant of James in the north-west, being one of the few Nonconformists placed on the Lancashire commission of the peace in April 1688, and serving as a trusted deputy lieutenant of the king’s choice for the lord lieutenant of the county, Caryll Molyneux, 3rd Viscount Molyneux [I].²⁰ In this role Brandon worked hard to win the support of the region’s many Dissenters for the king’s Declaration of Indulgence and plans to repeal the Test Acts. In October, with the threat of a Dutch invasion, the king commissioned him colonel of the cavalry brigade which Brandon had briefly commanded in 1679.²¹ Brandon appeared in arms for James II in the winter of 1688, one of the small band of army officers who remained loyal to him throughout, until the king himself formally disbanded his army and fled the country.²² Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, years later admitted that ‘I must do justice to that lord’s memory, that he never swerved from his duty, not even at the prince of Orange’s landing, although his father came over with the prince, and in the army with him’. Ailesbury went on to recount how in early 1689 John Churchill*, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, wished to disband Brandon’s regiment because of the lack of zeal to the prince shown by his failure to defect with his troops (as Marlborough himself had so notoriously done). This so angered the solidly Williamite Macclesfield that he exclaimed to Marlborough, ‘My Lord, if my son had done such a base action, after having had his life given him so graciously, I would have been the first that would have shot him in the head.’²³

A Williamite in Lancashire, 1689-94

Such loyalty to James II did have the potential to damage Brandon’s future under the new regime, but he was able quickly to repair relations with William of Orange, and was rewarded remarkably well for someone who had been in arms against the invader until the last moment. He was returned for Lancashire in the Convention and William preferred to see him as the leader of that county than his rival, the head of the long-established Lancashire family of Stanley, William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby. Derby, as lord lieutenant of Lancashire and Cheshire, had fruitlessly dithered during November 1688, although he had never declared himself positively for James II as Brandon had done. Nevertheless, after William III had bestowed the lieutenancy of Cheshire on his enthusiastic supporter Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), Derby refused to serve in only one of his traditionally quasi-hereditary counties and William instead made Brandon lord lieutenant and later custos rotulorum of Lancashire in his place. One of the few Lancashire justices of the peace of James II’s reign to maintain his place on the magistrates’ bench under William, in his role as custos he tried to gain control over nominations to the Lancashire commission of the peace, formally in the hands of the Tory chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Robert Bertie*, Baron Willoughby of Eresby (later duke of Ancaster).²⁴ Brandon also benefited at the expense of another ancient and prominent Lancashire family then in disgrace, the Catholic Molyneux, whose head, the 3rd Viscount Molyneux [I], had been James II’s lord lieutenant of Lancashire. Brandon was granted many of the quasi-hereditary offices in the gift of the duchy of Lancaster that this long-established but Catholic family had enjoyed – butler of Lancashire, constable of Liverpool Castle and steward of the hundreds of Blackburn, Tottington and Clitheroe.²⁵ Brandon was returned to Parliament for Lancashire in 1690 and through his many local and national offices he became the leading political force in that county. In March 1691 he was further awarded the vice admiralty of Lancashire and Cheshire, another local office William III removed from the control of the ineffectual Derby.

His government of Lancashire was controversial and increasingly partisan. Still under suspicion for his former loyalty to James II, he used the threat of a Jacobite invasion from Ireland as an opportunity to prove his loyalty to the new regime by a strenuous prosecution of the county’s many Catholics.²⁶ The Tory gentry of Lancashire, most especially the clerk of the peace Roger Kenyon^‡, though, could not forget Brandon’s chequered past – his disreputable youth, his close association with the opposition in 1678-83 and his even closer connection to the catholicizing religious policies of James II. They were angered at his appointment as lord lieutenant and continued to look towards the deposed Derby, ineffective as he was, for political leadership.²⁷ Brandon therefore increasingly turned to the Whigs and the county’s many Dissenters for his political base and proved himself energetic, inventive and unscrupulous in promoting the Whig cause in the county.

He was certainly at pains to assure William III of his loyalty and to solicit more favour from the court, as in a letter to the king of 1691:

I do not know how I was misrepresented to you at your first coming, but am sure you could not think ill of me for being faithful to a king to whom I owed my life. … But true to my trust, my principles and inclinations were always on your side, and when King James was gone away I am sure no man came to you with more sincere intentions to serve you. … My great ambition is to serve you in the army, because I think I can there do you the most service, and I hope you will place me in the post you consider the most suitable.²⁸

But these ambitions were not met until after he had come to the attention of Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, who in June 1693 strongly urged Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, as part of his campaign to persuade Portland and the king to turn to the Whigs, to fulfil Brandon’s military ambitions by giving him a regiment of horse and to make him a major general. Sunderland explained to Portland why he felt this step was so important in a series of letters in that summer of 1693:

I could say a great deal in his behalf to show this to be reasonable and particularly the chief part, his being a major general, but I will say only this, that without excepting any man, none can do more good or hurt, than he, and if the king takes him into his service, he will be well served by him. … [then, in a later letter] I am very glad that you hope well for Brandon. I am and was at the first sensible of the difficulty and would not have proposed what I did if anything else would have done which I am sure nothing will, though he does not know that he has ever been thought of by the king, you or me. I cannot work without him, therefore pray finish the matter. He has roared out the king’s praises for what he has done this year in Flanders when others would not allow him the least.²⁹

Sunderland no doubt valued Brandon’s influence in the Commons, for in an analysis of government supporters drawn up sometime in the autumn of 1692, it was noted that Brandon ‘is a leader of some Lancashire and Cheshire members.’³⁰ Brandon exhibited the political energy and ruthlessness which made him indispensable to Sunderland in his attempts to establish an electoral interest in the borough of Clitheroe through aggressively promoting the candidacy of his younger brother Fitton Gerard at a bitterly contested by-election in November 1693. Brandon ‘labour[ed] hard’ for his brother and tried to intimidate the electors into voting for him by sending a militia company, led by his close associate the Dissenter Hugh Willoughby*, 11th (CP 12th) Baron Willoughby of Parham, into the town to treat the electors lavishly, ostensibly ‘in compliment to the ale houses at Clitheroe.’ Later Gerard and his associates surreptitiously entered the unlocked moot hall and secretly ‘elected’ a returning officer favourable to the Gerard interest. This led to a double return, protracted hearings of the case before the committee of elections, a new by-election called for the new year, another double return and finally the Commons’ decision in April 1694, after months of proceedings on this case, that Gerard had been duly elected.³¹

2nd earl of Macclesfield and the Whigs, 1694-8

By the time of this decision Brandon had become 2nd earl of Macclesfield upon his father’s death on 7 Jan. 1694. The new earl first sat in the House on 24 Jan. 1694 and proceeded to sit in a further 41 meetings during the remainder of the 1693-4 session, where he was appointed to six committees. His chief deputy lieutenant Willoughby of Parham entrusted his proxy to him on 12 Feb. for the remainder of the session. On 17 Feb. 1694 Macclesfield voted to uphold chancery’s dismissal of the bill of Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, claiming the estates of the deceased Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, against John Granville*, earl of Bath. He was named to a committee on 3 Apr. to draw up the Lords’ objections to a clause in the bill to pay the debts of the late John Stawell*, 2nd Baron Stawell, and two days later he was made a manager of the conference.

Macclesfield benefited from the honours and grants the court bestowed on its Whig supporters at the end of this session. Following Sunderland’s wishes, Macclesfield was granted his own cavalry regiment on 16 Feb. 1694 and in April he was further promoted to be a major general in the army.³² His new regiment participated in the disastrous attack on Brest in June 1694. The officers in Macclesfield’s regiment reveal something of the company he kept. Goodwin Wharton^‡, the mentally unhinged younger brother of the Junto Whig, Thomas Wharton*, later marquess of Wharton, was his lieutenant colonel while Edward Rich*, 6th earl of Warwick, who was tried by the House years later for the murder of Captain Richard Coote, also appears to have gone as a volunteer with Macclesfield. A captain in the regiment was the young Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, already infamous for his involvement in the murder of William Mountfort, for which he had been acquitted by the House in February 1693.³³ Mohun was already Macclesfield’s nephew by marriage, having married, and then quickly separated from, his niece Charlotte Orby in 1691. Macclesfield, separated from his own wife by this time, must have found the violent and impetuous Mohun a kindred spirit and the two became fast friends, with consequences whose full import would not be felt for many years.

The earldom and the swing to the Whigs in national politics, engineered by his patron Sunderland, also gave Macclesfield an opportunity to strengthen his and his party’s interest in Lancashire. One of his gambits, the prosecution of suspected Jacobites in the ‘Lancashire Plot’ in the summer of 1694, eventually backfired on him. There had been rumours of Jacobite plotting among the many Catholics in Lancashire and Cheshire since 1689, when Macclesfield had first taken advantage of them to show his loyalty to the new regime. He had been made a commissioner to investigate lands or debts conveyed for ‘Popish or superstitious uses’ in 1693, and in the summer of 1694 he pursued a number of local Tories, Anglicans as well as Catholics, who had been accused of treason by a group of disreputable informers.³⁴ The partisan zeal with which he hounded these suspects made the Lancashire plot a national sensation and his long-standing opponent Roger Kenyon went out of his way to demonstrate that the informers were perjuring themselves.³⁵ The case collapsed with the acquittal of the suspects in October 1694 but it had done much to increase partisan strife in the north-west.

Macclesfield came to 70 per cent of the meetings of the session of 1694-5 and was nominated to 21 committees, including that of 28 Dec. 1694 to draw up an address of condolence to the king for the death of Queen Mary. He had Willoughby of Parham’s proxy from 4 Jan. 1695, and on 29 Apr. 1695 produced a letter on his behalf in the House waiving his privilege in a pending legal suit with Lady Margaret Standish.³⁶ Throughout January and February 1695 the House considered the prosecution of the reputed Jacobites in Lancashire the previous summer, which would probably have been discomfiting to Macclesfield, but his role in these proceedings is unknown and on 16 and 18 Feb. 1695 the House resolved both that there had been sufficient grounds for the prosecution of the suspected Jacobites and that the judges acting in the trial had done their duty, ‘according to law.’

The reverberations of the Lancashire plot proceedings were still felt in the Lancashire and Cheshire elections of November 1695, when Macclesfield tried to exact revenge on those who had thwarted him. He worked to defeat the sitting member for Preston, Christopher Greenfield^‡, who had represented the accused in the trials and had also tainted himself in the earl’s eyes by opposing attempts by Nonconformists to register Anglican chapels as Dissenting meeting houses. For Cheshire he encouraged Sir Willoughby Aston to stand against the sitting member Sir Robert Cotton^‡, as ‘he was much troubled to find him [Cotton], an altered man’. He had ‘voted ill in the House, particularly discountenancing the proceedings against Mr. [Peter] Legh of Lyme and the other prisoners in the Plot’ and had opposed legislation to bar counsel who refused to take the oaths from pleading before the House. When Aston demurred and defended Cotton, Macclesfield turned to bluster, assuring Aston that if he did not agree to stand the Whigs would find someone else to defeat Cotton.³⁷ Elsewhere Macclesfield resorted to threats and strong-arm tactics, as in Wigan where reportedly he told the corporation that if they did not return his candidate Alexander Rigby^‡ ‘there should be two troops of horse quartered upon them’. Despite the strong Whig presence at polling day, including Willoughby of Parham, Rigby came third in the poll. Macclesfield was also involved in both a by-election and the general election at Bishop’s Castle in Shropshire, which one of the candidates, Richard More^‡ saw as his town as the manor had come to Macclesfield with his marriage in 1683 to Anna Mason.³⁸

In the House Macclesfield came to 83 per cent of the first session of the new Parliament and he was named to 26 committees. Willoughby of Parham once more registered his proxy with Macclesfield on 19 Dec. 1695, and to this was joined on 30 Mar. 1696 the proxy of Macclesfield’s fellow Whig military commander Meinhard Schomberg*, 3rd duke of Schomberg. On 17 Jan. 1696 he entered his protest against the resolution that the counsel for Sir Richard Verney*, could be heard at the bar regarding his petition for a writ of summons as Baron Willoughby de Broke, as he had previously submitted an identical petition which had already been decided upon. Macclesfield signed the Association on 27 Feb. 1696 and on 14 Apr. was placed on a committee to draw up reasons to be presented in conference justifying the Lords’ amendments to the bill against trade with France. In the 1696-7 session he was present for 79 per cent of the sittings, was named to only five committees (including the drafting committee for the response to the king’s speech), and held the proxy of Willoughby of Parham from 10 Jan. 1697 for the entire session and that of Charles Bodville Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor from 19 Jan. 1697. Radnor’s proxy having been vacated by his return on 22 Feb. 1697, Macclesfield reached his full complement of two proxies again by holding that of Thomas Lennard*, earl of Sussex, from 8 Mar. to 7 Apr. 1697. He voted for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick^‡ on 23 Dec. 1696 and then joined a small band of about a dozen Whigs, including Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford and George Booth*, 2nd earl of Warrington, in defending Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), from the charge of having supplied Fenwick with papers detailing strategies to be taken in his defence.³⁹

The period 1696-7 saw Macclesfield at the height of his local power and influence, supported as he was by the resurgent Whigs in national politics. He was given new powers, being in March 1696 made lord lieutenant of all the six counties of north Wales, following the resignation of Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury. Macclesfield’s father, the first earl, had previously served as lord lieutenant for all 12 counties of Wales and the marcher counties of Herefordshire and Monmouthshire, and during these years Brandon had acted as an energetic and partisan deputy lieutenant throughout this large area, a role which he continued as lord lieutenant, even though his responsibility was reduced to the northern counties of the principality.⁴⁰ He continued with his vigorous electioneering in Lancashire itself and in February 1697 he skilfully played the factions in dispute over a new charter for the corporation of Lancaster off against each other in order to ensure the return of his brother Fitton in a by-election for that borough. His power would only have been increased by the appointment in May that year of a like-minded Whig chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, the 2nd earl of Stamford, to replace the Tory Willoughby of Eresby.⁴¹

Divorce and family rift, 1698-1701

It was Macclesfield’s tumultuous domestic life which quickly became of greatest interest in the House in the session of 1697-8 when the sordid details of his fractured marriage were publicly aired in the hearings surrounding his divorce bill in February and March 1698. The bill and its proceedings were the sensation of this session, both for its revelations of salacious aristocratic life and for the important constitutional precedent it set. Parliament granted Macclesfield a divorce with the right to remarry without his first receiving a decree of separation a mensa et thoro from an ecclesiastical court. To some, such as the Tory Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon, this was ‘against the ecclesiastical laws and canons of the Western church. … If I were in the House I should be against the bill’. A contemporary newsletter writer also thought that ‘the bill will not easily pass.’⁴²

Macclesfield’s union with Anne Mason had long been troubled. They had married in 1683 largely so that he and his father could procure the large portion of £2,000 cash and lands worth approximately £10,000 p.a. provided by her father Sir Richard Mason^‡. The marriage had quickly broken down, as Anne took a strong dislike to her husband and his family – she later accused her father-in-law of expelling her from his London townhouse of Gerard House and of not fulfilling his side of the marriage settlement. The feeling was reciprocated on the Gerards’ side.⁴³ In 1685 Macclesfield separated from her and ejected her from his house, resolving ‘to ease both you and myself of so unpleasing a conversation … I am resolved to give you the satisfaction you have often asked, in parting with me’.⁴⁴ During these years of separation Anne gave birth to two children, a girl in 1695, who soon died, and a boy in 1697. All contemporaries, and later historians, are agreed that the father was Macclesfield’s Cheshire neighbour and fellow army officer Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, especially as Anne decided to have her first child christened ‘Anne Savage.’ Macclesfield now saw the possibility of the Gerard estate, especially the valuable and much fought-over lands of Gawsworth in Cheshire, going to this bastard ‘heir’. As early as July 1697 he was making plans not only for a divorce from his wife but for an advantageous remarriage, even proposing a match with Portland’s 14-year-old daughter, 24 years his junior.⁴⁵ In December 1697 he moved to obtain a decree of separation in the Court of Arches. The proceedings of this court moved slowly as the countess fought back and her counsel employed delaying tactics. Impatiently, Macclesfield introduced a bill for his divorce, with a right to remarry, in the House on 15 Jan. 1698. The countess quickly counter-attacked here as well and petitioned to be heard in her defence. Her counsel relied on the argument that the case had to be settled in the ecclesiastical courts first: ‘We say no bill of this nature had any effect till it had had the proper methods in other courts. We say it is in the nature of the Legislature to be an aid to other courts and not to take it from them.’ The House agreed to hear witnesses in the case even though it was pending in the Court of Arches. From 21 Jan. to 18 Feb. the House, and the populace outside Parliament, were caught up in hearing testimony from both sides on the cruelty and infidelity in this marriage. On some days the hearing of witnesses in this case was the only business done in the House. The House heard copious testimony from the earl’s witnesses, a range of maidservants, lodging house keepers, midwives, wet nurses and parish priests who told in detail about the clandestine visits of a ‘tall gentleman’ to Anne, of her surreptitious birth of Anne Savage in rented rooms in Chelsea and of the registration of the infant’s birth and its death only a few weeks later. More witnesses testified to the birth of the second, male child, as well and of Macclesfield’s growing concern over the conduct of his wife. For her part the countess produced witnesses from as far away as Breconshire to attest to her bad treatment at the hands of Macclesfield and his father, especially the moment when her father-in-law turned her out of Gerard House, which was contrasted to her applications to the king for mercy towards her husband when Brandon (as he then was) was sentenced to death. After a month of testimony the bill was voted to be read a second time and committed to the consideration of a committee of the whole on 24 Feb. and was debated from 26 Feb. to 2 March. At this point it faced further opposition from Macclesfield’s own brother, Fitton, who thought that the clause annulling the original marriage settlement, and returning to Anne Mason all the lands she had brought with her to the marriage, affected his rights and his reversion to his brother’s lands, but he was quickly persuaded to withdraw his petition. The bill was reported with amendments on 2 Mar. and it was passed by the House the next day. Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, and William Savile*, 2nd marquess of Halifax, both entered a protest against the bill ‘because we conceive this is the first bill of this nature that hath passed, where there was not a divorce first obtained in the spiritual court; which we look upon as an ill precedent’. The bill quickly went through the Commons and received the royal assent on 2 Apr. 1698. By its terms both parties to the marriage had the right to remarry, Anne regained the lands she had brought with her to the marriage and her two children were declared illegitimate and thus ineligible to inherit the Gerard properties.⁴⁶

After his divorce bill was settled, Macclesfield could turn his attention to other matters in the House. On 15 Mar. 1698, the day when his bill was brought back up from the Commons, he voted against committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe^‡, a surprising vote considering that this was largely a Junto Whig measure. But there appears to have been some connection between Macclesfield and Duncombe, as the earl later stood surety for Duncombe for £5,000 to ensure his appearance in King’s Bench.⁴⁷ Although Macclesfield himself was absent for much of April 1698 following the royal assent to his bill, two Whig colleagues both assigned their proxies to him in that month, Willoughby of Parham on 6 Apr. and Warrington on 20 Apr., both for the remainder of the session. He would have been able to use them when he returned in May to resume regular attendance in the House (he attended almost two-thirds of all sittings of this session). On 20 June he was named a manager for a conference on the bill of Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, for the Alverstoke waterworks.

The repercussions of the divorce lasted into the general election of summer 1698. One of the clauses of the divorce act compelled Macclesfield to return to Anne the properties she had brought with her to the marriage, a condition which had been ‘put upon my lord, which he would not consent to till his best friends told him that otherwise they would not pass the bill’.⁴⁸ Despite this provision Macclesfield was still able to wield influence in the election at Bishop’s Castle, part of his ex-wife’s portion, during the elections of late 1698. He had as a client his ex-wife’s cousin Charles Mason^‡, who was already assured of a seat for the borough through his own interest there, and together they sponsored the candidacy of Macclesfield’s distant kinsman, Sir Gilbert Gerard^‡. Opposing Gerard was Anne Mason’s brother-in-law, Sir William Brownlow^‡, who had been sympathetic to her for many years. The electoral contest quickly took on the appearance of a family feud between different parts of the Mason family. In the event, Gerard lost at the poll and both Mason and Brownlow were returned. Macclesfield was furious and hurled accusations that Jacobites had infiltrated the polls. James Vernon^‡ tried to be patient with the earl’s outbursts and explained to Shrewsbury, ‘ My Lord Macclesfield generally acts passionately, and therefore what he says in heat and anger ought to be examined over again; and the best of it is, after having vented himself, he will come back to a better temper.’ Gerard petitioned against Brownlow’s victory but the Commons found both parties guilty of bribery and declared the election void. Macclesfield also tried to impose his interest in several elections in Lancashire, and he was reported to have ‘carried down others into Lancashire besides his brother Fitton, that he might stick them into some of the boroughs’. Fitton, despite their recent falling out over the divorce, was his principal candidate and he managed to have him elected for a knight of the shire, though ‘with great difficulty’ and, as James Vernon reported, if Gerard had been opposed at the poll ‘it might have gone bad with him’. The Gerard interest was slowly weakening in Lancashire, and Macclesfield did not have the success in the boroughs in this election that he had had previously. Only one of his candidates was returned at Lancaster, none for Wigan and he appears to have withdrawn himself from active involvement in most of the other borough elections.

Macclesfield attended 70 per cent of the meetings of the first session of the 1698 Parliament and was named to 30 committees. He most likely held the proxy of Willoughby of Parham (who continued to stay away from the House) and others during this and subsequent sessions, but this cannot be certain owing to the absence of the proxy registers for 1698-1701. He was personally concerned with the disbandment bill of January 1699, as his regiment of horse was scheduled to be one of the first disbanded, and in early February he made a motion in the House that all the Huguenot officers serving in William III’s army should be naturalized gratis as a mark of thanks for their service, but it was not seconded.⁴⁹ He was appointed a manager on 1 Mar. 1699 for the conference on the bill to prevent the distilling of corn and on 7 Mar. was placed on the large committee considering the trial of his former military colleague Warwick. In the following session he was present at a little over half of the sittings and was nominated to 21 committees. He told in the division on whether to reverse the decree in the cause of Beisely v. Stratford on 22 Dec. 1699 and on 23 Feb. 1700 voted to prevent further discussion on the bill to continue the old East India Company as a corporation and dissented from its passage.⁵⁰ He was a manager for the House in a series of three contentious conferences held 9-10 Apr. 1700 on the Commons’ supply bill with its controversial tack for the resumption of William III’s Irish grants. As a court Whig he probably followed the direction of William’s ministers and acceded to the supply bill, despite its offensive tack, at the last minute; certainly his name does not appear on the protest of 10 Apr. against the House’s withdrawing its objections to the bill.

Local decline and brief international prominence, 1701

The decline in his local interest in Lancashire continued apace in the election of early 1701 following the surprise dissolution of 19 Dec. 1700. In Lancashire, as elsewhere, the Tories and the country interest steadily regained ground against court Whigs. Macclesfield again supported Charles Mason and Sir Gilbert Gerard at Bishop’s Castle, with the same result – Gerard was defeated while Mason was returned, although his election was later declared void owing to bribery. In Lancashire Macclesfield and his brother struggled furiously to preserve Gerard’s hold of the county seat, even enlisting the aid of James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], husband to their niece Elizabeth. Gerard was defeated for the county, coming third in the poll. One of Macclesfield’s Whig candidates was returned again for Lancaster but otherwise he was not as visible in this election as in previous ones while other candidates in the boroughs strengthened their own local interests independent of the earl.⁵¹

Macclesfield was more involved in the proceedings of the Parliament of 1701, of which he attended 84 per cent of the sittings and was placed on ten committees, including the drafting committee to respond to the king’s speech. He was a manager for two conferences on the Partition Treaties held on 2 and 10 Apr. 1701, but he was also concerned with his personal affairs in this Parliament, as when he complained on 6 Mar. of a breach of privilege following the arrest of one of his servants. He introduced on 17 May 1701 a private bill to allow him to settle lands in his late father’s estate, which had constituted part of his original marriage settlement with Anne Mason, in preparation for his impending second marriage. There had been rumours from at least July 1700 that Macclesfield was preparing to marry Laetitia, the daughter and heiress of William Harbord^‡, who reportedly could bring with her a portion of £16,000. This supposition appears to be confirmed by his bequest to her in his will of a diamond necklace in the shape of a heart.⁵² The bill was committed but quickly ran foul once more of his brother, who petitioned on 2 June that the bill would deprive him of land settled on him by his father in 1671. Arguments were heard in the committee considering the bill, chaired by either Mohun or Stamford. The earl’s counsel argued that despite Gerard’s claim in his petition, Macclesfield had informed his brother well in advance of his intentions in the bill and the earl’s secretary attested that he had once heard the earl say that ‘he would do anything for him [Fitton], and he told Mr. Gerard so’. Macclesfield’s counsel also produced a paper purporting to be Gerard’s written consent to the bill, although Gerard’s counsel objected that this paper was not signed nor was it on stamped paper. Perhaps in exasperation at these obstacles, Macclesfield declared before the committee on 3 June 1701 that he would proceed no further with the bill. The committee, nevertheless, made an order to report to the House their suspicions that Gerard had known about the bill previous to its introduction in the House, despite his protestations, but this report does not appear to have been made and there were no further proceedings on the bill.⁵³ In any case at this point in the session the House’s attention was almost wholly occupied with the impeachment proceedings against John Somers*, Baron Somers, and the other Junto lords. Macclesfield, who had earlier on 16 Apr. 1701 been placed on the large committee for the address requesting the king not to dismiss his Junto ministers, was opposed to the impeachments and voted for the acquittal of both Somers and Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, on 17 and 23 June respectively.

Parliament was prorogued the day following Orford’s acquittal and during the summer Macclesfield headed an embassy to Hanover to present Sophia, the dowager electress of Hanover, with a copy of the Act of Settlement which made her heir to the throne of England and to invest George, the elector of Hanover, and future George I of England, with the garter. Contemporaries at home were shocked at the composition of the embassy assigned with such an important mission, for it consisted of Macclesfield, who had almost been executed for treason in 1685 and was an infamous divorcé, his friend Mohun, twice acquitted of murder by his peers in the House and with an unsavoury reputation as a rake and seducer, and Macclesfield’s client Charles Mason, involved in some dubious election results in Bishop’s Castle. Nevertheless, the embassy was welcomed at Hanover with all signs of honour, and both George and his mother entertained Macclesfield and his entourage lavishly.⁵⁴

Macclesfield returned to London on 30 Oct. 1701, flushed with success, ready to climb still higher in William III’s court and in Whig circles and anticipating a lucrative marriage with Laetitia Harbord. Yet almost immediately upon returning the earl came down with a fever which quickly worsened and he died on 5 Nov. 1701, less than a week after his return. He was buried nine days later in Westminster Abbey, his executor Mohun making the arrangements. Macclesfield’s will caused consternation among his family and surprise among the public. He left his two surviving sisters and his nieces and nephews various small bequests of money and jewellery and allowed his brother Fitton to live on the estate of Gawsworth, but the remainder of his estate, and Gawsworth after Gerard’s death, was to go to his friend and nephew Mohun, with the further instructions that ‘in what relates to the public he will take the advice of the earl of Orford and Lord Somers’. Macclesfield’s bequest to Mohun was to have ramifications for the next several decades since, after the earldom of Macclesfield in that line of the Gerards became extinct with the death of Fitton Gerard in December 1702, Mohun had to conduct protracted legal disputes with members of Macclesfield’s remaining kin, particularly his sister Lady Charlotte Orby (mother of Mohun’s first wife) and his nephew, Hamilton, to maintain control of the estate. The dispute between Mohun and Hamilton came to a head when the two rivals fought a duel in November 1712, during which both were mortally wounded. This tragedy did not end the legal wrangling between Mohun’s heirs and the remaining Gerards over Gawsworth, which lasted well into the reign of George I.

The Gerards of Hilderstone were a cadet branch of the Gerards of Gerard’s Bromley, established by John, a younger son of the 1st baron. A member of Staffordshire’s Catholic squirearchy, Richard Gerard is an obscure figure. Little is known of him until the furore occasioned by the revelations of Titus Oates led to his imprisonment in Staffordshire in 1679. Shortly afterwards Gerard was allowed to travel to London to provide evidence for the defence of William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, against the allegations of the Popish Plot. This provided little respite for Gerard. Soon after arriving in London he was accused of complicity in a campaign to raise money in Staffordshire for a Catholic rising, it being alleged that the funds Gerard was sending to the Catholic college of St Omer (where his three sons were being educated) were for seditious purposes. Richard Gerard was imprisoned; he remained in Newgate until his death on 11 Mar. 1680.⁹

Richard Gerard was succeeded by his eldest son Charles, who four years later gained the barony of Gerard of Gerard’s Bromley following the death of his cousin, Digby Gerard*, 5th Baron Gerard of Gerard’s Bromley. Charles Gerard succeeded (under the terms of the marriage settlement of the 4th Baron) to sizeable estates in Staffordshire, Cheshire and Shropshire, worth more than £2,500 a year in 1715.¹⁰ The year after this stroke of good fortune Gerard was given the opportunity to exact revenge for the death of his father when, in May 1685, he was among those who gave evidence for the prosecution during the trial of Titus Oates for perjury, Gerard having made Oates’s acquaintance when they were both students at a Catholic college in France. When questioned by Oates during this trial Gerard stated baldly, ‘I am a Catholic’.¹¹ The following year he was listed as one of those to receive dispensation to come to London and the court without taking the oaths.¹²

There is little evidence that Gerard took an active role in promoting the catholicizing policies of James II. Indeed, when the three questions were put in late 1687 Gerard was one of those Staffordshire notables who gave no response.¹³ Three analyses of 1687-88 examining the attitudes of the English peerage to the repeal of the penal laws and test simply listed Gerard as a Catholic. One further list classed Gerard amongst the protestant supporters of James II’s policies. Following the 1688 Revolution Gerard took little interest in public affairs though he occasionally came to the attention of the House of Lords, most notably in February 1692 when his claim to privilege of Parliament in a suit with the widow of the 5th Baron Gerard was rejected, the Lords resolving that ‘privilege of Parliament shall not extend to lords that have not first qualified themselves … by taking the oaths and test’. In March 1696, in the aftermath of the revelations of the Assassination Plot, Gerard was taken into custody.¹⁴ Although the Lords were informed in April that he was one of the three peers of whom the king ‘hath some suspicion’, Gerard was released in May.¹⁵

Though Gerard’s death has been recorded as occurring on 21 Apr. 1707, Narcissus Luttrell was reporting his demise as early as the 15th of that month. Gerard was buried in the family vault at Ashley, Staffordshire. He was succeeded in the barony by his brother. His jewels, plate, coach and horses were bequeathed to his widow and the remainder of his personal estate, over and above payment of his debts and costs of his funeral, to his Catholic sister, Frances, wife of Thomas Fleetwood of Calwich, Staffordshire.¹⁶

Gerard succeeded to the family estates and title as a child of five. He remained in the care of his mother and her second husband, Sir Edward Hungerford^‡, until his marriage in 1678 to a distant cousin. Gerard then joined his wife to live in the household of his father-in-law, though this appears to have been a short-lived arrangement and he soon returned to live with his mother and stepfather.³

Coming of age after the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament and dying before the calling of James II’s Parliament, Gerard never took his place in the House of Lords. He was nevertheless included upon two parliamentary lists compiled in the late 1670s. In 1677-8 Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, included Gerard upon his assessment of lay peers, noting only that Gerard was then underage. In 1679 Gerard was listed by Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby, (later duke of Leeds) among those peers absent from the Lords and who were not Catholic. Danby classed Gerard as a probable court supporter, a judgment that might have been grounded in the perceived influence of Gerard’s father-in-law, who at this stage was also regarded as loyal to the court, and/or as a result of the abortive negotiations the previous year for the marriage of Gerard to one of Danby’s daughters.⁴ The significance of these lists lies in the light they may throw upon Gerard’s religious sympathies. Gerard’s father has traditionally been regarded as Catholic, but clearly neither Shaftesbury nor Danby believed that the 5th Baron was such. How well they were informed about a relatively obscure junior nobleman is uncertain. Despite negotiations with the staunch Anglican Danby for a marriage, there are indications that the young Gerard’s mother was close to the Catholic nobility. The Catholic William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, was also involved in trying to find Gerard a bride.

Gerard appears to have been an impetuous and short-tempered youth. When he was only 14 he drew his sword during a scuffle with a social inferior and ran his opponent through the groin.⁵ His marriage in the late summer of 1678 to his distant cousin Elizabeth Gerard seems to have taken place without his mother’s consent as she was reported to have been ‘in a very great rage at it’.⁶ His lack of judgment led to his premature death at the age of 22 when he collapsed and died suddenly at the Rose Tavern at Covent Garden. The cause of death was given either as a ‘drinking match’ or as ‘a surfeit of buttered eggs, toast and gravy, and mulled sack’.⁷ One contemporary described Gerard as ‘a great swearer, drunkard and very debauched’; another was slightly more charitable in his opinion that Gerard was ‘a beautiful young man … [who] was utterly marred by keeping company with base lewd fellows’.⁸ His title and settled estates descended to a Catholic junior branch of his family, while the remainder of his estate fell to his only daughter Elizabeth, later duchess of Hamilton [S]. Throughout the late 1680s she was engaged in legal causes against her mother-in-law concerning the latter’s rights to the profits of certain lands in accordance with her marriage settlement and the disposition of rents received while the 5th Baron was still a minor.⁹ Gerard was buried in the family vault in Ashley, Staffordshire.¹⁰

Fitton Gerard owes his unusual first name to his grandmother Penelope Fitton and the claim to the lucrative estate of Gawsworth in Cheshire that she brought to the Gerard family after the death in 1643 of her childless brother Sir Edward Fitton^‡. Fittton Gerard’s father had long been engaged in legal battles with Sir Edward’s distant cousin and legatee Alexander Fitton over Gawsworth and the disposition of the estate was to hang over much of Fitton Gerard’s life, and even more his death. His branch of the Gerard family originated in Lancashire but because of Gawsworth began to associate itself increasingly with Cheshire.

Fitton Gerard joined his father and elder brother, also named Charles Gerard*, styled Viscount Brandon (later 2nd earl of Macclesfield), in enthusiastically hosting James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, during his 1682 progress through Cheshire, while in the following year he was named by Josiah Keeling as a Whig sympathizer who uttered treasonable healths in Wapping taverns during the months preceding the Rye House Plot.⁴ Gerard also relied on his family, and particularly his brother, lord lieutenant of Lancashire from 1689, to maintain his position in the county. The 2nd earl of Macclesfield, as Brandon became in January 1694, was a controversial Whig lord lieutenant in a county with a largely Tory gentry. He engaged in a long campaign to gain control over nominations to the Lancashire commission of the peace and was able to ensure that his younger brother was appointed a justice of the peace throughout William III’s reign.⁵ The lord lieutenant also used threatening and controversial means to ensure his brother’s return to Parliament for Lancashire boroughs. Fitton Gerard was involved in a double return for Clitheroe in a by-election of late November 1693 but the committee for elections judged that the election had been rendered invalid by dishonest tactics used by Macclesfield and Gerard to elect a returning officer and ordered the poll to be held again. The second by-election resulted in another double return, and Gerard was only able to claim his seat, by petition, on 17 Apr. 1694 after months of deliberations. So controversial were the Gerards that Fitton Gerard was not immediately returned for any seat at the following Parliament and his brother Macclesfield had to wait until a by-election in Lancaster in February 1697 before he could force his younger brother again into the Commons. At the elections of 1698 it was noted that Macclesfield ‘hath with great difficulty got in his brother’ for the county seat. Fitton Gerard was not returned for any constituency in January 1701.⁶

Macclesfield had largely sponsored Gerard’s political career, but the brothers had a falling out over Macclesfield’s divorce bill of 1698. This would have enabled the earl to separate from his long-estranged wife and have any children born to her during their long separation declared illegitimate. By the original marriage settlement Fitton Gerard would inherit Gawsworth if there were no children of the union, but the bill aimed to annul the settlement, leaving the disposition of the estate after Macclesfield’s death an open question. On 26 Feb. 1698 during the proceedings on the bill Fitton Gerard presented a petition to the House requesting that his own condition and inheritance be taken into consideration. This appears to have upset his brother and Fitton Gerard quickly withdrew the petition.⁷ Fitton Gerard ran afoul of his brother again on 2 June 1701, when he petitioned the House to the effect that a bill the now divorced Macclesfield had recently introduced to settle jointure lands on his prospective bride Laetitia Harbord deprived him of property settled on him by his father in a deed of 1671. Macclesfield’s counsel informed the select committee considering the bill that the earl, professing his loyalty and service to his younger brother, had informed him well in advance of his intentions and had even procured a paper purporting to be Fitton Gerard’s written consent to the bill, although it remained suspiciously unsigned. In exasperation at his brother’s obstruction Macclesfield declared before the committee on 3 June 1701 that he would proceed no further with the bill.⁸ The damage was done though, and when Macclesfield died unexpectedly on 5 Nov. 1701 Fitton Gerard, now 3rd earl of Macclesfield, was in for a rude shock. The late earl had bequeathed various small legacies of money and jewellery to his two surviving sisters (who had joined Fitton in the opposition to their brother’s bill) and their children and allowed his brother to continue to live on the estate of Gawsworth for his natural life, but otherwise his entire real and personal estate, including Gawsworth after the 3rd earl’s death, was to go to Macclesfield’s friend, nephew and fellow soldier Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun.⁹ Years later, during the protracted legal disputes between the Gerard and Mohun heirs and descendants, the Gerards complained that Mohun’s only claim to Gawsworth was through the 2nd earl’s ‘unnatural and barbarous act’, which ‘broke through the laws of God and man’. He had tried to subvert the first earl’s settlement of 1671 through his bill, ‘and being afterwards opposed in it by his brother and sister, he destroyed the deed itself in revenge to them, and to complete his revenge gave away the estate from his own family to the Lord Mohun, a stranger to his own and father's blood’. Another petition from the Gerards pointed out that the late earl’s siblings, now effectively disinherited, had earlier pleaded for their brother’s life when he was under threat of execution for treason in 1685.¹⁰ The new earl of Macclesfield did not immediately contest the provisions of the will. He was already ill and lived almost as a recluse. Unmarried with no children to provide for, he may have been satisfied by the life interest at Gawsworth.

Macclesfield attended the House on the first day of the 1701-2 Parliament, on 30 Dec. 1701, but while the first appearance in the House that day of two other peers who had just inherited their titles was recorded in the Journal, the presence of the new earl of Macclesfield was passed over without a note. This one day appears to have been enough for Macclesfield and he never attended the House again. He was briefly implicated when Mohun complained on 7 Jan. 1702 of a breach of privilege concerning the arrest of his steward for Gawsworth, Thomas Shepherd, at Macclesfield’s suit. Shepherd himself, in his petition to the House, suggested that the action had been brought against him by Macclesfield’s agents without the earl’s knowledge.¹¹ Whatever local influence in the northwest may have remained to Macclesfield was further attenuated by the Tory turn in politics following Anne’s accession, as evidenced by the purposeful exclusion of the earl from the Lancashire commission of the peace in July 1702.¹² He himself died, young and unmarried, on 26 Dec. 1702 in his house at Chelsea, and with his death the short-lived Gerard earldom of Macclesfield became extinct. His will, written just before his death, distributed small bequests to a wide array of nieces, nephews, sisters and their husbands. The dispute over the estate continued for many years, taken up by his two surviving sisters and their heirs against the pretensions of Mohun, and leading ultimately to the fatal duel in November 1712 between Mohun and James Hamilton*, 4th duke of Hamilton, like Mohun a nephew by marriage of the brothers Charles and Fitton Gerard, earls of Macclesfield.

Philip Gerard, who succeeded in the barony but did not inherit the family’s landed estates, was educated as a Catholic. He was admitted into the Society of Jesus in September 1684. He was ordained in 1693, and for the following decade and a half served in a number of continental Europe’s Catholic colleges. He remained on the continent for the rest of his life, apart from brief spells in England between 1726 and 1728, and again in 1730.³ He died on 4 May 1733, at which time the title was extinguished.

Francis Godolphin’s mother, Margaret Godolphin (née Blagge), died only six days after she gave birth to him in September 1678, and he was educated in his early years by her close ‘spiritual friend’ John Evelyn, before he went to Eton and eventually Cambridge.⁹ Francis’s widowed father, Sidney Godolphin, created Baron Godolphin in 1684, never remarried and Francis became the sole focus of his dynastic ambitions. Francis first entered Parliament for the family seat of Helston in Cornwall in 1695, when he was four years underage.

The growing friendship and alliance between Lord Godolphin and John Churchill, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, and his wife, Sarah, was cemented by Francis’s marriage in April 1698 to Marlborough’s eldest daughter, Lady Henrietta (‘Harriet’). Anne, then princess royal, offered to pay all of the substantial dowry of £10,000 on behalf of her ‘dear Mrs Freeman’ (i.e. the countess of Marlborough), but the countess eventually only accepted half of that amount from her mistress.¹⁰ The newly married Godolphin received offices and favours consonant with the growing influence of his father and parents-in-law. Through his father’s continuing solicitations he was made one of the four tellers of the exchequer in June 1699, while in October of that year he was granted the post of joint registrar of chancery, an office he had been promised since June of the preceding year.¹¹ Godolphin was returned to the Commons in the first election of 1701 for the Cornish seat of East Looe and once again for Helston at the second election of that year.

Godolphin’s trajectory at court and in Parliament in the reign of Anne roughly followed that of his father, appointed lord treasurer by the new queen, and of his father-in-law, captain-general of the Allied forces. At the accession Godolphin and his wife were attached to the royal household, Lady Harriet joining her mother, the duchess of Marlborough, as a lady of the bedchamber to the queen, while Francis Godolphin was made a gentleman of the bedchamber to her consort, Prince George*, of Denmark. In 1704 Godolphin’s father and the duchess of Marlborough secured for him the lucrative post of cofferer of the household, a place worth £2,000 p.a., prompting his resignation as teller of the exchequer in that year, and in early 1705 he was made warden of the Stannaries, high steward of the duchy of Cornwall and master forester of Dartmoor.

In 1702 and again in 1705 Godolphin was returned for Helston and from 26 Dec. 1705, when his father was raised in the peerage to become earl of Godolphin, Francis was styled Viscount Rialton. In February 1707 Marlborough, recently granted the manor of Woodstock in Oxfordshire, presented Rialton as his candidate for one of the county seats in the upcoming election of 1708, but Charles Talbot*, duke of Shrewsbury, predicted accurately that Rialton ‘will meet with a greater opposition than I could have imagined an heir of the duke of Marlborough recommended by him could have found’.¹² In the event Rialton was returned both for Oxfordshire and for Helston and decided to sit for the county, signifying his new connection with Oxfordshire by resigning all his Cornish offices to his cousin Hugh Boscawen*, later Viscount Falmouth.¹³

Following the pattern of his father and father-in-law, over these years Rialton gradually aligned himself more closely with the Whigs willing to support the war policy of the duumvirs and he suffered from their reversal of political fortune in 1710. After his father’s removal from the treasurership in August 1710, he had great difficulty retaining a seat in the Commons, but was eventually returned for the Cornish borough of Tregony on the Boscawen interest. On 13 May 1711 he lost his principal court post, when he was removed as cofferer of the household, a move which convinced Frances Needham, writing to the duchess of Marlborough, that ‘sure never anything was like the violence they [the new ministry], go on with, like a rapid stream that you can’t stop the course of’.¹⁴ Arthur Maynwaring^‡ also reported to the duchess that Godolphin, the former lord treasurer, was ‘more touched by the removal of Lord Rialton than his own’.¹⁵

Rialton succeeded to his father’s earldom on 15 Sept. 1712. The only honours that accompanied his rise in the peerage were slight ones – the recordership of the borough of Helston, a hereditary office vested in his family, and the deputy rangership of Windsor House Park, an office under his mother-in-law, the duchess of Marlborough, the warden of the Park.¹⁶ The new earl came to the title in the midst of the long months of prorogations from June 1712 to April 1713, while Parliament and the country waited to learn the details of the peace that was being negotiated at Utrecht. Godolphin first sat in the House on 3 Feb. 1713, a day of prorogation. As preparations were made for the session to commence for business in April 1713, the duke and duchess of Marlborough, in voluntary exile on the continent, looked to Godolphin as their representative and agent in the House. The duchess wrote anxiously from Aix of rumours she had heard of ‘a new disagreeable battle’ in the dispute over who was responsible for the immense costs in the building of Blenheim Palace ‘by a petition to both houses of Parliament, which ’tis said was ordered at my Lord Treasurer’s [Robert Harley*, earl of Oxford]’. She could take comfort, however, that ‘the suit being already begun in Westminster Hall I can’t see that it can be of much use to him’. Marlborough himself, she added, would tell Godolphin if he was to be expected in the House that winter. The duke remained away until the death of Anne, entrusting his affairs in England (both his interest at Woodstock borough and in Parliament) to Godolphin. In June 1714 Godolphin dutifully reported to the duke and duchess the successful outcome of a subsidy bill in which they had an interest.¹⁷

Godolphin came to the first day of the session of spring 1713 but only attended 44 per cent of its sitting days. Oxford saw him as an opponent of both his ministry and the peace, and forecast that he would oppose the French commercial treaty – which was defeated in the Commons before it even came before the House. He appears to have had little discernible role in either Oxfordshire or Cornwall during the elections of late summer 1713, and even the Godolphin family’s control of Helston came under threat as George Granville*, recently created Baron Lansdown, was able to return two Tories for the borough. Godolphin came to only slightly more (47 per cent) of the sittings of the new Parliament’s first session, starting in February 1714. His pattern of proxy giving and receiving during this session suggests that, despite his low attendance, he was eager to maintain Whig votes in the House. His proxy partners in the session of April–July 1713 cannot be known, owing to the loss of the proxy registers for that period, but it is likely that he was as active a member of a network of proxy exchanges with fellow Whigs then as he was in the following 1714 session. He registered his proxy with his brother-in-law, Charles Spencer*, 3rd earl of Sunderland, from 6 Feb. to 4 Mar. 1714; with Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, from 16 Mar. to 27 Apr.; and with Edward Russell*, earl of Orford, from 11 to 23 June. Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, forecast in late May that Godolphin would vote against the Schism bill and it may have been to shore up votes against this bill that Godolphin entrusted his vote to Orford just five days before the division.

In the last days of this session he was called on to hold the proxy of other Whigs in turn. He held the proxy of Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton, for only two days (28–29 June 1714) and of Richard Newport*, 2nd earl of Bradford, for another two days (6–7 July). In the final five days of the session, which ended on 9 July, he also held the proxy of Sunderland on two occasions, for a matter of a day or two, as Sunderland flitted in and out of the House. Godolphin only attended the first day of the following session, 1 Aug. 1714, following the queen’s death, and on 2 Aug. registered his proxy with Grafton for the remainder of the session.

As a representative of a family which had supported the war with France and the Hanoverian Succession, Godolphin was rewarded by the new king. He was reinstated as cofferer of the household in October 1714, appointed lord lieutenant of Oxfordshire in 1715 and, after his wife became suo jure duchess of Marlborough upon her father’s death on 16 June 1722, was sworn to the privy council and made groom of the stole in 1723. He was probably even busier on the domestic front, for within the space of a few weeks in 1722 he became an executor for the estates of both his brother-in-law, Sunderland, and his father-in-law, Marlborough, and much of the remainder of his life was spent communicating with and trying to pacify his mother-in-law, the imperious dowager duchess of Marlborough.¹⁸ The dowager was always suspicious that the duke’s money was not being spent wisely or honestly; to make matters worse, her relations with her daughter Harriet, Godolphin’s wife, broke down irretrievably and acrimoniously, especially after the younger duchess of Marlborough gave birth to a daughter who was widely suspected to be the child of the playwright William Congreve, but whom Godolphin always recognized and raised as his own.¹⁹

Godolphin’s career in the Hanoverian House of Lords in the early years of George I and beyond will be discussed in greater depth in the next phase of this work. His attitude to the House, however, may be best expressed by his response to the request from his mother-in-law to speak for her interest in her appeal of 1721 against the exchequer judgment that she and the duke were personally responsible for the debts incurred in building Blenheim Palace. He explained to her ‘that to have ten times the value of the debt he could not speak, that he had once attempted it in the House of Commons in a mighty trivial thing and was quite out’.²⁰ Philip Dormer Stanhope*, 4th earl of Chesterfield, is said to have remarked that Godolphin ‘came to the House of Peers only to sleep, and that he might as well sleep on the right as on the left of the Woolsack’.²¹

In 1735 Godolphin, battered by the deaths in the space of a few years of his only son and heir, William Godolphin^‡, styled marquess of Blandford, and of his wife, gave up his posts in the bedchamber and in Windsor House Park. He was, however, promoted to be lord privy seal instead. He resigned from this post in April 1740, having already stepped down as lord lieutenant of Oxfordshire the previous year. At his death on 17 Jan. 1766 there were no direct male heirs to the earldom, but in 1735 Godolphin had secured a patent as Baron Godolphin of Helston, with a special remainder to the descendants of his uncle Henry Godolphin. By this his cousin and namesake, Francis Godolphin*, succeeded as 2nd Baron Godolphin of Helston. Godolphin’s will made the 2nd baron the principal heir of his Cornish lands and his sole executor, but also laid out a daunting profusion of gifts to a large circle of servants, family members and friends. To his one surviving child, Henrietta, duchess of Newcastle, already married to probably the richest peer in the kingdom, he was able to leave Bank of England stock worth £14,000.

Godolphin was one of 16 children born into a family of royalist and Anglican gentry, part of ‘the intricate network of kinship which linked the Killigrews, the Berkeleys and the Jermyns’. As a younger son, in receipt of only a small annuity upon the death of his father, he had to seek his own fortune, although family connections provided an entrée at court.⁷ To begin with he pursued several career paths, including military service against the Dutch. He may have been admitted to the Inner Temple in 1668 and on 5 Aug. 1669 he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn at the request of Sir John Howell, the recorder of London, then reader at the Inn.⁸ His Cornish family links provided him with a seat in the Commons at a by-election in 1668. Godolphin proved to be an adept courtier: he was a fine horseman and tennis player, a composer of witty verse, and a devotee of the turf and the gambling that went with it. Despite this facility he never abandoned his Anglican piety nor embraced the libertinism of the court. He had influential kinsmen, such as Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and gained patrons such as Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, the latter of particular use in forwarding his diplomatic career.⁹ Perhaps Godolphin’s most impressive quality was his aptitude for royal service, coupled with discretion. In Charles II’s words, ‘he was never in the way and never out of the way’ and to Gilbert Burnet*, bishop of Salisbury, he was ‘the silentest and modestest man that was perhaps ever bred in a court’.¹⁰

Godolphin was married in the Temple Church on 16 May 1675, by Mr Lake, ‘chaplain to the duke’, presumably Dr John Lake*, the future bishop of Chichester.¹¹ At the end of July 1678 it was reported that Laurence Hyde*, the future earl of Rochester, had sold his mastership of the robes to Godolphin for £6,000, while Godolphin sold his own position of groom in the bedchamber place to George Rodney Brydges^‡ for £4,500.¹² His wife died on 9 Sept. 1678, after the birth of his son, Francis Godolphin*, the future 2nd earl of Godolphin.

During the Exclusion Crisis Godolphin was very much associated with his fellow ‘chits’ Sunderland and Hyde. He opposed the first exclusion bill, but followed Sunderland in supporting exclusion in 1680, although he did not suffer the consequences, the king blaming Sunderland for his actions. His reputation for financial acumen stood him in good stead and when he left the treasury to become secretary of state in April 1684, his fellow commissioner, Sir Edward Dering^‡, thought ‘the removing of Godolphin is taking out a cornerstone, which if it do not ruin and dissolve doth at least much weaken the building’.¹³ He was back in the treasury in September, as first lord and with a peerage. His tenure as first lord was short-lived because the king’s death in February 1685 saw Hyde, now earl of Rochester, restored as lord treasurer and Godolphin made chamberlain to the new queen.¹⁴ Even then, according to Paul Barillon, the king intended to continue to consult Godolphin, as well as Rochester and Sunderland, on matters of high policy.¹⁵ Godolphin’s friendship with the queen continued after the Revolution and according to William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, he ‘kept a constant correspondence with her to his dying day’, which was to cause him some difficulties in the following reign.¹⁶ Faced with the dilemma of attending the queen to mass, Godolphin conducted her to the door of the chapel but remained outside.¹⁷ He played a role in facilitating a gift of £16,000 from James II to help pay off the debts of Princess Anne, evidence of a growing closeness to the Churchills and the Princess which would see him eventually become ‘Mr Montgomery’ in the private correspondence between the group.¹⁸

On 19 May 1685 Godolphin was introduced into the Lords by Robert Shirley*, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, and William Maynard*, 2nd Baron Maynard. He attended the House every day before the adjournment on 2 July, 31 days in total, and was named to 10 committees during that part of the session. On 25 June he acted as a teller, in opposition to Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, on the question of whether to call in counsel in Eyre v. Eyre. Two days later he acted as a teller, again in opposition to Cornwallis, on the question of whether the committee on the bill reviving acts should sit at the time to which it had been adjourned. He attended the adjournment on 4 Aug., and on every day following the resumption of the session on 9 Nov. until the prorogation on 20 Nov., being named to one further committee.

On 14 Jan. 1686 Godolphin was one of those peers who found Henry Booth*, 2nd Baron Delamer, not guilty of treason.¹⁹ He attended the prorogations on 10 Feb., 10 May and 22 November. In October Evelyn visited Cranbourne, ‘a Lodge and walk of my Lord Godolphin’s in Windsor Park’, which he had purchased early in James II’s reign.²⁰ On 26 June 1688 a warrant was issued for a grant for 31 years to Godolphin of the position of keeper of the lodge and chase of Cranbourne.²¹ When talk surfaced in October 1686 of the removal of Rochester as lord treasurer, those considered for the replacement commission included Godolphin, ‘who understands it and must teach others’.²² It was as an ally of Sunderland that Godolphin returned to the treasury at the beginning of 1687, with Princess Anne opining to her sister, ‘I am sorry the king relies so much’ on Sunderland and Godolphin.²³ Observers of the regime were paying close attention when the commissioners of the treasury, Godolphin, Sir John Ernle^‡ and Sir Stephen Fox^‡ took the Test on 8 Feb. 1687: according to Roger Morrice they did so together and ‘with good attendance’. It was thought, he wrote, that they had as a result offended the king.²⁴ The Dutch ambassador, Van Citters, confirmed this when he reported that the Protestant commissioners ‘having performed the oath of the Test and allegiancy in due form’, the king had ‘in no small degree shown his displeasure to Lord Godolphin about it’.²⁵

Despite his protestantism, Godolphin was perceived as a loyalist, and various commentators have assumed that he was in favour of the king’s policy of repealing the Test acts; his name appears on four lists compiled between January 1687 and January 1688 implying his support. Godolphin’s closeness to Sunderland can only have perpetuated this opinion; it was underlined by his presence early in January 1688 at the marriage of Lady Anne Spencer to James Hamilton*, earl of Arran [S], the future duke of Hamilton.²⁶ Nor did he shirk his duty as a privy councillor. He was present on 26 Oct. 1687 when the king in cabinet delivered the three questions to various lord lieutenants and again on 4 May 1688 when the order was given for the Declaration of Indulgence to be read in church.²⁷ He was also present on 8 June when the order was made to prosecute the seven bishops, reportedly having signed the warrant committing them to the Tower.²⁸ He attended the birth of Prince James (the future Pretender) on 10 June 1688, although he later deposed that he stood in a position whereby he could see nothing.²⁹ The duchess of Marlborough later explained that his presence at the birth was the reason why Godolphin ‘was no way concerned in making the Revolution and disliked it very much’.³⁰

Godolphin remained at the centre of events as the regime contemplated a change of policy and seems to have welcomed a turn back to the old alliance with the Anglican establishment. On 22 Sept. 1688 Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Clarendon, recorded in his diary that the lord chancellor, George Jefferys*, Baron Jeffreys, had written the Declaration resolved upon on the previous day to accompany the issuing of the writs calling a Parliament and that although Sunderland, Charles Middleton^‡, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], George Legge*, Baron Dartmouth, and Godolphin had agreed it, amendments had been made in council, and that ‘Lord Godolphin had broke loose from him and endeavoured to trim in the new wording some clauses.’³¹ On 24 Sept. Sunderland told the papal nuncio that Godolphin and the other Protestants of the court had resolved on supporting James’s designs in Parliament.³² On 16 Oct. Godolphin attended the Cabinet which finalized the proclamation restoring the corporations.³³

Godolphin’s closeness to the regime put his position at some risk as the king tried to satisfy his domestic opponents. On 12 Nov. 1688 Van Citters reported that rumours that Jeffreys and Godolphin ‘were to be removed from their offices, but as these gentlemen are in possession of many secrets, it is thought the king will not make up his mind to this so easily now things are placed in such an extreme point’. Two weeks later, on 26 Nov. Van Citters reported that ‘some of the cabinet council’, including Godolphin and Richard Graham^‡, Viscount Preston [S], had ‘ventured to advise the king, to assemble his Parliament without delay’.³⁴ Godolphin was apparently responsible for excluding its Catholic members from the meeting of the council on 27 Nov., and was one of those at the meeting in favour of calling a Parliament.³⁵ Following a ‘great council’ on 27 Nov., James II named Godolphin, George Savile*, marquess of Halifax, and Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as his commissioners to negotiate with William, to whom Godolphin was already well known. The commissioners met the Prince at Hungerford on 8 Dec., where they remained until the 10th. They had almost reached London on their return journey on 11 Dec. when they received news of the king’s flight. Godolphin did not reach London for the first meeting of the provisional government of peers at the Guildhall on that day. He was present on each occasion that the lords met on 12-15 Dec., and again on 21-22, 24-25 December.³⁶ In the interim, on 16 Dec., along with such loyalists as Middleton and Preston he signed a proclamation in the king’s name, inserted into the London Gazette, ordering local office-holders to prevent buildings from being attacked.³⁷

The Convention, 1689-90

Godolphin was present when the Convention convened on 22 Jan. 1689. On the crucial issue of the settlement of the Crown, Godolphin was entirely consistent: on 29 Jan. he voted in favour of a regency; on 31 Jan. he voted against declaring the prince and princess of Orange king and queen; on 4 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the Commons that the king had ‘abdicated’. On 6 Feb. Clarendon noted him as one of the peers that ‘usually support the king’, who were absent from the Lords, using the excuse that he had to attend the prince of Orange at the treasury.³⁸ However, the Journal recorded him as present, and Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, recorded him as voting against agreeing with the Commons in using the term ‘abdicated’. On 2 Mar., however, Godolphin took the oaths to the new monarchs. He continued to administer the treasury along with Ernle and Fox, until his appointment to a new treasury commission on 9 April.³⁹

On 20 Apr. 1689 Godolphin was named to report from a conference on the amendments made by the Lords to the bill abrogating oaths, duly reporting back later in the day. He was then named to a committee to draw up reasons for adhering to the amendments and to manage the resultant conference on the 22nd. On 31 May he voted against the bill to reverse the judgments against Titus Oates, and on 30 July he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill. On 13 July he was named to a committee to draw up reasons in support of the Lords’ views on the house of Hanover in the bill settling the succession of the Crown, and was named to a conference on the bill on the 16th. On 10 Aug. he acted as a teller in opposition to Cornwallis on an instruction to the committee on the bill prohibiting trade with France to bring in a clause to give the king power to dispense with the act. He attended on 149 days of the session up to the prorogation of 21 Oct. 1689, 91 per cent of the total. He was named to a further 33 committees.

As one contemporary put it, Godolphin was ‘the only man that had the cunning or else the good fortune to be at once in some favour with both the king and Prince of Orange’.⁴⁰ William certainly had a high opinion of his abilities as a minister of finance, despite his previous service to Charles II and James II, which made him a target of Whig attacks in the Convention.⁴¹ When William was considering the composition of his first treasury commission, he asked Halifax ‘if he had a mind to keep Lord Godolphin in, who should hinder him?’ Halifax noted that ‘he ever showed an inclination to Lord Godolphin’.⁴² The new commission therefore included Godolphin, the only experienced hand, together with four Whigs.⁴³ Two of his Whig colleagues, Delamer and Charles Mordaunt*, earl of Monmouth, were unhappy because they ‘soon saw that the king considered him more than them both. For, as he understood treasury business well, so his calm and cold way suited the king’s temper’. As Athur Onslow^‡ noted, the treasury commission was ‘ill-composed’, with Godolphin having supported James II and opposed the abdication.⁴⁴ Godolphin himself may have been unhappy as early as August 1689, when Halifax recorded that the king ‘seemed to believe [Godolphin] desired to live out of employment’.⁴⁵ Whatever misgivings he may have had, Godolphin attended the board with great regularity between April 1689 and the demise of the treasury commission in March 1690, rarely missing a meeting. This pattern was resumed when Godolphin rejoined the board in November 1690.⁴⁶ This was in keeping with his reputation for routine; in December 1689 Cary Gardiner advised Sir Ralph Verney^‡ that Godolphin ‘is ever to be found between eight and nine o’clock in the morning’ at his house.⁴⁷

Godolphin was present on the opening day of the second session of the Convention, 23 Oct. 1689. On that day, Henry Fitzroy*, duke of Grafton, registered his proxy with Godolphin (as he did also on 5 Dec.). On 25 Oct. he acted as a teller in opposition to Thomas Grey*, 2nd earl of Stamford, on whether the House should resolve itself immediately into committee of the whole House on the bill against clandestine marriages. He attended on 57 days of the session, 78 per cent of the total, and was named to 14 committees.

The Parliament of 1690

Godolphin persisted in his desire to retire.⁴⁸ In an attempt to dissuade him the king utilized Marlborough as his advocate; on 27 Jan. 1690 Marlborough wrote to the king, ‘I have let no day pass without speaking to "Lord G." about what you command, nor will I be rebutted in it, though I do not prevail much with him, save that I make him melancholy; your kindness to him has most weight with him’.⁴⁹ Parliament was dissolved on 6 Feb., and before the new one met Godolphin had been left out of the treasury commission announced in March, although it seems that he was instrumental in ensuring that Fox was available to supply his financial expertise.⁵⁰ That the new treasury commission was composed of only four men suggested that there was a ready-made vacancy for Godolphin should he signal his wish to return.⁵¹ Sometime between October 1689 and February 1690, before the new Parliament met, Thomas Osborne*, marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), drew up a list of the lords which seemed to suggest that Godolphin was among the opposition (at least to Carmarthen).

Godolphin was present when the new Parliament convened on 20 Mar. 1690. On 2 May Clarendon recorded that Godolphin went away without voting ‘in the matter which was upon the tapis’, presumably the bill securing the king and queen against King James.⁵² On 8 May Godolphin asked one of the questions posed to the judges concerning the implications of the regency bill.⁵³ He was named on 12 May to draw up reasons for the Lords’ amendment to the bill, and also to manage the resultant conference on the following day. On 10 May Grafton again registered his proxy with Godolphin. Godolphin attended on 51 days of the session, 94 per cent of the total, and was named to 10 committees. In May 1690 he was named as one of the trustees of the prince and princess of Denmark’s children.⁵⁴

Despite being out of office, Godolphin’s name was never far from the thoughts of political commentators. In May 1690 Roger Morrice reported that ‘it’s highly probable’ that when William left on campaign, Carmarthen, Nottingham and Godolphin would be entrusted with ‘the conduct of all affairs under the queen’. In June Morrice heard that Henry Sydney*, Viscount Sydney, and Godolphin had been instrumental in removing Sir John Maynard^‡ and replacing him as a commissioner of the great seal by Sir John Trevor^‡, although ‘I know not well upon what grounds’. Godolphin, Sydney and Trevor attended the king to Tring on the first stage of his journey to Ireland, and Sydney and Godolphin had brought Sunderland to kiss the king’s hand at Northampton on the same journey.⁵⁵

Godolphin was afflicted with kidney stones in the summer of 1690, recuperating at Cranbourne Lodge and then Tunbridge Wells, where Morrice noted his presence among ‘a great number of the English nobility and gentry’. Godolphin’s companions included Shrewsbury and Thomas Wharton*, the future 5th Baron Wharton, who all ‘lodged together, and were very much in conversation at Tunbridge’.⁵⁶ On 8 Aug. Godolphin wrote to Halifax that both he and Shrewsbury intended to remain in Tunbridge to take the waters for a full six weeks. He seems to have stayed there until late August.⁵⁷ On 24 Aug. Halifax recorded that Godolphin had told him that ‘he would do all that was possible to avoid employment at the king’s return, but he was not sure it could be avoided’.⁵⁸ On 23 Sept. Clarendon was informed that there were rumours that Godolphin would be appointed secretary of state and that he was ‘resolved to enter again upon the matrimonial state, and to that end makes love to the Lady Mauleverer, a fine young widow’.⁵⁹ She was the widow of Sir Richard Mauleverer, 4th bt., (d. May 1689), who subsequently married John Arundel*, 2nd Baron Arundel of Trerice, and then Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke. Godolphin seems to have come close to marrying her, for Evelyn even wrote to him on 20 Sept., ‘upon report of his having married the lady which did not prove true’ and about October the countess of Scarbrough reported that ‘my Lord Godolphin’s match goes on now very fast, and I believe they will marry before Christmas’.⁶⁰ Godolphin’s proposed remarriage was his main defence against being enticed back to the treasury. After he had attended the adjournment on 8 Sept. and the prorogation on 12 Sept., he returned to Cranbourne Lodge, where in mid-September the king stayed with him while on a hunting trip and no doubt consulted him about a return to the treasury.⁶¹ Godolphin was named as one of the trustees for the young Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton, at the death of his father, the first duke, on 9 October.⁶²

Godolphin was present when Parliament met on 2 Oct. 1690 and a draft of the king’s speech in Godolphin’s hand is extant, giving credence to the claim of Charles Montagu*, the future earl of Halifax, that he was in great credit with the king.⁶³ On 6 Oct he acted as a teller in opposition to Monmouth on whether to desire the concurrence of the Commons in the address thanking the king for going in person to Ireland. Also on the 6th he voted against the motion that Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, and James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, should be discharged from their imprisonment as their impeachments had lapsed. This had significant implications for Carmarthen, who noted on his list apropos Godolphin that ‘his majesty knows best’, suggesting how he could be brought into line.⁶⁴ On 15 Nov. Godolphin returned to the treasury as first lord, ‘to all his friends’ wonder’: Edward Harley^‡ who wrote that ‘the restitution of the Lord Godolphin to the treasury gives occasion to many to hope for great changes at court’.⁶⁵ On 16 Dec. a newsletter reported that Godolphin and Prince George*, duke of Cumberland, had been added to the Cabinet Council.⁶⁶ On 23 Dec., William Penn was already speculating that the appointment of Henry Sydney as one of the secretaries of state would mean that ‘Godolphin and he will have great share’ in government ‘when King William is gone’.⁶⁷

On 11 Dec. 1690 Godolphin was named to draft two clauses to be added to the bill against the export of gold and silver. On 17 Dec. he was named to manage two conferences on the Lords’ amendments to the mutiny bill. On 3 Jan. 1691 he reported from the committee of the whole on the bill for encouraging the distilling of brandy and spirits from corn. On the last day of the session, 5 Jan., he was named to manage several conferences on the Lords’ amendments to the bill suspending part of the act of navigation, and was then named to a committee to draw up reasons for the Lords insisting on their proviso to the bill. He had attended on 48 days of the session, 66 per cent of the total, and been named to 23 committees. On 8 Jan. a newsletter reported that Godolphin was one of those named by the king to be the council for the administration of affairs during his absence.⁶⁸ During the past session he had encouraged the attacks made by Admiral Edward Russell*, the future earl of Orford, on Carmarthen. In February and March 1691 he tried to block Carmarthen’s pension on the Post Office.⁶⁹ The treasury’s refusal to pass the warrant provoked Carmarthen to lament ‘how few friends I have in the treasury’.⁷⁰

Having only just returned, following the end of the session, Godolphin evinced a desire to retire again from the treasury. The king asked Marlborough to persuade him to stay in office. On 2 Feb. 1691 Godolphin hoped that the king would ‘let me live the summer at least in the country; the occasion admits of no delay’, and on 3 Feb. Sydney affirmed that Godolphin wished to retire using his forthcoming marriage as an excuse, it not being ‘convenient for a man of business that is not very young to bring a wife near the court’.⁷¹ On 6 Feb. William III wrote from The Hague to assure Godolphin of his friendship and support: ‘I cannot convince myself that you desire to continue in this resolution [to quit] and that you have too much affection for me to abandon me at such a juncture’.⁷² In reply, on the 13th, Godolphin reiterated his request, adding ‘how long my natural temper and inclination will suffer me to remain in the retirement I propose to myself, I cannot be answerable for, till I have tried it’. On 24 Feb. Marlborough reported that Godolphin ‘continues very obstinate’ in his determination to resign and on 6 Mar. Sydney informed the king that Godolphin’s ‘quitting your service is now no secret’, and noted that ‘his proceedings in other places [than the treasury] are not with that zeal for your service, as might be expected from him; he scarce comes to council, and never to the committees upon the taking of several ill-affected persons, and at the examination of them he never was present’.⁷³ Not that Godolphin was short of complaints. On 13 Mar. he protested against Carmarthen’s pension being paid out of the Post Office, and ‘the finding of £16,000 towards’ the arrears of John Granville*, earl of Bath.⁷⁴ Nevertheless, he did not resign, and on 27 Apr. Penn thought ‘Godolphin is the man of sway, whether good or bad news.’⁷⁵ He was named as one of the council of nine to advise the queen during William’s absence on campaign.⁷⁶ When the death of William Jephson^‡ on 7 June 1691 left a vacancy as secretary of the treasury, James Vernon^‡ felt that although many people wished well to Charles Montagu, ‘I don’t see what they can contribute to it, unless they could engage my Lord Godolphin who in probability espouses Mr [Henry] Guy’s^‡ Interest’.⁷⁷ Guy was indeed appointed, and replaced at the customs’ board by Charles Godolphin^‡.⁷⁸ Montagu joined the treasury board in March 1692, and in later years the duchess of Marlborough credited Godolphin as the person ‘who first brought him into the treasury’.⁷⁹

In the summer of 1691 Godolphin was preparing to suggest that the financial difficulties of the government should be met by legislating for a general excise on domestic commodities, and at the beginning of July encouraged a scheme by Dr Charles Davenant^‡. He also asked permission to visit Tunbridge in eight or ten days.⁸⁰ This was granted and later in July he attended the Prince and Princess to Tunbridge, along with the countess of Marlborough.⁸¹ It was from Tunbridge that he wrote again to William on 10 Aug., that as ‘business in the treasury can be as readily, and as carefully, dispatched in my absence’, he wished to persist in his request to retire, especially as the waters at Tunbridge could not hope to free him from the distemper that troubled him.⁸² On 20 Aug. he insisted that the post of cashier to the customs was ‘of too great consequence to be given to anybody because they want a place, but ought to be filled with such a one as is best able to execute it’.⁸³ Back in Whitehall, on 8 Sept., he remarked to the king that ‘my health makes me anxious for leisure’.⁸⁴

Godolphin was present on the opening day of the session, 22 Oct. 1691 and there is an extant draft of the speech in his hand broadly similar to the one delivered by the king on that day.⁸⁵ On 10 Nov., a newsletter noted that Godolphin’s friends in the Commons had joined with those of Halifax and Rochester, and with Sir Edward Seymour^‡ and Sir Thomas Clarges^‡, to try to exclude Carmarthen from influence with the king.⁸⁶ Following a debate at the report stage of the bill regulating treason trials on 3 Dec., Godolphin was named to a committee to re-draft a clause concerning impeachments. Also on the 3rd he was named to a committee to draw up reasons for the Lords’ amendment to the bill abrogating the oath of supremacy in Ireland, and was named to manage the conference on the 5th. On 17 Dec. he was named to draw up reasons for insisting upon the Lords’ amendments to the bill regulating treason trials, chiefly the addition of a clause on peerage trials. On 30 Dec. he reported from the committee of the whole the Lords’ amendments to the bill granting an aid to the king.

Godolphin was one of those implicated by the Jacobite defector William Fuller’s testimony to the Commons on 9 Dec. 1691, but was exonerated on 24 Feb. 1692.⁸⁷ On 18 Dec. he intervened in the debate in committee of the whole on the report of the commissioners of accounts in order to explain why tallies were allowed before the receipt of money.⁸⁸ On 12 Jan. 1692 he entered his dissent to the decision to receive the divorce bill of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk. On 27 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to Cornwallis on the amendment of a clause at the report stage of the public accounts bill and on 2 Feb. he was named to a committee to draw up reasons for disagreeing with the Commons on the bill, and was named to manage the resultant conferences on 5, 8, 10 February. On 19 Feb. he reported from the committee of the whole on the bill for better ordering and collecting the duties upon low wines. On 20 Feb. he reported progress from the committee of the whole on the quarterly poll bill, and was named to a committee to consider expedients for the preservation of the privileges of the House in relation to the bill. He then reported from the committee of the whole on the bill on the 23rd. He had attended on 80 days of the session, 82 per cent of the total, and was named to a further 29 committees.

Following the dismissal of Marlborough from his posts on 20 Jan. 1692, Godolphin continued his avowed friendship with the disgraced man. Indeed, on 29 Jan., Princess Anne received a letter containing the postscript ‘it has been taken great notice of Lord Godolphin and Cherry Russell’s being at Lord Marlborough’s lodgings so late the night he was turned out.’⁸⁹ He was one of those who advised the countess of Marlborough to accompany the princess in her visits to the king and queen on 4 Feb., which precipitated the crisis which resulted in the princess abandoning the court for Sion House.⁹⁰ On 9 Feb. Marlborough registered his proxy with Godolphin, as did Francis Newport*, Viscount Newport, the future earl of Bradford, on 16 February.

Godolphin wrote to the king on 13 May 1692 that ‘among many other mortifications’, he had suffered ‘a very severe fit of the stone, which for some days made me unable to write or do anything’, so that ‘my ill health, as well as other reasons, make me desire to be at liberty’.⁹¹ On 21 June Nottingham noted that of the cabinet council, only Godolphin and Rochester defended the East India Company and did not endorse the advice to the king to proceed to frame a new charter to be offered to Parliament.⁹² On 28 June Godolphin asked for leave to travel into the country to ‘drink the waters’, although in the event he does not seem to have gone. He continued to socialize with Marlborough and on 12 July Sydney told the king that ‘Godolphin is angry upon my Lord Marlborough’s account’, and reported that ‘the Club … are framing some design that is not for your service; whether my Lord Godolphin be in it or no I cannot tell, but he has put off his journey to Tunbridge, which he was fond of a month ago and that gives me some suspicion’.⁹³ On the next day Godolphin told the king that ‘you will find Parliament very uneasy to pay a greater number of troops in Flanders, for they grumble too much already at the great sums of money that go out of England; they will never repine at any charge of invading France and with a fleet of their own’. A month later he advised the king that with the revenue falling short of its anticipated yield, and expenditure continuing to rise, there was a need for the king ‘to fix the day for the meeting of Parliament here and also for your own return upon which will depend all preparations which are requisite to that matter’.⁹⁴ In August Godolphin dined at Pontack’s with Marlborough, Shrewsbury, Russell and others.⁹⁵ By the end of August Godolphin was engaged in acquiring loans from the City to tide the government over until Parliament met, and also advising the king on the disposal of the posts vacant by the death of William Harbord^‡, which impinged on the efficient running of the treasury.⁹⁶

In the autumn of 1692 Carmarthen included Godolphin implicitly in his list of the government’s supporters, noting that the commissioners of the treasury were to ‘speak to all their friends and to attend diligently’.⁹⁷ It was reported that on 5 Sept. at Newport’s house at Twickenham ‘great preparations’ had been made for a dinner for Godolphin, Richard Jones^‡, earl of Ranelagh [I], Charles Beauclerk* 523], duke of St Albans, and ‘Lady Mazarin’, presumably the duchess of Mazarin.⁹⁸ It was perhaps a measure of Godolphin’s reliability and reputation for administrative competence that it was suggested in September that he might be appointed one of a commission to command the fleet, albeit in company with some experienced seamen, in an attempt to nullify the political consequences of the failure to capitalize on the victory at Beachy Head.⁹⁹ In early October he was rumoured to be in line for the vacant secretaryship.¹⁰⁰

Godolphin was not present when the Lords met on 4 Nov. 1692, attending the next sitting on 7 November. He was named to manage a conference on 20 Dec. to deliver to the Commons the papers brought in by Nottingham and to the resultant conference on 21 December. Following the report of this conference he was named on 22 Dec. to inspect the Journal in relation to free conferences and on 29 Dec. he was named to a committee to consider whether the resolution of the Commons, delivered to the Lords at a conference the 21st, was consistent with the usual procedure, and to consider of what was to be said at a free conference on the matter. He was named to manage the resultant conference on 4 Jan. 1693. On 21 Dec. 1692, following the report of the committee of privileges on the petition of the lord chief baron (the then Speaker of the Lords) concerning the auditing of the customs accounts, Godolphin was heard as to the transactions of the treasury in the case. On 31 Dec. he voted against committing the place bill.

At the turn of the year Godolphin was forecast as a likely opponent of the Norfolk divorce bill. On 3 Jan. 1693 he attended a private dinner with the king held at the house of William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, where Sunderland, among others, was present, an indication of the re-emergence of Sunderland as an adviser to the king.¹⁰¹ On 16 Jan. he reported from the committee of the whole on the land tax bill that a clause should be added on the self-assessment of peers and he was then deputed to draw one up. He produced it on the 17th. On 18 Jan. he was named to manage a conference with the Commons on the amendment, and on the following day he was named to a committee to consider what should be offered at the conference when the Lords receded from their amendment, and was named a manager of the resultant conference on the 20 January. Also on the 16th he was named to a committee to draw up a clause on the bill for triennial Parliaments. Meanwhile, also on 17 Jan., he acted as a teller twice on the claim to the earldom of Banbury, both times in opposition to John Egerton*, 3rd earl of Bridgwater: first in favour of hearing all the judges, and second on putting the question whether the petitioner had the right to the earldom. He entered his dissent on the outcome of both votes. On 24 Jan. he reported from committee of the whole House on the bill levying an excise on beer, ale and other liquors. Also on 24 and 25 Jan. he was named to manage conferences on Burnet’s King William and Queen Mary Conquerors, which had been adjudged libellous. On 4 Feb. he found Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder.¹⁰² On 9 Mar. Godolphin reported from the committee of the whole on the progress of the bill continuing the acts for prohibiting trade and commerce with France and encouraging privateers. On the following day Nottingham wrote to him asking him to be at the Lords ‘tomorrow by 10 or a little after’, so that ‘we might dispatch the bill of privateers, which his majesty desires to have finished as soon as possible’.¹⁰³ He reported the bill on the 11th, and it passed the House with amendments and was returned to the Commons. On 10 Mar. Godolphin reported from the committee of the whole on the bill to review the quarterly poll and he was named to report a conference on the duchy of Cornwall bill, and subsequently to a committee to draw up reasons for insisting on their amendment. He had attended on 88 days of the session, 86 per cent of the total, and been named to 21 committees.

In May 1693 Godolphin opposed a descent on France on financial grounds. On 19 May he wrote to the king that ‘I have been so unwell the last two or three days, that I am forced to go out of town for a little rest and air, but hope to be back again the beginning of the week to receive your commands’.¹⁰⁴ On 4 July Godolphin was out of town at Windsor, but expected the next day.¹⁰⁵ Once back in London, he had to deal with the news of the losses suffered by the Smyrna fleet. ‘The consternation [is] so great in the City at present’, he wrote to the king, ‘that it is impossible to hope for any money from thence’.¹⁰⁶ Part of the summer was spent in political discussion, one meeting at Althorp in August causing much comment. Godolphin’s presence was noted among a varying cast of ‘great men’, including Shrewsbury, Rochester, Marlborough, Wharton, Montagu, and Russell. Halifax was told on 29 Aug. that ‘every politick is making his own reflection about it’, one of the more interesting being that Godolphin would be lord treasurer in a scheme of alterations for the ministry.¹⁰⁷ Not that Godolphin confined his attention to Althorp: according to information from Richard Hampden^‡ on 26 Aug. Godolphin, Marlborough and Russell went on from Sunderland’s house to Montagu’s at Boughton, en route for Wharton’s abode in Buckinghamshire.¹⁰⁸

Godolphin attended on the opening day of the 1693-4 session, 7 Nov. 1693. On 24 Nov. Godolphin brought into the House the observations of the treasury upon the report of the commissioners for public accounts, which were read and a copy sent to the commissioners. On 11 Jan. 1694, after the House had debated the intelligence failures that were the cause of the Smyrna convoy disaster, Rochester and Godolphin were deputed to ask the king to allow the ‘lords of the council’ to provide an account of when the intelligence of the sailing of the Brest fleet was sent to the English fleet. On 15 Jan. Godolphin and other members of the cabinet had to explain that they had assumed that the intelligence presented to them by Nottingham had been conveyed to the fleet by Secretary Sir John Trenchard^‡.¹⁰⁹ Godolphin reported from committee of the whole on 24 Jan. on the land tax bill, and on 5 Feb. on the million bill. On 8 and 12 Feb. he was named to manage conferences on the intelligence that had been received about the sailing of the Brest fleet. Also on 8 Feb. he was one of five peers deputed to draw up the reprimand of the judges for not attending the House.¹¹⁰ On 17 Feb. he voted in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the cause of Montagu v. Bath, and entered his dissent to the decision to dismiss the Montagus’ petition and to affirm the judgment. On 24 Feb. he entered his dissent to the order dismissing another petition from Montagu. He reported from the committee of the whole on the tonnage bill (23 Apr.) and the paper duties bill and the bill licensing hackney coaches (24 April). In all, he had attended on 99 days of the session, 77 per cent of the total, and was named to 12 committees. In May Godolophin was made a trustee when Marlborough executed the deed which transferred the estate of the mother of the countess of Marlborough to her sole use.¹¹¹

Before the king left England, he designated Godolphin as one of the ‘cabinet council’ to the queen, though he may have been irritated to have been excluded from the small committee of council charged with advising the queen, which he was not summoned to attend until late in the summer.¹¹² During the spring and summer Godolphin had to grapple with the details of the establishment of the Bank of England, the ‘thing being new in itself and against the interests of many particular persons, meets with great opposition; and besides the Act of Parliament was made in such haste, as that several parts of it are defective, and have not been so well considered as they ought to have been’.¹¹³ Narcissus Luttrell^‡ specifically records him coming to town to a treasury meeting on 14 May to agree on a method of settling the Bank.¹¹⁴ In June he was preoccupied with the details of the subscription for the Bank, reportedly advancing £7,000 himself towards it.¹¹⁵ A printed list confirmed that he had subscribed over £4,000, sufficient to qualify for election as a governor.¹¹⁶

Godolphin was also annoyed by the purges planned in the revenue departments by the Whig ministers. On 28 May 1694 Sunderland told Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, that ‘there is but small progress made in the business of the commissions and the justices, the first will go on as slowly as [Lord Godolphin] can make it, who by the way has been mistaken in everything and is very much out of humour’.¹¹⁷ In June Godolphin met with Trenchard, Sir John Somers*, the future Baron Somers, and Shrewsbury to consider the composition of the commissions of customs and excise. Godolphin made clear his opposition to ‘removing some men that are of one party and gratifying some that are of another,’ without reference to their qualifications and ability to do the job. In particular he defended Sir John Werden^‡, a commissioner of the customs, from accusations of corruption and employing subordinates disaffected to the government, treating his omission as a great surprise and ‘a greater mortification to me, tho’ of late I am pretty well used to them’.¹¹⁸

Nevertheless, by July Godolphin was impressed with two of ‘our new brethren at the treasury’, John Smith^‡ and Sir William Trumbull^‡, who ‘are in a very different temper from those we parted with’, Hampden and Seymour, ‘for these love dispatch in business as well as the others did trifling, so that if we had wherewithal to work upon, I should flatter myself you would be satisfied with our endeavour, but it is hard to make bricks without straw’.¹¹⁹ August saw the usual political meetings, centred around Althorp. Marlborough and Godolphin intended to meet Wharton there on the 14th where ‘some suspect there is a project to reconcile Sunderland and Lord Rochester’.¹²⁰ In late August Shrewsbury and Godolphin had approached Robert Harley*, the future earl of Oxford, and Paul Foley^‡ in an attempt to ‘prevent miscarriages in Parliament, especially relating to excises’.¹²¹ In mid-September, Godolphin reported to the king that he had discussed with Thomas Coningsby^†, the future Baron Coningsby, ‘very fully all my notions concerning the money to be raised for next year, and of the funds which I think are most proper, if they can be obtained; so that I need not give you any trouble in repeating the particulars’.¹²²

Godolphin attended the prorogation on 18 Sept. 1694 and the opening day of the 1694-5 session, 12 November. On 21 Jan. 1695 he acted as a teller twice in the committee of the whole on the treason trials bill, both times in opposition to Richard Lumley*, earl of Scarbrough, on the rights of peers to be summoned to trials.¹²³ On 16 Feb. he was named as a reporter at a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the bill; on 20 Feb. he was named to a committee to draw up reasons for adhering to some of their amendments and on 23 Feb. he was a manager of the resultant conference, as he was again on 15 and 20 April. On 25 Jan. the Lords considered the state of the nation: one of the subjects of contention was ‘the ruin of trade that was threatened by the Bank’, which ‘was defended by my lord president [Leeds] and Lord Godolphin and a question at last being put whither they should appoint a day to consider further of it. It was carried in the negative by 10 voices’.¹²⁴ According to one report Godolphin also defended the government’s naval strategy by comparing it favourably with the problems experienced under Nottingham’s secretaryship.¹²⁵ On 6 Feb. Godolphin reported from committee of the whole House on papers delivered by the officers of the Mint and goldsmiths during the discussion of ways to prevent clipping and debasing of money. He was then named to the committee charged with drafting a bill to prevent the exportation of money. On 9 Feb. he reported from the committee of the whole House on the land tax bill. On 19 Mar. John Verney^‡ reported to Christopher Hatton*, Viscount Hatton, on the House’s consideration of the case of Richard Verney*, who would eventually become 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke, that after the House had agreed that in the complicated circumstances matching those of Verney’s case there was a right to a summons to Parliament, effectively reversing the previous decision to which the House had come on 10 Jan., ‘Godolphin moved that the vote in Sir R. Verney’s case might be withdrawn that the votes might agree which he thought the house was in honour obliged to’, though no decision was reached on his motion.¹²⁶

Godolphin attended on the day the House adjourned for Easter on 21 Mar. 1695, and on the first day after the recess (27 Mar.), but then there was a gap in his attendance until 8 Apr., when he was presumably taking a break at Newmarket. On 13 Apr. he was named to report a conference concerning papers to be delivered by the Commons about Sir Thomas Cooke^‡, who was at the centre of allegations concerning the misappropriation of East India Company funds. On 16 Apr. he was named to draft a bill indemnifying Cooke for any discoveries he might make. On 17 Apr. he was named to draw up reasons for a conference on the Commons’ bill to oblige Cooke to account for money received from the East India Company, and also to manage the resultant conference. On 22 Apr. he was elected in equal last place (with 26 votes) to the joint committee appointed under the act to examine Cooke.¹²⁷ He was named on 24 Apr. to a conference on the examination of Cooke. He was then named to a committee to join with Members in taking the examinations of others involved in the scandal. On 2 May he was named to draw up reasons for a conference on the amendments to Cooke’s bill. On 29 Apr. he was named to draw up reasons for a conference over the bill prohibiting trade with France and encouraging privateers, and was named on 1 May to manage the resultant conference. On 3 May he was named to a conference on the impeachment of Leeds. Also on 3 May he reported from the committee of the whole on the bill levying duties on glassware. He had attended on 99 days of the session, 83 per cent of the total, and was nominated to 23 committees.

On 5 May 1695 Godolphin attended the first meeting of the commissioners for building Greenwich Hospital, being the ‘very first of the subscribers who paid any money towards this noble fabric’.¹²⁸ Following his appointment to the regency in May, the Dutch agent L’Hermitage characterized Godolphin as a trimmer. On 14 May he reported that Godolphin and William Cavendish*, duke of Devonshire, had gone to Newmarket to attend the horse races, returning on the 17th.¹²⁹ At the end of May Godolphin, Sunderland and the new Speaker, Paul Foley^‡, agreed to meet to discuss public affairs, particularly the parlous state of the public finances.¹³⁰ By the autumn the silver coinage had deteriorated so badly that it was having a serious effect on the supply of the army in Flanders. In the discussions that ensued, Godolphin appeared to favour coupling a recoinage with a devaluation. In the event, the scheme proposed by William Lowndes^‡ and backed by Godolphin was rejected, though Lowndes was more successful in preventing action being taken by proclamation, rather than by Parliament.¹³¹

The Parliament of 1695

According to Harley, on 20 Aug. 1695 all the lords justices ‘who can write, have written for a new Parliament or at least their opinion, except Lord Godolphin’.¹³² Godolphin outlined his own anxieties to William Blathwayt^‡ on 23 Aug.: ‘God send a good issue of the siege of Namur’, he wrote, ‘for without it, we are more ruined here at home, than abroad’. Victory would create ‘a will to struggle and do all that is in our power to overcome’ any difficulties: ‘one of the greatest … next winter will be the exportation of so much money, as is required for the support of the army and the allies.’¹³³ Godolphin was expected to go with the king on his progress to Newmarket on 17 Oct., and thence to Althorp and Nottingham, and he was absent from the treasury board on 23 Oct. and 1 November.¹³⁴

Godolphin attended on the opening day of the new Parliament, 22 Nov. 1695, and was described as one of the ‘lords of the council who met about the king’s speech’, which was delivered on the following day. The speech asked Parliament to take action on the coinage.¹³⁵ On 3 Dec. he spoke in the debate in the committee of the whole House on the state of the nation in favour of hearing evidence of the pernicious effect of the establishment of the Scottish East India Company. On 13 Dec. he was named to a committee to amend an address against it, and was then named to manage the subsequent conference. On 4 Dec., in the debate in the committee of the whole House on the state of the coin, Godolphin seconded the motion of Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, for an address against importing English coin. He emphasized the need for regulating the coinage: ‘peace in the nation cannot be preserved without it’. After a further intervention, he was named to draw up an address on the ill state of the coinage, and was named on 5 Dec. to manage the resultant conference on a joint address.¹³⁶ On 27 Dec. the Lords gave a first reading to the bill regulating the silver coinage, Godolphin speaking ‘against several parts of it’.¹³⁷ Following the second reading on 30 Dec. he was named to a committee to amend a clause in the bill, which was given the task of amending further clauses on 31 Dec. and 1 Jan. 1696. On 2 Jan. Godolphin played a leading role when the Lords extensively amended the Commons’ bill, and on 3 Jan. he was one of those given the task of drawing up reasons for a conference on the amendments. Subsequently, this committee managed the conferences on 3 and 7 January. On the 9th he was named to a committee to prepare reasons for a further conference, especially the Commons’ denial to the Lords a right of inflicting pecuniary penalties, and he was named the following day to manage the conference itself. Refusing to accept the interference of the Lords in what they considered to be a money bill, the Commons abandoned the bill and started afresh, with the new bill passing into law in January.¹³⁸ Godolphin reported this bill from the committee of the whole on 18 January.

On 28 Jan. 1696 Godolphin acted as a teller in a division on the East India Company bill in the committee of the whole House in opposition to Cornwallis, in favour of a motion that the trade should be carried on by a joint-stock company by act of Parliament.¹³⁹ On 24 Feb. he was named to draw up an address following the king’s speech informing Parliament of the Assassination Plot, and to manage the subsequent conference. The Plot may well have been a key event in turning Godolphin away from Jacobitism.¹⁴⁰ He signed the Association on 27 February. On 6 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole House on the bill for continuing several duties on wine, vinegar, tobacco and East India goods. On 31 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole House on the bill granting a duty on houses to make good the deficiencies in clipped money, and on the bill to encourage bringing plate into the Mint. Godolphin did not attend between 31 Mar. and 8 Apr., and was absent from the treasury board on 3 Apr., so he was presumably taking his usual trip to Newmarket.¹⁴¹ On 14 Apr. he was named to draw up reasons to be offered at a conference for the Lords insisting on some of their amendments to the bill continuing the acts prohibiting trade and commerce with France. Godolphin last attended on 23 Apr., having been present on 99 days of the session, 80 per cent of the total, and been named to 28 committees.

When discussing the regents, on 1 May 1696, L’Hermitage characterized them as all Whigs, except Pembroke and Godolphin, whose views were ‘beyond the ability of the most penetrating to discern’.¹⁴² Questions of public credit and war finance dominated Godolphin’s summer, as did the viability of the land bank. The treasury and lord justices refused to allow the land bank commissioners to raise part of the subscription in clipped money. Godolphin opined on 22 May that some people were ‘not as uneasy as I am’ about the failure of the subscription and that some had been ‘full of objections and difficulties’. His main concern was to ensure that the troops were paid, and therefore he was inclined to be more conciliatory than most of his treasury colleagues. Frantic negotiations continued involving Godolphin and in the end the army was supplied by the Bank of England.¹⁴³ On 1 Sept. Godolphin wrote to Wharton that he ‘was in great hopes of being able to wait on you the 9th of this month’, seemingly for some horse racing, and on the 13th Wharton referred to Godolphin and Marlborough having recently left for Althorp.¹⁴⁴ Godolphin left London for Newmarket on 26 Sept., where he was on 29 September.¹⁴⁵

Meanwhile, Sir John Fenwick^‡, who had been arrested in June 1696 for his part in the Assassination Plot, had made several discoveries under interrogation in early August, which implicated Godolphin among others. Although the king professed to discount his allegations, Fenwick made a fresh confession on 23 Sept., again accusing Godolphin. With the town awash with speculation, another of those allegedly implicated, Monmouth, reacted by spreading rumours about Shrewsbury, Russell and, especially Godolphin.¹⁴⁶ By the end of October Sunderland had been ‘engaged again in the old business of removing my Lord G[odolphin]’ in order to protect Shrewsbury and Russell if Monmouth was able to entice the Whigs to use Fenwick against Godolphin. Sunderland’s tidy solution was to manoeuvre Godolphin into offering his resignation as a mere gesture, but to ensure that the king accepted it. Thus, Godolphin was ‘directly tricked in this matter, and has suffered himself to be cozened into an offer to lay down, and is surprised in having his offer accepted’ into quitting on 31 October.¹⁴⁷ His resignation surprised Edmund Gibson^†, the future bishop of London, who wrote on 3 Nov. that ‘all people are amazed at my Lord Godolphin’s laying down’, adding that ‘it seems my Lord has been for resigning any time this twelve month and has endeavoured it five or six times.’¹⁴⁸ L’Hermitage confirmed that, as in the previous year, Godolphin had asked the king’s leave to resign, and this time after enumerating the indispositions which prevented him from carrying out his duties the king had agreed. Despite his great abilities, his having been chamberlain to Queen Mary, plus his adroit manner, had led to his loyalty being suspected.¹⁴⁹ To Vernon, perhaps closer to the action, his resignation was ‘no very great surprise to people, they having been prepared for it by what has been talked of this day or two’.¹⁵⁰ By 10 Nov. Wharton thought Godolphin ‘sensible now that he was not very well advised in it; and I am apt to think there never was more management than in bringing that about’.¹⁵¹

Godolphin had not been present on the opening day of the 1696-7 session, 20 Oct., first attending on the 26th. After his resignation, he went to Windsor, and was absent until 23 Nov., the date upon which he had been ordered to attend at a call of the House on 14 November.¹⁵² On 4 Dec. he was one of seven peers named to mediate in the dispute between Normanby and Devonshire over the purchase of Berkeley House, a report being made of their recommendations on the 9th.¹⁵³ Meanwhile, it had been decided to proceed against Fenwick by a bill of attainder. When Fenwick appeared before the Commons on 17 Nov., he was ‘told by the Speaker that the House commanded him to ask me some questions of what I knew of any peers of this realm who had acted anything against the government in particular what I knew of my Lord Godolphin’.¹⁵⁴ Vernon noted that Hugh Boscawen^‡ (Godolphin’s brother-in-law) ‘first moved for my Lord Godolphin [to be heard at the Bar] and prevented my Lord Coningsby, but they altered the method of the questions, and took a better’, so Godolphin was not summoned.¹⁵⁵ On 1 Dec., at the first reading stage of Fenwick’s attainder bill in the Lords, L’Hermitage reported that Godolphin spoke to justify himself, accepting that he had been one of the last people to abandon King James, but had abandoned him when he recognized that service to him was not in accordance with the interests of his country and of his religion.¹⁵⁶ On 8 Dec. Godolphin, along with other peers, questioned whether an attainder bill was the correct method of proceeding, though the House agreed to address the issue after the evidence had been heard.¹⁵⁷ On 23 Dec. Godolphin voted against the passage of the bill. He entered his dissent against it, one of 12 peers objecting to it on the narrow grounds that ‘bills of attainder against persons in prison, and who are therefore liable to be tried by law, are of dangerous consequence to the lives of the subjects, and, as we conceive, may tend to the subversion of the laws of this kingdom’.To Vernon this vote was ‘less wondered at’ than some others ‘since it was consistent with his vote against the second reading’ on 18 December.¹⁵⁸

Meanwhile, Monmouth’s intrigues had been exposed by Fenwick’s relatives and he was called to account for his actions. Monmouth had suggested to Fenwick a series of ways he might help to defend himself by publicizing his allegations, and that he should request that the king be asked to lay before the House the letters from the late king and queen, and others in France, intended for Godolphin, which had come into his possession, as well as evidence against Marlborough and Shrewsbury and others. The aim was to charge Godolphin ‘with a correspondence with the late queen, and to prove it, the earls of Portland and Romney were to be examined what they knew of intercepted letters, that had been shown to the king’. Papers in which Monmouth’s scheme was discussed were read out in the House on 9 Jan. 1697. Marlborough and Godolphin spoke on behalf of themselves and of Shrewsbury. On 12 Jan. Godolphin defended Shrewsbury again when Monmouth’s associate, Matthew Smith, attended the House and spoke about how he had first revealed evidence of a plot to Shrewsbury the previous February. Godolphin defended Shrewsbury’s conduct and Smith himself denied knowing anything incriminating against Godolphin when questioned by the House.¹⁵⁹ Following further examinations, and a debate in which Godolphin joined Leeds, Rochester, Nottingham and Marlborough in arguing that Monmouth was ‘the contriver of those papers, and the judgment of the House ought to be formed accordingly’, it was resolved that Monmouth be committed to the Tower.¹⁶⁰ Godolphin was then named to the committee to draw up a representation to the king on their resolution. As Godolphin wrote to Shrewsbury on 16 Jan. ‘it would be endless to repeat to you all the idle and frivolous impertinences as well as the strange and extravagant madnesses and contradictions which we have heard upon this occasion’.¹⁶¹ On 22 Jan. he was named to draw up an address to the king for a reprieve of one week for Fenwick.

On 10 Feb. 1697 Godolphin and Rochester raised their concerns about the ineffective protection of shipping. Vernon believed that ‘something … like to what the House of Commons were framing last year’ was intended.¹⁶² On 19 Feb. St Albans registered his proxy with Godolphin. On 20 Feb. Godolphin acted as a teller in opposition to Wharton in the committee of the whole on the bill prohibiting Indian silks; on 5 Mar. he was named to a conference on the same bill and on the 9th to a committee to draw up reasons for insisting on the Lords’ amendments. Presumably he was a manager of the conference on 13 March. On 8 Mar., both Charles Lennox*, duke of Richmond, and Charles Seymour*, duke of Somerset, registered their proxies with Godolphin. On 10 Mar. Godolphin reported from committee of the whole House a bill concerning partition of land. After 27 Mar., he attended once only, on 14 Apr., before the end of the session on 16 Apr., doubtless taking advantage of his lack of official duties to spend longer than usual at Newmarket. He had attended on 79 days of the session, 69 per cent of the total, being named to 24 committees.

Godolphin spent the early summer of 1697 with the Marlboroughs at St Albans.¹⁶³ From there in late June he was picked up by Sunderland on his way to Althorp from London.¹⁶⁴ Godolphin then joined the Marlboroughs and Princess Anne at Tunbridge in July. Tunbridge was a convenient place for politicking: on 31 July the company staying with Philip Sydney*, 3rd earl of Leicester, at Penshurst – Sunderland, Romney, Coningsby and Lord Edward Russell – came to dine with Marlborough, and on the following day Godolphin, Marlborough and George Churchill^‡ made a return visit to dine at Penshurst.¹⁶⁵ On 2 Nov. a newsletter recorded that ‘it is confidently said my Lord Rochester, Godolphin and Marlborough are reconciled, and some people are to be engaged by honours to be done to the family at St James’s’.¹⁶⁶ Godolphin was at St Albans again on 8 November.¹⁶⁷

Godolphin first attended the 1697-8 session on 6 December. On 30 Dec. John Methuen^‡ wrote to Galway that Godolphin approved of his conduct in Ireland, and that this would be passed on to the king, ‘with whom my Lord Godolphin is very well, although not like as yet to be employed.’¹⁶⁸ On 13 Jan. 1698 Godolphin was named to manage a conference on the bill for continuing the imprisonment of Counter and others for their role in the Assassination Plot. On 3 Mar., in the second reading debate on the bill punishing Charles Duncombe^‡ for false endorsement of exchequer bills, Godolphin, Normanby and some others argued ‘for retaining the bill, tho’ they did not think they should be for it as it was drawn’.¹⁶⁹ On 5 Mar. Godolphin was named to a committee to prepare for a conference on Duncombe, and also to manage the conferences on 7 and 11 March. On 8 Mar., a newsletter reported that Duncombe’s bill’s was likely to be thrown out, with Godolphin ‘and a great many other speaking peers’ against it, though when Robert Yard^‡ reported that Duncombe’s bill had been lost by one vote, he noted Godolphin’s support for it and Godolphin’s name appeared on a list of those in favour of committing the bill.¹⁷⁰ On 17 Mar. Godolphin entered his dissent to the resolution that the appellant should enjoy Cary’s estate for the life of Mrs Bertie in the cause of Bertie v. Falkland. On 24 Mar. he was named to a conference on the attendance of James Bertie^‡ on the matter of a libel in the case.

After 2 Apr. 1698, the day on which a bill to overturn the will of Sir William Godolphin’s passed the House, he attended the king to Newmarket, the party arriving on 4 April.¹⁷¹ During the king’s stay, ‘a new scheme of ministry [was] discoursed of; if the duke of Shrewsbury takes the stick, as it is believed he will do, Lord Godolphin shall come into the treasury again, and Mr Chancellor [Montagu], be made secretary of state’.¹⁷² Godolphin returned from Newmarket to London on 16 Apr., having also played host to Shrewsbury in his house there.¹⁷³ That Godolphin remained close to royal counsels was revealed by Methuen on 16 Apr. when he told Galway that the king would go on 19 Apr. to Windsor, where Shrewsbury intended to meet him and that ‘as soon as my Lord Godolphin is come I shall know all that hath passed between the king and my Lord Shrewsbury and how far my Lord D[uke] will himself meddle with business’ as Godolphin had ‘promised me to speak effectually to my Lord Shrewsbury for that purpose.’¹⁷⁴

Following his return to London, Godolphin on 18 Apr. 1698 settled Pell Mell Fields (later St James’s Market House and Market Place) on his son as part of his marriage settlement with Lady Henrietta Churchill.¹⁷⁵ He was next present in the Lords on 19 and 20 April. On 6 May Methuen wrote that ‘we have been much frightened about the woollen bill, but I have at last engaged’ Godolphin, Rochester and Marlborough ‘to secure it for this session and they kept their words, and have put it off a week in such manner that I hope we shall certainly gain our point’.¹⁷⁶ On 10 May Godolphin was named to manage a conference on the amendments to the bill for erecting hospitals and workhouses in Colchester. On 17 May he wrote to John Lowther*, Viscount Lonsdale, that ‘there’s a great project depending before the House of Commons at present which I find people are willing to flatter themselves may shorten the sessions, but I must own myself not sanguine enough to expect the public will have any great advantage by it’.¹⁷⁷ On 24 May he was named to manage a conference on the bill for the more effectual suppression of blasphemy. On 31 May Methuen wrote to Galway that Godolphin had been out of town, evidently on a visit to Sunderland at Althorp.¹⁷⁸

In the summer of 1698 ‘the unfortunate book of Mr Molineux’s’ (as Methuen called it in a letter to Galway), The Case of Ireland’s being bound by Acts of Parliament, addressed the issue of England’s right to legislate on Irish matters, raised in particular by a bill that had passed the Commons to restrict Irish woollen exports. Godolphin helped to reduce the impact of Molyneux’s publication on the delicate issue, arranging for Methuen to show Rochester and others ‘a new draught of the linen bill’, and ‘instructed them’, as a result of which on 3 June, ‘upon a long debate the bill is openly and fairly laid aside for this session, declaring that if they in Ireland do not settle the matter before the next session it shall be again begun there’.¹⁷⁹ On 7 June, Vernon reported on the introduction of the bill for raising £2m, which included the incorporation of the new East India Company, adding that he believed Godolphin and Marlborough had ‘mediated’ an accommodation between the old company and the new subscribers, which if it succeeded would facilitate raising the money ‘with greater certainty and much less clamour’.¹⁸⁰ This may not have been the case, however, for on 1 July Godolphin entered his protest against the bill’s second reading. On 15 June Godolphin was named to manage a conference about the trial of John Goudet, and was again on the 20th, adding to Rochester’s report from the conference on the 22nd.¹⁸¹ On 22 June he was named to a committee to examine what had been usually the method of proceedings between the two Houses after a free conference and to manage conferences on Goudet’s impeachment on 28 June and 2 July. He reported from the latter. On 20 June he was named to manage a conference on the bill for Alverstoke waterworks. On 28 June Godolphin reported from the committee of the whole on the bill to abolish ‘smoak silver’ and other payments at ‘the sheriffs’ tourne’.

In May and June 1698 Godolphin helped to promote the Aire and Calder navigation bill. He wrote to the absent Lonsdale on 17 May, promising ‘to attend very carefully the bill your Lordship was pleased to mention. Some of the northern lords in our house seem to think it against their particular interest but surely the making a river navigable in any country has a face of being for the good of the public’?¹⁸² On 2 June he reported that ‘we committed the bill yesterday and the majority is for it’; however, Somerset, Normanby, Peterborough and Scarbrough among others, ‘think they have an interest against it, but I think you may depend the bill will pass in this sessions or the next’.¹⁸³ On 30 June George Compton*, 4th earl of Northampton, registered his proxy with Godolphin, just a few days before the end of the session, and just before the second reading of the East India bill. Godolphin had sat on 102 days during the session, 80 per cent of the total, and was named to 38 committees.

The Parliament of 1698

In late August 1698, Godolphin and Marlborough visited Wharton at Winchendon for Quainton races.¹⁸⁴ By the end of October Godolphin was at Newmarket.¹⁸⁵ At the turn of the year, Godolphin was seen by the countess of Sunderland as an essential mediator in the marriage negotiations between the Spencer and Churchill families which led to the marriage of Charles Spencer*, the future 3rd earl of Sunderland, and Lady Anne Churchill.¹⁸⁶ Godolphin was present when the new Parliament opened on 6 Dec. 1698. On 3 Jan. 1699 both Edward Harley and Vernon reported rumours that he had been made secretary. Vernon noted that the Whig party seemed ‘mightily alarmed’ at the news, and questioned ‘whether he be of a humour to accept it, especially as our present circumstances are’.¹⁸⁷ On 27 Jan. Godolphin was named to manage a conference on the amendments to the bill to prohibit the exportation of corn for one year. Around this date he told Lonsdale that the disbanding bill had been committed in the Lords and that ‘I believe it will pass, not but that the force maintained by it is generally thought too small, but that so great a division and distraction as the loss of that bill would have proved of worse consequence, and harder to be retrieved again’.¹⁸⁸ It may have been in this debate that Normanby reflected on Godolphin, accusing him of acting for private ends, only for Godolphin to tell him ‘that those who live in glass-houses, should not be the first to throw stones’.’¹⁸⁹ On 20 Mar. he advised John Evelyn to come to an agreement with his brother, George, and thus avoid the need for the bill which was currently before the Lords, and which lapsed before counsel were heard on it.¹⁹⁰ On 29 Apr. Godolphin was named to manage a conference on the amendments to the Legg naturalization bill. On 3 May he was named to a conference on the bill levying a duty on paper. He had attended on 62 days of the session, 76 per cent of the total, being named to 27 committees.

Godolphin was present at the opening of the 1699-1700 session, 16 November. On 7 Dec. Godolphin wrote to Harley returning a book, and also making a reference to the proceedings against Thomas Watson*, bishop of St Davids, the Lords on the 6th having voted that the bishop should not be allowed his privilege. Godolphin wrote that ‘the strength of the argument in the matter relating to the archbishop’s power of depriving a bishop, seemed to me to be of one side, but it must be owned the strength of votes was much greater against us’.¹⁹¹ On 15 Dec., Godolphin was one of the friends of Shrewsbury who supported the motion that Matthew Smith’s Remarks on the D - of S -- ‘s Letter sent to the House of Lords was ‘scandalous, false, injurious to their House’ and to Shrewsbury, and should be burnt.¹⁹²

When Peterborough took notice on 10 Jan. 1700 of the Darien scheme and raised the prospect of Union, ‘the gravest men’, such as Godolphin ‘were for setting apart another day to consider the business’, which was appointed for 16 January. On A month later, on 16 Feb., Vernon wrote to Shrewsbury, ‘I find there are as great jealousies of my Lord Sunderland as ever, which my Lord Marlborough and Lord Godolphin are involved in’.¹⁹³ On 23 Feb. Godolphin was appointed to draw up heads to be offered at a conference on the delivery of the bill authorizing commissioners to treat for a Union with Scotland. He chaired the committee, and reported from it on 28 February.¹⁹⁴ About the same month he was forecast as likely to support the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation. On 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning to allow the House to go into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments to the bill. On 12 Mar. he entered his dissent to the passage of Norfolk’s divorce bill. He last sat this session on 25 Mar., having attended on 51 days of the session, 65 per cent of the total, and been named to 24 committees.

The illness and death of the lord privy seal Lord Lonsdale in July 1700 provoked speculation of a return to government for Godolphin as part of a revamped ministry.A return to the treasury was blocked by his refusal to serve under the first lord, Ford Grey*, earl of Tankerville.¹⁹⁵ Other offices, such as the secretaryship, did not seem to interest Godolphin and the king wanted Godolphin at the treasury.¹⁹⁶ On 16 Aug. Edward Villiers*, earl of Jersey, informed Marlborough that the king had not altered his view, but that what he had been told about Rochester would ‘persuade my Lord Godolphin to submit to the trouble of the treasury, but nothing will be said to him of it till I hear that you have made him easy in this affair which certainly will be very much for the king’s service’.¹⁹⁷ This seemed to refer to a quarrel between Godolphin and Rochester, patched up early in September. Henry Guy served as an intermediary between Harley, Godolphin, Rochester and Sunderland as they discussed a ministerial reshuffle.¹⁹⁸ A solution was found to the problem of the treasury commission by moving Tankerville to be lord privy seal. On 12 Sept. Jersey wrote that Godolphin was ‘to come into the treasury, but not till the king returns; he desires that the vacancy may be in the treasury some little time before he goes in, which is the reason that the privy seal is given to my Lord Tankerville’.¹⁹⁹

Godolphin was expected to be in town on 14 Oct. 1700, preparatory to discussion with his political allies, in readiness for the king’s return and the sitting of Parliament. He was supposed to meet Rochester on the 15th, before they met Harley together.²⁰⁰ On 29 Oct. L’Hermitage reported that, following William III’s return to England, Tankerville had been made lord privy seal. This prompted a belief that Godolphin would succeed him as first lord of the treasury.²⁰¹ However, nothing happened: on 6 Nov. Trumbull was informed that the ‘report continues of my Lord Godolphin’s succeeding my Lord Tankerville in the treasury.’²⁰² When the council met on 14 Nov., it was decided that Parliament should be further prorogued until 21 Jan. 1701. To James Lowther^‡, ‘it was looked upon as pretty certain a fortnight ago’ that Godolphin would return to the treasury and the ‘warrant was accordingly prepared for the king to sign, but this matter is not yet determined. Whatever the meaning of it, it makes people think he has no mind to come in alone’.²⁰³

Meanwhile, Godolphin, Harley and Rochester continued to meet with each other, and with the king, to hammer out further details of the new ministry.²⁰⁴ On 15 Nov. Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, thought that since the end of the last session there had been

a beginning with a Tory ministry and an essay made of this kind by first throwing out the chancellor [Somers] and afterwards others. Now since this Lord Godolphin … Lord Rochester and the rest of that party have been esteemed the undertakers and to be the managers in a new Parliament chosen by their interest.²⁰⁵

On 24 Nov. Godolphin sent Harley a letter from Rochester arranging a meeting for the 26th. There was another request for a meeting on an unnamed Sunday, for the three of them to meet the king at eight in the evening.²⁰⁶ Godolphin seems to have helped Harley’s accession to the Speakership, sounding out Sir Edward Seymour and proposing Harley to him; Seymour did indeed nominate Harley to be Speaker.²⁰⁷ Although Tankerville received the privy seal on 5 Nov. Godolphin was not sworn into the cabinet until 1 Dec. and a few days later first lord of the treasury. Parliament was dissolved on 19 December. One reason for the delay may have been Godolphin’s insistence that the king should accept the will of Carlos II and recognize Louis XIV’s grandson, the duke of Anjou, as king of Spain, arguing that the new monarch would soon become a ‘Spaniard’.²⁰⁸

The two Parliaments of 1701

Before the new Parliament met, Guy expected Godolphin in London on 15 Jan. 1701, from where both Godolphin and Rochester urged Harley to attend to make arrangements in readiness for the new Parliament.²⁰⁹ On 3 Feb. 1701 Godolphin and the other treasury commissioners took the oaths of office in Chancery.²¹⁰ Godolphin was present on 10 Feb. when the new Parliament opened, and supported a ‘tepid’ address in response to the king’s speech of 11 February.²¹¹ On 14 Mar., both Godolphin and Rochester mildly criticized the partition treaty of 1700 and the king’s failure to take proper advice on it.²¹² Godolphin was then named to the committee to draw up an address on the treaty. During these discussions on 18 Mar. he opposed an addition proffered by Wharton, and he duly dissented from the resolution which declared that the French king’s acceptance of the Spanish king’s will was a manifest breach of the treaty.²¹³ At the end of March Godolphin transmitted to Harley the contents of a letter from the English ambassador in The Hague, which outlined on the French response to Dutch security concerns and the Dutch decision to invoke their 1677 treaty with England. Godolphin told him that it ought to be ‘forthwith communicated to the House of Commons’, helpfully providing the lines of a proposed address to the king.²¹⁴ Sir Charles Hedges^‡ presented the information to the Commons on 31 Mar., and the Commons on 2 Apr. advised the king to continue the negotiations on the basis of the 1677 treaties, and resolved in the committee of supply to enable him to do so.

Godolphin was consistent in his support for the impeachment of the Whig Lords. He made a series of protests and dissents against decisions limiting the impeachment: on 3 June 1701 he dissented from a resolution insisting on the right of the Lords to limit the time for bringing the charges before them; on the same day he dissented from including in the Lords’ response to the Commons a suggestion that the Commons should not act in a way which might tend to the interruption of a good correspondence between the Houses; and on 9 June he dissented from the decision not to appoint a committee to meet with a Commons’ committee regarding the impeachments. On 17 June he entered his dissent from the resolution to proceed with the trial of Somers in Westminster Hall and to the resolution to put the question acquitting him, and then he voted against the acquittal itself.

Writing to Lord Nottingham on 8 June, Godolphin said that he had been visited by a number of Members that there was some dissatisfaction in the country ‘with the proceedings of the Parliament’, the chief criticism being that ‘they do nothing but quarrel with one another to the neglect of the public business.’ Worried that the sentiment might make the king more susceptible to the suggestion of a fresh election, he proposed that the Commons should ‘pass some vote before the conclusion of the session which may leave a good impression with both’ the people and the king, possibly in a response to the speech to be made by the king when giving royal assent to bills; he suggested that Nottingham should approach Thomas Thynne*, Viscount Weymouth, ‘or any of our friends of the House of Commons’, to arrange it, so that ‘when I wait upon you tomorrow your Lordship will have put it into such a form as may be proper to receive the opinion of all our friends together at our next general meeting’. Following the king’s speech on 12 June, the Commons’ address duly referred to the king’s ‘approbation of the proceedings of your Commons’.²¹⁵ He had attended on 79 days of the session, 75 per cent of the total. He had been named to 18 committees.

Godolphin spent the summer of 1701 in London and Windsor, dealing with business relating to the treasury and his role as a lord justice. In August he was sufficiently worried about the direction of royal policy to fear that the ministry did not have the king’s full confidence, and even informed Marlborough of his intention to resign when the king returned to England. He was particularly concerned about a turn towards the Whigs and its concomitant the dissolution of Parliament. On 9 Sept., at Marlborough’s instigation, Godolphin wrote a letter to him (to be shown to the king) that defended the record of the Parliament and its support for the king’s foreign policy.²¹⁶

On 22 Aug. 1701 Godolphin wrote to Harley that he, Lord H[alifax] and Mr [Gilbert] Heathcote^‡ ‘will attend you at your own house this night between 7 and 8. I have just written to Sir Thomas Cooke^‡ to desire his company at the same hour.’²¹⁷ This meeting related to the search for a compromise between the two East India Companies; during the first two weeks of September Godolphin, Harley and representatives of the two companies struggled to reach a compromise. By the middle of the month it was reported that they had referred the matters under dispute to Godolphin, Charles Montagu, who had been created Baron Halifax at the end of 1700, and Lord Keeper Wright.²¹⁸ In late September, one newspaper reported that seven of each company had waited on Godolphin and Halifax.²¹⁹ Yard reported Godolphin and Halifax as being present at a meeting held on 1 Oct. of the committee of seven of both East India companies which decided that Lowndes should draw up a charter for a third company to be formed out of the two existing ones.²²⁰ On 21 Oct. Godolphin confessed that Lowndes’s scheme was ‘so very long that I have not had time to read it’. Once an abstract had been made, he wrote, ‘I suppose we will have a general assembly’.²²¹

On 3 Oct. 1701 Godolphin was writing from St Albans about the king’s imminent return from Holland. He was back in London on 20 Oct., although at the end of the month Marlborough assumed that he had gone to Newmarket.²²² Godolphin arrived back in London on 7 Nov. from Newmarket, and went on the 8th to Hampton Court.²²³ There is no question that Godolphin advised William III against a dissolution aimed at fostering a more forceful coalition against France, although he was absent from the cabinet held at Hampton Court on 9 Nov. to discuss whether to dissolve Parliament: he was at Windsor instead, having been told the day before to begin drafting a speech for the next session. When he returned on the 10th, the king informed him of his decision in favour of dissolution, and Godolphin intimated his intention to resign. He did so following the council’s narrow approval of the dissolution on the 11th.²²⁴ Some Tories were angry at Godolphin for his precipitate resignation.²²⁵ Marlborough, too, it seems, was critical of Godolphin for being over hasty, as the Tories were optimistic of securing a majority in the new Parliament.²²⁶

The election was inconclusive, and Godolphin on 4 Dec. 1701 encouraged Harley to come up to town in good time, as ‘the choice of a speaker will be a very decisive stroke in this ensuing Parliament’: he added that he was about to write to Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, ‘to muster up his squadron so as to have them here by the 30th.²²⁷ On 9 Dec. he thought ‘we have a vary fair expectation of taking such a step in the very first day of the sessions as may be a sufficient indication of all that is like to follow’.²²⁸ On 12 Dec. Methuen, in Dublin, recorded a general view that the result of the elections would mean that the king would need to involve Rochester, Godolphin and Marlborough ‘in the conduct of his affairs’.²²⁹ It was the clear import of Godolphin’s letters that Harley should stand again for the Speakership, as the Tory candidate.²³⁰ However, the king made his preference clear by supporting Sir Thomas Littleton as Speaker and filling the seat left vacant by Godolphin’s resignation with Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Carlisle.²³¹

Godolphin attended on the second day of the new Parliament, 31 Dec. 1701, and signed the address on 1 Jan. 1702 against the Pretender being recognized by Louis XIV. Indeed, Godolphin drafted a reply for the Commons in response to the speech, although the address actually adopted on 2 Jan. bore little resemblance to it.²³² His attendance was somewhat irregular and after 12 Jan., he only attended once, on 21-22 Jan., before 11 Feb., and he was then absent again until 28 February. However, his political manoeuvring did not stop: on 25 Jan. he wrote to Harley asking for a meeting with himself and Marlborough the next evening, adding the news of Rochester’s dismissal from the lord lieutenancy of Ireland that morning. On 4 Feb. he wrote to Harley to inform him that Rochester was ‘ready to meet those gentlemen at your house’ on 8 February.²³³ On 8 Mar. he was named to a conference on the death of William and the accession of Queen Anne, an event which transformed Godolphin’s position.

As a long-term adviser to the new queen and a confidante of the Marlboroughs, Godolphin was the obvious choice for the treasury. Although not officially appointed lord treasurer until 8 May 1702 he was active as a royal adviser from the beginning of the reign: he was sworn a privy councillor on 18 March.²³⁴ Even before that he had assumed an important position as a domestic adviser to the queen. On the 8th, he referred to a conversation with Speaker Harley in the Commons about the queen’s speech, and suggested that Harley draw up his own version, which could be discussed the following evening. On the 9th he added: ‘we must desire to come to your house tonight to show the draught. You may speak to whom you like to have there’.²³⁵ By 19 Mar. Godolphin had adopted the cares of a leading minister, fretting about the passage of the bill settling the civil list, and on the following day noting that he had used ‘all my endeavours’ to convince Members that the matter of the king’s debts should be left to the new monarch.²³⁶ Matters of high finance and politics limited his attendance in the chamber, though other matters did too: following the recess on 2 Apr., Godolphin was not present when the House resumed on the 10th, until 8 May. Part of the time had been spent at Newmarket: it was reported on 11-14 Apr. that his horse had won £3,000.²³⁷ On 1 May he had written to Speaker Harley about the declaration of war against France that:

The cabinet council was to have considered this evening of the communication to be made to the Parliament. I have not yet had any account of what they have done. The enclosed draught contains some of my notions upon that matter. I should be glad you would freely tell me how far it agrees with the form you think ought to be given to it and send it me again tomorrow morning with your alterations. If no supply be asked, perhaps the form of a message is best, but if a supply be asked, I doubt it should be desired from the throne.²³⁸

Godolphin was much involved in political management, particularly meetings with Tories. Of one such meeting on 15 May he wrote, ‘I am glad the gentlemen had any satisfaction in last night’s conversation; I had very little’.²³⁹

On 18 and 20 May 1702 Godolphin was named to manage conferences on the prevention of correspondence between England and the allies with France and Spain. Also on 18 May, Thomas Wentworth*, 2nd Baron Raby, was given leave to withdraw his appeal of 19 Jan. against several proceedings in the Irish court of chancery, as it had been agreed to refer the matter to Rochester and Godolphin, who having heard counsel, made an award on 20 April. On 20 May Godolphin wrote to Harley that ‘Lords N[ottingham] and R[ochester] desire to meet tomorrow night at your house to consider of the queen’s speech’ at the end of the session, adding on 21 May, ‘I take it I am to be at your house tonight about the speech’.²⁴⁰ He had attended on 33 days of the session, 33 per cent of the total, and was named to eight committees.

As soon as the session had ended, Godolphin complained to Harley about the ‘humours so changeable and uncertain’ of Sir Christopher Musgrave^‡, whom ‘I never took so many pains in my life to satisfy’, over a place in the ordnance and a tellership of the exchequer. His heartfelt wish was ‘that four or five of these gentlemen that are so sharp set upon other people’s places had mine amongst them to stay their stomachs.’²⁴¹ Patronage requests were to become the bane of Godolphin’s existence. He once remarked that ‘I can’t help reflecting upon what I have sometimes heard fall from the late king viz, "that he wished every man that was in any office, immortal".’²⁴² Although Godolphin was accounted a Tory (a distinct advantage with the queen), it did not mean he was keen on changing personnel for political reasons; on 2 June a newsletter noted that it was ‘observable’ that Godolphin ‘has made no alteration in any of the commissioners relating to the management of any branch of the revenue.’²⁴³ In December, James Lowther found the Tories ‘not a little angry with Lord Godolphin for keeping so many in their offices as he has done’ and a newsletter of January 1703 described him as ‘that great man not being given to change.’²⁴⁴ Although not a party man, Godolphin was always interested in electoral matters, especially where the return of Members useful to the management of government business was concerned. In the election of 1702, Godolphin pressed the bishop of Exeter to ensure that Richard Jones, earl of Ranelagh [I], was again returned for West Looe.²⁴⁵ What he did not do was to throw the weight of the court behind the Tories, a policy which engendered further criticism from their ranks.²⁴⁶

As treasurer, Godolphin was called upon to adjudicate between the competing claims of Peregrine Osborne*, Baron Osborne, styled marquess of Carmarthen, and Halifax for the lucrative post of auditor of the exchequer. After a hearing on 3 July 1702, Godolphin refused to admit Carmarthen to the post, but also declared Halifax’s possession of the office should not be construed so as to prejudice Carmarthen’s claim when it came to be tried in Westminster Hall.²⁴⁷ By June Godolphin was facing a challenge from the Tory wing of the ministry, particularly Rochester. In August Marlborough was in agreement with Godolphin that Rochester would ‘always be endeavouring to give mortifications’ to both of them, and that if he continued ‘disturbing underhand the public business’ he should be sent to his government in Ireland.²⁴⁸ In the late summer, Godolphin embarked on a peripatetic existence. On 14 Aug. he was at St Albans, from where he seems to have issued an appeal for Marlborough to return to England a fortnight before Parliament was due to open.²⁴⁹ On 18 Aug. he wrote to Harley to thank him ‘for the hint of appointing somebody to write for us. I have spoken of it to Lord Nottingham who has promised to take care of it, indeed it is his business.’²⁵⁰ He was at St James’s for a short while, before going on to Bath. On 28 Aug. Weymouth recorded that Godolphin had ‘called here for almost an hour this day, in his way from his running horses to Bath’.²⁵¹ He wrote to Harley from Bath on 16 Sept., enclosing ‘a rough draught of what I have prepared for her majesty’s speech to the approaching Parliament… being also extremely desirous of your thoughts and amendments upon it before it be exposed to anybody else’.²⁵² Before Godolphin left Bath on 27 Sept., he thanked Harley for his ‘hints … relating to the queen’s speech’, and informed him that he had the queen’s leave to spend a week at Newmarket.²⁵³ He was with his brother at Eton on 29 Sept., returning to St Albans and then proceeding to Newmarket, where he arrived on 2 Oct. having been ‘all the way in a kind of a struggle betwixt indisposition and health.’Having arranged to meet Nottingham on 14 Oct., he was back in London on the previous day.²⁵⁴ No treasury board was held between 24 Aug. and 14 October.²⁵⁵

The Parliament of 1702: the 1702-3 session

On 19 Oct. 1702 Godolphin wrote to Harley about Convocation. He had left a book with Harley that had been given to him by Archbishop Tenison, which showed, Tenison had told him, how Convocation showed little interest in accommodation. Godolphin hoped that the Speaker could find a way to quieten the matter, as ‘all matters of difference at this time must needs have very ill consequences both in Church and State’. He himself was not ‘willing… to meddle with it one way or another’.²⁵⁶ Godolphin’s main preoccupation in the days leading up to the opening of the Parliament was the queen’s speech. On 19 Oct. he complained to Marlborough that he was ‘hurried out of my life … with long reasoning upon what was proper for Mrs. Morley [i.e. the queen] to say to her dear friends’, the speech having been drafted in consultation with the lords of the Cabinet and then approved in Cabinet by the queen.²⁵⁷

Godolphin attended the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702. He would keep up a regular correspondence with Harley about the management of the House of Commons, particularly at the beginning of the session. He was immediately determined to ensure a favourable address in response to the queen’s speech of 21 October. On 22 Oct. he wrote to Harley,

to me it seems not a matter of much difficulty, the words of the speech leading so naturally to it. Why might it not run in words to this effect; that this state will stand by and assist her majesty in the just and necessary war in which she is engaged for the support and encouragement of her allies and for disappointing the boundless ambition of France.²⁵⁸

The address agreed to in the Lords on the 22nd did not use these phrases, though it referred particularly to the success of the allies under Marlborough’s command: on the following day Godolphin sent for John Granville*, the future Baron Granville, told him of the Lords’ address and made clear his hope that the Commons would follow suit ‘in which I thought he would have an opportunity of doing a thing very agreeable to my Lord Marlborough, if he would take care he might be as honourably mentioned by them as by the other House’.²⁵⁹ Although Godolphin told Granville that he had not spoken to anyone else, he had in fact approached Sir Edward Seymour as well as Harley.²⁶⁰ In the event, although the gist of the resolution from the Commons on 23 Oct. was the same, the wording was different, although the phrase ‘boundless ambition of France’ was incorporated; the address itself, agreed in the Commons on 26 Oct., was more fulsome in its tribute to Marlborough than the Lords’ version had been.

On 3 Nov. 1702 Godolphin wrote to Harley that he was detained at Nottingham’s office till after the Commons had sat, so that ‘I cannot speak to the persons necessary to move anything this morning there, upon the subject of your letter, but will take all the care I can that they shall be furnished with all the necessary papers for the information of the House’: Ranelagh, Coningsby, Hedges and Blathwayt would meet at the treasury ‘to adjust what shall be opened to the House before they go into the committee, and by whom, unless you offer me a more proper method’. As planned, when the order of the day was read on the 4th for the Commons to go into a committee of supply, the House agreed an address to ask for copies of the treaties relating to the war. These were provided on the 6th and included detailed breakdowns of the financial commitments of the crown to the allies. Meanwhile on 4 Nov. Godolphin grumbled to Harley about ‘how untowardly we proceed about our land forces’, having complained to the solicitor general, Sir Simon Harcourt*, the future Viscount Harcourt, who seemed to think another meeting at Harley’s might adjust matters. In response Godolphin noted that he was ‘so out of patience with Sir Edward S[eymour] that I am sure I can meet him nowhere but to scold’.²⁶¹

Nevertheless, by 7 Nov. 1702 Godolphin could write to Harley, presumably apropos the committee of the whole on supply in the Commons, that

the votes of yesterday with the assurances which I have had that no angry thing shall be stirred in the House of Lords without further provocation from the House of Commons, give a fair prospect of a speedy and quiet end of this session, of which I am extremely glad for many reasons that you need not be troubled with particularly till I see you, and I wish that might be either at your own house or mine Sunday about nine at night, as will be most easy to you.²⁶²

Three days later Godolphin asked Harley ‘if the bill about occasional conformity is to extend to any persons that are not her majesty’s natural born subjects’, because Granville had asked the queen ‘if the prince would have any clause offered to exempt him from the force of the intended act’.²⁶³ More evidence of Godolphin’s attention to parliamentary management exists in his notes to Secretary Nottingham. On 19 Nov. he thought Nottingham should ‘take the queen’s commands before she rises from Council’, to get Wright, Pembroke, Buckingham, Nottingham and himself ‘to wait upon her in her lodgings within, to consider of an answer to each House’, presumably to the conflicting requests on the position of William Lloyd*, bishop of Worcester, as lord almoner, following the complaints of the Commons over his interference in the elections. Later that day Godolphin reported on the presentation of the Lords’ address: the queen had resisted their desire for an immediate answer ‘and took time to consider of it till tomorrow’; she hoped that the Commons would not present their address that night, ‘that she might have time to think of her answer to each House’. On the following day, ‘from the treasury chambers before nine’, he wrote that ‘if the gentlemen of the House of Commons are to meet this morning at your office, I should be glad to speak one word to you before they come’.²⁶⁴ On 24 Nov. Godolphin reported to Harley that Nottingham had laid before the House of Lords the papers relating to the Cadiz expedition, which ‘they have been so calm as to appoint Thursday [26 Nov.] for the reading of them’. He added that if the Commons ‘suffer no new incident to interfere with the dispatch of the supplies I am not out of hopes but the session may yet end with the old year’ [i.e., by March 25th].²⁶⁵

Following the arrival of Marlborough in England at the end of November 1702, plans for the forthcoming campaign went forward rapidly, as did the queen’s desire to provide the material basis for Marlborough’s dukedom.²⁶⁶ This involved some complicated parliamentary management: on 9 Dec. Godolphin asked Harley if the queen’s request that Marlborough’s pension should be for her life should be communicated to the Commons by a written or a verbal message. On the 10th he arranged for Harley to have a sight of the message Hedges was to deliver to the Commons. By the 12th Godolphin was evincing concern ‘at the little success which I find the queen’s message is like to meet with’, and again asked Harley’s advice. On the 14th he thanked Harley for ‘your patience last night when I had so little and for your calm and sincere advice’, and having ‘full power’ from Marlborough he left the matter in Harley’s hands ‘to give it the form tomorrow which you think will be least disrespectful to the queen’. As Harley was meeting Members that evening, the main thing was to avoid division and added the suggestion of ‘an address to the queen showing an uneasiness for not complying with the message from the inconvenience of the precedent and at the same time a satisfaction in Lord Marlborough’s services.²⁶⁷ Godolphin was keen to avoid any delay to supply, ‘which will undo us if it does not pass before Christmas.’²⁶⁸

On 9 Dec. 1702, at the third reading of the bill against occasional conformity in the Lords, Godolphin was one of those arguing that although the bill was ‘just in itself’, yet it was ‘now unseasonable.’²⁶⁹ Writing to Harley on 10 Dec. of ‘the madness of yesterday’, Godolphin hoped to consult with him that evening: ‘does anybody think’, he added, that ‘England will be persuaded that the queen won’t take care to preserve the Church of England? And do they forget that not only the fate of England but of all Europe depends upon the appearance of our concord in the despatch of our supplies’, something put at risk by the raising of this issue in so provocative a way.²⁷⁰ On 18 Dec., before the debate on whether the Lords should insist upon their amendments to the bill, Godolphin ushered Leeds into the Prince’s chamber, whereupon they emerged for the debate, ‘without offering an objection or not content to any one of the questions’.²⁷¹

A new issue arose on that day: Godolphin wrote to Harley, ‘I am told advantage is taken from the clause added this day to the prince’s bill to blow up the House of Lords into the thought that this is a tack against which they have lately declared themselves so positively’ (on 9 December). This was the decision in the Commons to add a clause to the bill for settling a revenue on Prince George of Denmark, to make clear that he was not affected by the provisions in the Act of Succession disabling those born outside the kingdom from holding office. Godolphin warned Harley that the clause risked the loss of the bill, which would upset the queen; ‘I do not see how to prevent it unless upon the report so many other saving clauses be offered as will tire the House and give them a handle to leave out all the clauses of the bill and this amongst the rest.’ On 19 Dec. Godolphin wrote again more cheerfully that since the prince’s bill was not to be reported in the Commons until 21 Dec., ‘there’s no danger of its being in our House so as to disturb our passing the bill for the land tax before the holidays’. A free conference about the occasional conformity bill could also, he hoped, be put off till after the adjournment, which it was. However, on 24 Dec. (the day after the Commons had added numerous clauses to Prince George’s bill, as Godolphin had envisaged) he again complained about the action in the Commons, and warned that ‘if the prince meets with a disagreeable opposition in the House of Lords to his bill, he is obliged to his own servants for it. The whole proceeding of that House [Commons] yesterday looks to me as if they were afraid the time were too short for madness and extravagance’.²⁷²

The House adjourned on 23 Dec. 1702, and on the 26th Godolphin went to St Albans to bring Marlborough back to town with him on the 27th.²⁷³ He attended on 29 Dec., whereupon the House adjourned until 7 Jan. 1703, although Godolphin did not attend again until 19 Jan. (the day the House sat as a committee of the whole on the prince’s bill), owing to ill-health. On 6 Jan. he wrote to Harley, `I am now able to crawl about my own room, tho’ not without pain. As soon as I am able to go abroad I shall be glad to come to you.’²⁷⁴ On 14 Jan. Godolphin wrote ‘I find by the stopping of the money bills the queen’s servants in both Houses are vying who shall be maddest’, which made a meeting with Harley even more necessary. Meanwhile, he asked that the Commons should delay their consideration of the bill sent down that day to clarify the Act of Succession ‘till we have tried our strength once more in the House of Lords upon the Prince’s bill’.²⁷⁵ About January 1703 Nottingham adjudged Godolphin as likely to support the bill against occasional conformity. On 16 Jan. he was listed as voting against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill, which were widely seen as wrecking its chances of success, although he was not listed as present in the Journal. On 23 Jan. he wrote to Harley on the occasional conformity business and the progress of supply.²⁷⁶ On 24 Jan. he received the sacrament from William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle, at St Martin’s-in-the-Fields.²⁷⁷

Despite it being reported at the beginning of February 1703 that a chapter of Order of the Garter had been appointed for choosing Godolphin, it was an honour he did not accept until the following year, probably because he wished first to be made an earl.²⁷⁸ Godolphin last attended the Lords this session on 12 Feb. before the prorogation on the 27th. Part of his absence can be explained by his close friendship to the Marlboroughs, Godolphin being the only person allowed to visit St Albans following the death on 20 Feb. of his godson, the marquess of Blandford.²⁷⁹ In all Godolphin had attended on 34 days of the session, 39.5 per cent of the total, and been named to four committees.

No meetings of the treasury board were held between 25 Mar. and 6 Apr. 1703 and on 27 Mar. it was reported that Godolphin and ‘most of our great men’ were going to Newmarket for ‘the horse racing the next week,’ where he duly lost ‘the great horse race … for 1,000 guineas’ to John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S].²⁸⁰ Godolphin was again at Newmarket in April: on 20 Apr. he ordered 100 guineas to be paid to Wharton ‘for the plate run for at Newmarket’, and no treasury board was held between 20 and 26 April.²⁸¹ Not that Godolphin could relax his guard too much. In June Marlborough felt it necessary to warn him that conversations with Count Wratislaw had led him to believe that Nottingham ‘will upon all occasion do 26 [Godolphin] what hurt he can with his party’.²⁸² Godolphin had also to be aware of the threat to the duumvirs’ war policy from Rochester (recently dismissed from office), Seymour and Buckingham. He also had to deal with the Scottish parliament held in the summer of 1703, which saw him struggling to exact a supply without acceding to Scottish demands for an act of security. In the event, deadlock ensued and the Scottish parliament was adjourned on 16 September.²⁸³

On 17 July 1703 a newsletter reported that Godolphin would attend the queen to Bath.²⁸⁴ However, he was taken ill at Windsor on 25 July with ‘a sort of dizziness in his head, and a sickness in his stomach’.²⁸⁵ He had returned to London by 13 Aug., and left again on the 20th in order to spend six weeks at Bath for the recovery of his health.²⁸⁶ He stopped en route at Windsor, where he penned a letter to Nottingham on Scottish affairs, before arriving at Bath on 22 August. His convalescence, though, was interrupted by his passion for the turf, Blathwayt writing on the 25th that ‘Godolphin found himself this morning somewhat indisposed by a cold he thinks he got last night upon Lansdowne’, a nearby race course.²⁸⁷ His health improved slowly while at Bath, and on 26 Sept. he announced his intention to leave Bath for Newmarket and to be in London by 15 Oct., while claiming to Harley how indifferent he was to ‘the hot men of either party’, and propounding a theory that the anger of the parties did not ‘arise from the same grounds; one side being moved by an inveteracy of a deep root, against anything that is uppermost but themselves, and the other only by the immoderate pride and ambition of a few men’.²⁸⁸ He left Bath on 28 Sept. and went via Eton and St Albans, with the intention of being at Newmarket on the 30th.²⁸⁹ On 12 Oct. he wrote from there, ‘I am better than I have been, God be thanked, tho’ not well enough to write much’ and asked Harley to ‘prepare the heads of what is proper to be said to the Parliament’.²⁹⁰ On 15 Oct. he was still at Newmarket, but he was back at St James’s by 21 October.²⁹¹ His autumnal correspondence contained many references to the trouble expected from the Tories when Parliament resumed.²⁹²

The session of 1703-4

Perhaps owing to the enhanced threat to his position, on 4 Nov. 1703 Godolphin outlined a plan of parliamentary management to Harley for the ensuing session: he had left with Hedges ‘the paper of names and settled the method he is to take in concerting matters from time to time’; Hedges was willing to ‘receive his instructions from you’. Sir Edward Seymour, he suggested, had to be called to two or three meetings at least, till his opposition asserted itself. ‘Besides these meetings and those agreed upon last night to be at your house’, Godolphin continued, ‘it is necessary above all the rest that the duke of Marlborough and you and I should meet regularly at least twice a week if not oftener, to advise upon everything that shall occur.’²⁹³ Although Godolphin did not often attend these meetings, he regarded them as of singular importance, writing to Harley probably in 1707, that unless the ‘meetings be kept up constantly and those who are called come willingly to them, and with a desire to agree, I cannot think it possible to succeed’.²⁹⁴ On 9 Nov. 1703, Godolphin wrote to Harley that Hedges had sought to ‘have consulted with me about forming the address of the House of Commons but I told him it was not proper for me to meddle in that means and desired [him] to go and take his instructions from you’. Godolphin did obtain a draft of the address on the following day before it was submitted to the House.²⁹⁵

He attended the Lords on the opening day of the 1703-4 session, 9 November. At the end of November and beginning of December Sunderland forecast that Godolphin was likely to support the occasional conformity bill. On 7 Dec. Methuen reported that Godolphin had told Seymour that ‘it was an ill time to press this bill and if it did pass the Commons it would not pass in the Lords’.²⁹⁶ On 14 Dec. Godolphin was listed as voting for the bill, entering his protest twice against the resolution not to give the bill a second reading and against its rejection. A report of 16 Dec. confirmed this, noting that he had ‘declared the bill to be unseasonable, that he opposed its bringing in, but at the same time allowed it to be a good bill, and voted for its second reading’.²⁹⁷ On Christmas Day, Godolphin arranged to meet Harley at his house on the following day about 5pm, before the cabinet council.²⁹⁸ He added that ‘I am glad to hear you talk of calming people in these holidays, and should be glad to have your directions what part I could be able to take towards making men a little more moderate’.²⁹⁹

Godolphin attended on the first day after the Christmas recess, 12 Jan. 1704. There is a draft in Godolphin’s hand of the queen’s speech to the Commons on 21 Jan., which he had sent to Harley the day before with the request that ‘you would let me know your sense of this, or what alterations or objections you would propose because the words will not be finally settled till night’. The speech remained Godolphin’s in essence, but with subtle changes of tone which bore the hallmarks of Harley.³⁰⁰ On 10 Feb. Godolphin wrote to Harley, ‘Lowndes tells me we had so good a day yesterday in the House of Commons’, presumably in the committee of ways and means, ‘that I think I shall scarce need to trouble you any more this session about the business depending there, though I know very well that matter must always be watched from hour to hour, and there’s no such thing as safety till the black rod knocks at the door.’ He complained of a cough, which he hoped to throw off with some fresh air, proposing to visit Eton the following day; he would, he wrote, return to meet Harley on Sunday 13th. He sent a draft of the answer to the address of the Commons upon the queen’s message, with a request for any amendments to be sent back to him that night.³⁰¹ The answer, which encouraged the establishment of Queen Anne’s bounty, was reported to the Commons on the 12th, virtually unchanged from Godolphin’s draft. On 11 Mar. Godolphin delivered into the Lords an account of the yearly value of the first fruits and tenths, which was referred to the committee on the bill establishing the bounty.³⁰²

Sir William Simpson reported that in the Lords on 25 Mar. 1704, ‘a question was put and carried that the lords of the cabinet, in not committing Robert Ferguson upon the evidence which appeared against him and his own confession when he was first brought before them tended to the endangering the constitution and other hard words’ Simpson added that neither Godolphin nor Marlborough had been present at the relevant meeting, but that they ‘laboured mightily to oppose the vote by which the cabinet was censured though not concerned.’³⁰³ Godolphin entered his protest against the resolution. Godolphin got into trouble with the duchess of Marlborough when he supported the pretensions of Ralph Stawell*, 3rd Baron Stawell, to a place in the prince’s bedchamber without realizing that he was brother in law of William Bromley^‡, Member for Oxford University, and a central high Tory partisan. Godolphin nevertheless thought that he could control Stawell ‘in every vote’.³⁰⁴ Godolphin last attended during the session on 29 Mar., although on 30 Mar. he was ordered to lay before the queen the House’s report on the methods of keeping public records. He had attended on 51 days of the session, 52 per cent of the total, and been named to a further 16 committees. On 5 Apr. he held a meeting of the treasury board and then went to Newmarket, returning on the 13th, the treasury board sitting the next day.³⁰⁵

Over the spring Nottingham’s dissatisfaction with the ministry and its policies was coming to a head, particularly his claims that the queen was being hindered from following a Tory agenda by Godolphin and Marlborough. On 18 Apr. 1704 Godolphin revealed that he had ‘had a very long conversation’ with Nottingham, replete with some threats and a demand that Archbishop Tenison and Somerset be removed from the Cabinet and the earl of Carlisle from the lieutenancy. This did not deflect the queen from ordering the removal of Seymour and Jersey, and thus preparing the way for Nottingham’s resignation and his replacement by Harley, whom Godolphin, ‘contrary to the advice of all his friends’, promoted in his place.³⁰⁶ On 29 Apr., Godolphin went to St Albans and then to Newmarket ‘to divert himself with the racing and other sports’ for a week.³⁰⁷ No treasury board was held between 28 Apr. and 9 May.³⁰⁸ The failure of the queen to replace the displaced Tories with Whigs put Godolphin under some apprehension that ‘I am now to learn that till they have the power in their hands, they will always be against everything that may be an assistance to the queen and the government.’³⁰⁹

In July Godolphin recorded his support for the appointment of Francis Atterbury*, the future bishop of Rochester, as dean of Carlisle, noting to John Sharp*, archbishop of York, that it had been done ‘as an earnest only’ of the queen’s intention to promote him further.³¹⁰ It was done at the behest of Harley, in the hope that it might ameliorate the disputes in Convocation. It did, however, create more problems with William Nicolson*, bishop of Carlisle: Godolphin in September noted of Atterbury’s superior that ‘the bishop of Carlisle’s perverseness is very unaccountable, but a discreet clergyman is almost as rare as a black swan’.³¹¹

As early as late August there is evidence that Godolphin, Marlborough and Harley were being ‘called the triumvirate and reckoned the spring of all public affairs’.³¹² There were no meetings of the treasury board between 25 Aug. and 5 Sept. 1704 as Godolphin visited Wharton’s house at Winchendon to attend the Quainton race-meeting.³¹³ After a sitting of the treasury board on 28 Sept. he was ‘taken ill with a pain in his side’ while at Windsor.³¹⁴ On the 29th Jack Howe^‡ described his gout as so ‘violent that he despaired of going to Newmarket, which will be the greater loss to his Lordship, the season proving fair beyond what has usually been known’.³¹⁵ James Brydges^†, the future duke of Chandos, confirmed that he had been ‘very ill of the stone and gravel, insomuch that he was forced to defer his journey to Newmarket, a sure sign of his being bad’.³¹⁶ He was ‘much better’ on the 30th, setting out for Newmarket via St Albans and arriving on 1 October.³¹⁷ On 6 Oct. Hedges wrote that Godolphin was ‘still at Newmarket’, but was expected at Windsor on 11 October.³¹⁸ While at Newmarket, Godolphin considered the scope of the queen’s speech. Harley was asked for his suggestions on 7 Oct., and the speech was eventually approved by cabinet on the eve of the session.³¹⁹ He held his next treasury board on 16 October.³²⁰

The Session of 1704-5

Godolphin attended on the opening day of the 1704-5 session, 24 Oct., when he registered the proxy of James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond. In about November his name appears on a list which may have been a forecast of those likely to support the Tack. Having returned to London on 5 Nov., Godolphin found ‘the hot, angry people continue obstinate in endeavouring to give all the disturbance they can’, although Harley had been ‘very industrious’ in working against them.³²¹ On 7 Nov. Godolphin moved that something should be done to prevent the chaotic scenes that had happened on the attendance of the queen, which led to an order for the committee of privileges to consider the erection of galleries. On the following day, in the committee of the whole House Godolphin opposed the suggestion of putting into execution the orders of the House excluding spectators. On 10 Nov. he reported on what had been done in response to an order of the House of 30 Mar. about the records in Caesar’s Tower. He commented on a ‘manifestly concerted’ motion for an address to ask the queen, in negotiating the exchange of the Bishop of Zuebec and the other ecclesiastics taken in the ship La Seine the previous summer, to have regard to the poor French protestants in the galleys of Louis XIV. The French king, he pointed out, could hardly exchange the one for the other, the latter being his subjects; but he nevertheless supported the address, as a way of showing an ‘acceptable concern’ for Protestant refugees.³²²

On 12 Nov. 1704 Godolphin informed Harley that with Seymour `being at last come to town’, the 14th ‘is designed for the day of battle,’ when leave would be asked to bring in a bill against occasional conformity.³²³ The bill was indeed introduced on the 14th, and on 16 Nov. Godolphin wrote to Harley, ‘I find plainly it was in the power of the queen’s servants to have kept out the occasional bill’, although he did not ‘apprehend they can carry a tack or put a stop to the money, but when the bill is thrown out in the House of Lords, they will make use of that handle to throw dirt and stones at whom they have a mind to bespatter’. At least this was reassuring, for he had reported to Harley a week before that at a meeting on the 6th at the Fountain Tavern 150 Members had ‘resolved that the money bill should lie upon the table till the bill of occasional conformity be passed.’³²⁴ Godolphin was more worried at the prospects for the introduction of a tack by 21 Nov., when, finding Henry Boyle^‡ ‘much alarmed’, he agreed to meet the following evening at Secretary Hedges’, ‘with those gentlemen of the House of Commons, to consider if anything can be proposed to defer it in that House, and at the same time to think what course can be taken to stop it in the other’. On 25 Nov. he wrote to Harley with some detailed instructions for last minute lobbying: ‘I have sent to the queen that she may please to speak to the prince to make his servants attend. I have likewise spoken to Mr Churchill to speak to him, he answers for Mr Nicholas, but not G. Clark, not Tom Conyers, the last you are to answer for’. Churchill had promised to speak to three other Members, and Godolphin had spoken to Lowndes to speak to five Members and to all the prize commissioners. Hedges had also been drafted in, and together with Harley, was ‘to summon for tomorrow night … the gentlemen of the House of Commons, who usually meet at his house and Mr Churchill particularly should be there, where they may concert who should more be spoken to and by whom, and what is there resolved may be put in practice the next day’.³²⁵ After much lobbying, on 27 Nov. Godolphin felt able to report that the tack would be defeated, and that although those servants of the queen and the Prince that had voted for it should not be shown ‘present resentment’, nor threatened, ‘when the session is over, I shall never think any man fit to continue in his employment, who gives his vote for this tack’.³²⁶ When the bill to prevent occasional conformity, minus the tack, reached the Lords, Godolphin declared on 15 Dec. that it was, like the previous year, ‘unseasonable, but being brought up, he thought it might be made a good one’ and he voted for a second reading.³²⁷

Meanwhile, in the Lords, on 23 Nov. 1704, after Godolphin had laid before the House accounts of parliamentary grants for the previous three years, John Thompson*, Baron Haversham, launched a general attack on the ministry, which included reference to the passage of the Scottish act of security.³²⁸ Godolphin’s contribution to the debate was to suggest that these criticisms were designed to prevent a ready grant of supply from the Commons, with Dartmouth later recalling that when Nottingham attacked Godolphin ‘in answer he talked nonsense very fast, which was not his usual way, either of matter or manner; but said much as to the necessity of passing the money bill’.³²⁹ Halifax then moved for an adjournment, and the House ordered a committee of the whole for the 29th. This adjournment facilitated negotiations between Godolphin and the Whigs, with John Montagu*, styled Viscount Monthermer, the future 2nd duke of Montagu, acting as the intermediary. Godolphin’s ill health kept him away from the House until the 29th, at a time when his position was exposed because, under pressure from Scottish ministers, he had reluctantly advised the queen to give the royal assent to the Scottish act.³³⁰ As Francis Hare^†, the future bishop of Chichester, later put it, Godolphin defended the queen’s acceptance of the act of security on grounds of necessity, given the ‘melancholy face of things’ between the battle of Schellenberg and Blenheim: ‘the Scotch Parliament would give no money nor do any public business if the queen would not give them that act. The Scotch ministry declared they could not answer for the quiet of the kingdom an hour if the bill were refused.’³³¹ On 28 Nov. it was expected that the debate on the following day on the state of the nation with regard to Scotland would see ‘whoever hath been an adviser in it may expect to be sorely whipped’.³³² Simpson recorded Godolphin’s saying in the debate on 29 Nov. that ‘what had been done was to prevent a greater mischief’; it had happened before Marlborough’s recent victory at Blenheim ‘and the ministry were assured that an insurrection was unavoidable in Scotland (if they were not ratified in these bills of security etc.) which could not be suppressed but by recalling other troops from abroad where they could not be spared’.³³³ From the Scottish perspective, John Ker*, duke of Roxburghe [S], observed that Godolphin not only refuted the arguments used against the Scottish legislation, ‘but declared that the passing of the act of security was absolutely necessary, and said, their meddling in our business would do but harm; whereas if they would let it alone, he believed the queen might easily bring the affairs of that country to a happy settlement’. Roxburghe added that the matter was put off to 6 Dec. by the intervention of Somers, ‘in order to get a thorough conjunction’ between Godolphin and the Whigs: during the debate first Wharton and Somers, and finally Halifax had discussions with Godolphin, and concluded a deal which resulted in the debate being adjourned.³³⁴

On 1 Dec. 1704 Godolphin wrote to Harley about plans for a meeting at Secretary Hedges’ two days later ‘about the roll of sheriffs’, to be followed by another on the 4th ‘of the gentlemen of the H. of Commons to concert what should be done next day about the Aylesbury business and about making the recruits and getting the 5,000 men’: he added that ‘it may not be amiss also to think of what shall be said about the business of Scotland upon which I find by Mr Sec. Hedges the angry gentlemen are very keen’. He ended the letter with the thought that ‘some measures should be speedily concerted to contain our present majority to the end of this Parliament which might also lay a foundation of having one of the same kind in the next’.³³⁵ When the debate on Scotland resumed in the Lords on 6 Dec. the Tories renewed their attack on Godolphin and pressed for a vote on the Scottish act of security; the Whigs countered by suggesting ‘new acts to secure England’, such as a bill to make the Scots aliens, thereby cutting off their trade, which Godolphin supported as he thought it ‘would make the Scots wiser another time’.³³⁶ When the House turned again to Scotland on 11 Dec., Godolphin supported Wharton’s proposal for the queen to issue a new commission to negotiate a Union. Godolphin survived a censure vote on 12 Dec., in committee of the whole in the Commons ‘touching the Scotch acts,’ by 209-152, ‘the Whigs and no-tackers joined against it; for if it had carried there would have been an address to the queen to know who of the English ministers had advised the act’. As James Johnston^‡ wrote, Godolphin ‘was never known to have been so uneasy’: he had now, however, ‘made up’ with the Whigs.³³⁷

On 15 Dec. 1704 Godolphin presented to the Lords an account of quotas of ships furnished by the States General the previous summer. On 5 Jan. 1705 he wrote to James Ogilvy*, earl of Seafield [S], excusing himself for not being able to meet on the next day (when he was to go into the City for Marlborough’s feast) and arranging to meet him instead on the 7th, along with Marlborough.³³⁸ On 9 Jan. he was hopeful that the Irish parliament might grant revenue for three years, ‘in case our Parliament here allows them to export linen to the West Indies, which I hope they may be willing to do’.³³⁹ Godolphin attended the second sitting of the Lords after the Christmas recess on 10 January. On 11 Jan. he presented to the House the instructions given to Sir George Rooke^‡ between November 1703 and May 1704, which were referred to the committee on the state of the nation. Also, on 11 Jan. he suggested a form of words by which the queen might respond to the vote of the Commons the previous day for an address in favour of Marlborough, but this was rejected in favour of a holding reply, delivered to the House on 13 Jan., and a more considered response on the 17th.³⁴⁰

On 25 Jan. 1705 Godolphin wrote to Harley, `I am very much concerned and troubled at yesterday’s easy defeat’—meaning the passage of the place bill through committee in the Commons—‘and the business of this day coming so immediately upon it’, meaning the security of the kingdom from acts passed in Scotland: ‘I must own I think these bills will bring the greatest difficulties imaginable on the queen.’ Possibly hearing that the third reading of the place bill had been put off until 27 Jan., later that day he passed on Marlborough’s request for him to meet them that evening after nine, ‘that we may think a little what is next to be done.’³⁴¹ On 27 Jan. St Albans registered his proxy with Godolphin. On 7 Feb. the Lords committed the place bill ‘after a great debate’, in which Godolphin ‘and the courtiers spoke against the bill’, and ‘such amendments were ordered to be made to it as ‘tis thought will hardly be complied with by the Commons.’³⁴² When the committee sat on 10 Feb. Godolphin wrote that the Lords had ‘left out the first clause in the bill of offices, upon the uncertainty and absurdity of it, and have passed the second relating to the prize office with some considerable amendments, one of which puts the judgment of offences against that act into the courts of Westminster Hall.’³⁴³ After apologizing to Harley for failing to attend ‘your meeting tonight’, on 12 Feb., he added ‘I hope the judges will do well tomorrow, and that you will not agree to our amendments to the prize office bill’.³⁴⁴ On 14 Feb. the Commons disagreed to the first amendment of the Lords, whereupon the bill was adjourned and never discussed again, despite a reminder from the upper House.

Godolphin was absent for a few days in February 1705, going on the 14th with the court to Windsor and then to Woodstock.³⁴⁵ Upon his return, there is evidence of him attempting to manage the Aylesbury case, which threatened to disturb a quiet end to the session. On 24 Feb. Godolphin responded to Harley’s letter of that morning in which he had ‘wished the Lords might be induced to peace, I had not quite lost all hopes of easing our present difficulties, because I found a very good disposition in some of the chiefs to have been very tractable, but what has passed since’—an address in the Commons condemning the use of a writ of error in an attempt to free those who had been arrested for breach of privilege against the Commons—‘will I fear make all compromise impossible’. The queen ‘must either deny a petition of right or else she must refuse the address of the H. of Commons in the tender point of privilege’. Further, the action of the Commons that day in ordering those involved in soliciting the writs of error into custody had made the queen’s position worse. In an attempt to find a solution, Godolphin asked Harley to visit him after dinner and before the cabinet council, ‘and I will endeavour to get the duke of Marlborough to meet you there.’³⁴⁶ On 27 Feb. the Lords passed six resolutions on the case and Godolphin was named to consider heads for a conference regarding upon the resolutions. When he had returned from the Lords on the 27th, he wrote to Marlborough about the current position of the case, although the matter remained unresolved even after a series of conferences.³⁴⁷ Godolphin last attended on 12 Mar., having attended on 69 days of the session, 70 per cent of the total, and been named to 15 committees. The Parliament was prorogued two days later, and then dissolved on 5 April: elections took place in May.

The 1705 election

On 24 Mar. 1705 Godolphin wrote to Harley asking him to come to his house about 7 in the evening, one reason for the visit being the disposal of the ‘great seal’, which ‘must not lie as long as it does; I wish you would think what ought to be done in it, as soon as you can’ (the lord keeper, Sir Nathan Wright, had come under extreme pressure from the Whigs, and would be replaced in the autumn).³⁴⁸ In advance of the general election, a warrant was issued on 2 Apr. for Godolphin to become lord lieutenant of Cornwall.³⁴⁹ His son became warden of the Stannaries in May.³⁵⁰ As early as 1693 Nottingham had thought that Godolphin would not care to be lord lieutenant, and it seems that his appointment was designed to make a political point against supporters of the Tack.³⁵¹ It did not signal a partisan review of local government under his auspices as he did not remodel the bench, no commission being issued between July 1705 and July 1709, and it was not until 1 May 1706 that a warrant was issued to him for a new lieutenancy commission.³⁵² No treasury board was held between 7 and 25 Apr. and by 12 Apr. 1705 Godolphin was at Newmarket again. He was still there on the 20th.³⁵³ On 24 Apr. Simpson reported that ‘the queen was entertained and complimented by the University of Cambridge and it is a great question whether her interest is sufficient to make Mr Godolphin [Francis Godolphin*, later 2nd earl of Godolphin, Godolphin’s son] a Parliament-man there’. Simpson added that ‘people of all sides are angry at my lord treasurer but I suppose he had rather everybody were angry than that anybody should have him in their power.’³⁵⁴ On 27 Apr., the chancellor of the university, Somerset, thought ‘there is no dispute’ that Francis Godolphin would be chosen for the university.³⁵⁵ This turned out to an over-optimistic: Arthur Annesley*, the future 5th earl of Anglesey, was returned with Dixie Windsor^‡, defeating Godolphin junior and Sir Isaac Newton^‡. His father pronounced it ‘no small mortification to me’, and on 22 May Halifax found Godolphin still ‘truly moved at the behaviour of the University‘.³⁵⁶

Godolphin was concerned to see that public approbation of ‘Tackers’ did not in any way aid their re-election to Parliament; thus on 2 May 1705 he suggested to Harley that the promotion of several Tackers to be serjeants-at-law should be put off until the term following the election.³⁵⁷ Given the triumph of Hugh Boscawen^†, the future Viscount Falmouth, in Cornwall, there was even talk of Francis Godolphin being drafted in to challenge Seymour at Exeter, although wiser counsels prevailed.³⁵⁸ Godolphin was also concerned to bring in other Members who would prove useful in managing government business in the Commons: Secretary Hedges was accommodated by Godolphin at West Looe, courtesy of Bishop Trelawny.³⁵⁹ Godolphin may have more directly assisted in the election of Major-General Maine in 1705 by paying his election expenses.³⁶⁰ However, he was discerning in his choice of whom to back, and a master of prevarication and dissimulation if necessary: Jack Howe’s hopes of a seat on the Boscawen interest were seemingly encouraged, but quietly allowed to drop.³⁶¹ Godolphin was also engaged at Woodstock in support of Marlborough’s nominee, William Cadogan^†, the future Earl Cadogan, though it proved a difficult contest: Godolphin wrote on 11 May that the ‘battle at Woodstock vexes me very much, what good will it do us to have Lord Marlborough beat the French abroad if the French at home must beat him’.³⁶² On elections, more generally, James Johnston recorded Godolphin noting that the Triennial Act had ‘spoiled all affairs in England, as they find, he says, by experience’.³⁶³

The results of the elections were evenly balanced. Given that, and Godolphin’s view of the Tories following the ‘tack’, it was essential that the Whigs be brought into a closer relationship with the ministry, and in order to ensure that, to replace Lord Keeper Wright with the Junto Whig, William Cowper*, later Baron and then Earl Cowper. Johnston thought in July, however, that Godolphin ‘begins to neglect 6 [the Whigs] here, and they grow very mutinous’.³⁶⁴ Godolphin’s neglect arose from the trouble he had in getting the queen to agree both to Cowper, and to Sunderland’s appointment as envoy extraordinary to Vienna.³⁶⁵ During the summer, Godolphin often took refuge at Windsor, where he received visits such as one on 20 June 1705 from James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], who would become his closest political ally in Scotland.³⁶⁶ In order to facilitate the management of the new House of Commons, at the end of July Harley sent out letters inviting ‘about 30 of the principal officers of the Crown’ to a meeting at the office of ‘Mr Boyle’. Godolphin addressed those assembled ‘in a warm speech’, that ‘there was a party that nothing would satisfy but wresting the administration out of the queen’s hands, vizt, the tackers’, and recommending John Smith for the Speakership, ‘in a very obliging manner as to himself, and in very pressing terms for the queen’s and public’s service’: Smith would be the court candidate with Whig support for the Speakership in 1705, rather than a party nominee endorsed by the court.³⁶⁷ As an extra precaution, by the end of August Godolphin was pressing Marlborough to be in England two weeks before the start of the parliamentary session.³⁶⁸

In August 1705 the publication of Dr James Drake’s The Memorial of the Church of England caused Godolphin some anguish as it pictured him as an enemy of the Anglican establishment.³⁶⁹ Archbishop Sharp recorded that ‘he said he hoped in his distress he might have recourse to me, or words to that effect. He was often, as I thought, in great concern, and very near weeping’.³⁷⁰ In the event, the pamphlet was condemned to be burnt in September by a grand jury of Middlesex as ‘a false, scandalous, and traitorous libel’.³⁷¹ From 27 Aug. to 12 Sept. 1705 no treasury board was held and at the end of August Godolphin attended the queen at Winchester.³⁷² Parliament was not far from his mind, though, and on 3 Sept. he wrote to Harley concerning the latter’s intentions of speaking ‘fully and particularly’ to Somers and Halifax, and the ‘unreasonable things’ Harley expected them to insist upon. Godolphin was happy to find the proposed Speaker, Smith, ‘very reasonable and very moderate’.³⁷³ On 19 Sept. Godolphin was in London attending to yet more minutiae of parliamentary management, asking the duchess of Marlborough to write to Lady Grandison ‘in order to give her son’, John Fitzgerald Villiers, 5th Viscount Grandison [I], some ‘good advice as to his carriage in the House of Commons’, though it was to no avail as the House decided against his double return for Old Sarum in December.³⁷⁴

On 24 Sept. 1705 Godolphin went from Windsor to Woodstock, intending to go on to Newmarket on the 26th for his pre-sessional entertainment.³⁷⁵ No treasury board was held between 25 Sept. and 10 October.³⁷⁶ He had arrived in Newmarket by 27 Sept. and on the 30th he wrote to Harley about the ‘thousand difficulties’ he foresaw about Parliament. He was still in Newmarket on 4 Oct., but expected to be at St Albans on the 8th and arriving back in London on the 9th.³⁷⁷ Marlborough thought that although Rochester and Bromley would be ‘as malicious as they can’, any attack on Godolphin personally would ‘not find one half of their party stick to them’.³⁷⁸ Johnston noted on 2 Oct. that Godolphin ‘towards the meeting of the Parliament, courts 37 [Whigs] and will do everything in 74 [Scotland] to please, or will delay everything till he be at more liberty; as for instance till 26 [Marlborough] come, he says, you cannot have a general’.³⁷⁹

Throughout the summer, Godolphin had continued to press the claims of Cowper to succeed Wright. He finally prevailed in October, thereby fulfilling his part of the deal in which the Junto had rescued him over the Scottish act of security.³⁸⁰ On 10 Oct. 1705 Godolphin visited Cowper and on the 11th met Cowper again to confirm the conditions upon which he was made lord keeper, and, after Godolphin had showed Cowper and Halifax a letter from the queen to Marlborough favourable to the Whigs, the two men went to Kensington to see her.³⁸¹ Following Cowper’s appointment, Wharton ‘jestingly’ told Godolphin that ‘he was now got into the net and must either make his way through, or else he might be in danger of being hanged in’t’.³⁸² This may explain why on the matter of Cowper’s appointment Simpson thought Godolphin ‘very uneasy as I believe, but it seems there is a necessity of gratifying the party in everything’.³⁸³ As Cowper later put it himself, ‘Marlborough and Godolphin by interest of [the] late duke of Montagu applied to some of the principal lords under William and who were Whigs to carry on the queen’s business in Parliament in return for offices and great seal put into hands of Mr Cowper’.³⁸⁴ Whatever Godolphin’s misgivings they did not prevent a public demonstration of his agreement with the Whigs, for when he accompanied Cowper into Westminster Hall on his first day as keeper on 23 Oct., ‘the conversation between them appeared very gay and entertaining which was no small mortification to the Tories.’³⁸⁵

The session of 1705-6

As the parliamentary session grew closer, Godolphin devoted more time to his scheme of management. He wrote to John Holles*, duke of Newcastle, on 11 Oct. 1705, ‘this day fortnight being appointed for the meeting of Parliament, you will give me leave to put you in mind that your grace’s assistance will be very necessary, as in other particulars so in choice of a Speaker’.³⁸⁶ On 13 Oct. he sent Harley ‘the list of the Cornish Members which I received from Mr Boscawen’ (Hugh Boscawen^‡, Godolphin’s nephew).³⁸⁷ After Parliament sat, Godolphin continued to monitor election cases in the Commons. He helped to manage the campaign which saw Henry Killigrew^‡ unseat John Gape^‡ at St Albans in November.³⁸⁸ On 19 Nov. he wrote to Harley, having been informed that some of his friends, such as Henry Paget*, the future earl of Uxbridge, and the Foleys, were likely to vote for Sir John Garrard^‡ in the Amersham election case: ‘there is not a more perverse man against us in the whole House and for my Lord Cheyne [William^‡] I have power to assure he is quite out of the case, and there won’t be the least word said against his election by the counsel or any of the witnesses.’³⁸⁹ He complained about the failure to unseat the Tacker, James Winstanley^‡ at Leicester, on 8 Feb. 1706, the House overturning the committee’s resolution: ‘I must needs say I think it is a great contre-temps, to fall out among ourselves, when all our strength united is not sufficient to defeat the whimsical clause’, which he felt ‘is a very weak and foolish behaviour of those who are in office to say no more’.³⁹⁰ Godolphin had no success either in overturning the Bewdley election, where his efforts in favour of Hon. Henry Herbert*, the future 2nd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, whom Peter Wentworth actually termed a ‘lord treasurer’s whig’, were counterbalanced by the efforts of Harley and his Foley allies on behalf of their relative, Salwey Winnington^‡.³⁹¹

Godolphin attended the opening of the new Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705, asking Harley’s leave after ‘the hurry and anxiety of this day’ to ‘put you in mind that the draught of the speech must not be brought tomorrow to the Cabinet Council in my hand, and besides the amendment you may have made to it, there are some, which, upon reflexion, I think myself, more proper to be made’. Further, the winning margin on the speakership had not been ‘so great, but that it will concern the court not to be either negligent or imprudent, any false step will easily spoil this session’, and although ‘so many of our friends have played the fool… unless we have a mind to so too, it must not be resented’.³⁹² After 31 Oct. he did not attend again until 12 November. At the cabinet on 4 Nov., Godolphin passed to Cowper ‘a note across the table, desiring me to use my interest with my friends in the Commons House, to stop the bill against officers, and particularly to deal with’ Peter King^†, the future Baron King, country Whig and leading advocate of the place clause and its inclusion in the regency bill.³⁹³ Godolphin obtained Cowper’s agreement, but was then worried that this would be jeopardized by a defeat in the election for the chair of the Commons’ committee of privileges and elections. As he noted on 6 Nov., ‘it will be very necessary to take a little pains with our friends, not to mistake their interest tomorrow about the chairman of the committee of elections’: he worried about the impact of a defeat for the court candidate Spencer Compton^†, the future earl of Wilmington, by Sir Gilbert Dolben^‡, on Cowper’s ability to exercise any persuasion over King and others like him.³⁹⁴ Compton was, however, elected on 7 November.

Godolphin then faced a problem with the chairmanship of the committee of ways and means, the key position in managing supply legislation through the House. From December 1699 this had been John Conyers^‡, and Godolphin must have acquiesced in his continuance when he returned to the treasury in 1700. Conyers, though, voted against the court in the contest for the chair of the committee of elections on 7 Nov., raising fears that the Whigs would not back his re-election. As Godolphin wrote to Harley on 8 Nov., ‘I am sorry to hear, Mr Conyers played the fool last night, but I could wish that might not be so resented as to contest against his coming into the money chair tomorrow, since his being there will, in my opinion, make the session a month shorter than else it will be’.³⁹⁵ On the 9th, Godolphin added: ‘I hope there will be no great difficulty today in fixing Mr Conyers in his throne tho’ at the same time his behaviour shows we ought not to have taken such pains in the matter but for [our] own sakes’.³⁹⁶ As Simpson reported on 12 Nov., ‘there was much ado to get Mr Conyers into the money chair because he is under their displeasure though my lord treasurer and Mr Lowndes had a great mind to him’.³⁹⁷ Conyers triumphed owing to the lobbying campaign on his behalf, conducted by Godolphin, who wrote to Bishop Burnet on 10 Nov. that he had informed the queen of ‘what readiness both your Lordship and Mr [Robert] Dormer^‡ had both shown in putting an end to the contest about the chair of supply, which would perhaps have been very inconvenient’.³⁹⁸ Dormer’s agreement to be absent from the vote in return for the promise of promotion to the bench seems to have secured Conyers’ re-election.³⁹⁹

In the Lords, Nottingham moved on 12 Nov. 1705 to address the queen to lay before the House the proceedings of the Scottish Parliament on the succession and union. There was a long debate over whether it should encompass only the Acts of Parliament, or the whole proceedings: Godolphin, who, Cowper wrote in his diary ‘was most concerned in what passed in the Parliament there’, proposed the words used in the address, which were general and did not even mention the Scottish Parliament.⁴⁰⁰ Godolphin only had two days notice of Haversham’s intended motion on 15 Nov. 1705 for an address asking the queen to invite the electress of Hanover to England. Tactically this was designed to damn Godolphin and Marlborough in the eyes of the queen (if they supported it) or of Hanover (if they did not). On the 13th Godolphin wrote to Newcastle ‘to prepare ourselves with some defences against my Lord Haversham’s great guns’. To that end he wanted Newcastle to ask Charles Powlett*, 2nd duke of Bolton, ‘whose house lies in your way and is convenient for this purpose, to desire his grace to send to such Lords as you and he shall think proper, to meet you there tomorrow morning before you go to the House’, to settle how to approach the question.⁴⁰¹ Having concerted his response with the Whigs, Godolphin successfully managed to secure an amendment of the motion so that it would instead require the appointment of a day to consider the better security of the Protestant succession, especially during the interim after the death of the queen and the arrival in the country of her heir.⁴⁰² Burnet later claimed to have proposed the motion, with Godolphin seconding it.⁴⁰³ The House consequently considered the issue in committee of the whole on 19 Nov.: Wharton proposed several heads for a regency bill, to ensure the orderly transition to the heir; Godolphin moved for the judges to be called, and then intervened to ensure that particular lords justices should be named in the bill ‘for order’s sake’.⁴⁰⁴ Perhaps in preparation for the debate, on 17 Nov. Somerset registered his proxy with Godolphin.

Debate on the state of the nation continued in the committee of the whole on 22 Nov. 1705, with Nottingham criticizing the disappointing campaign of the last summer. It occasioned a four hour debate, chiefly between Nottingham and Godolphin, before the committee rejected the motion, in favour of one promoting good relations between the allies.⁴⁰⁵ On 24 Nov. Godolphin told Harley that the letters brought by James Stanhope^†, the future earl of Stanhope, from the king of Spain and the earl of Peterborough should be communicated to Parliament, and that ‘I believe the best way of doing it will be by the queen from the throne but then it cannot be done till Tuesday morning, the House of Lords being adjourned to that time.’ He asked Harley to come to meet him to discuss it.⁴⁰⁶ The letters were presented to the House on the 27th. On 26 Nov. Henry Grey*, 12th earl (later duke) of Kent, registered his proxy with Godolphin. When leave was sought on 28 Nov to bring in an appeal (that of John Doulbin and his wife Beata) after the time had elapsed for hearing it, Godolphin resisted various expedients suggested for dealing with it, successfully moving that it might be considered on 1 Dec. when some Lords might be better informed on the issues.⁴⁰⁷ He also reported to the House that the queen had agreed to print the letters laid before the House on the conquest of Catalonia, and that she would receive the address of both Houses about the allies the following afternoon.

On 6 Dec. 1705 Godolphin intervened in the debate on the ‘Church in danger’ to prevent it becoming diverted by Archbishop Sharp’s motion to ask the opinion of the judges on how the law stood in relation to dissenting schools and seminaries. Godolphin pointed out that ‘the order of the day determines what is the main question and that is to take place of any incidental question. The main question is whether the Church be in danger from her majesty’s administration’.⁴⁰⁸ The Tories would be forced to contradict the queen, who had declared that the Church was not in danger. Godolphin was then named to a committee to prepare for communicating the resolution to the lower House for their concurrence, and to manage the succeeding conferences. When the Commons debated joining in with the Lords resolution that the Church was not in danger on 8 Dec., William Bromley attacked Godolphin, claiming that he had signed the warrant for sending the bishops to the Tower in 1688, and that he had been named ‘in all the papers of plots etc. since the Revolution’.⁴⁰⁹ Tory tempers had not cooled by 19 Dec. when, during the debate in the Commons on the regency bill, Charles Caesar^‡, attacked Godolphin ‘in a long tedious speech of railing’, for which he was sent to the Tower.⁴¹⁰ On that day Godolphin wrote to Harley of his agreement that ‘the Commons should adjourn rather than be put to find business for themselves’, and to that end he sent him a ‘draft of a speech’ for his amendment at his leisure.⁴¹¹ Both Houses adjourned on 21 December.

On 5 Jan. 1706 Godolphin visited Halifax, who was engaged in the middle of a management meeting with the Speaker and other, presumably Whig, Members in preparation for the resumption of business after the recess.⁴¹² On the following day he attended a dinner with Harley, Halifax and others designed to reconcile Harley with Halifax and Somers.⁴¹³ On 7 Jan. Simpson reported that Godolphin thought ‘the Whigs were stronger by 20 since the House sat by their attending the committee of elections’, and that ‘the daily injuries and provocations he receives from the Tories here have made him as is believed a perfect Whig’.⁴¹⁴ Godolphin attended on the first day following the Christmas recess, 8 January. On 21 Jan. Nicolson implied that Godolphin had been asked to prevent progress on the bill sent up from the Commons on sheriffs’ accounts: it was indeed dropped.

The major preoccupation over January and February was the progress of the regency bill, and the attempt by the ‘whimsical’ whigs to insert a clause excluding officer holders from the Commons. On 22 Jan. 1706 Godolphin wrote to Harley, ‘I don’t hear when they intend to proceed upon the place bill, but my thought is that the sooner it comes the better’, while the previous day’s committee of the whole on the regency bill was fresh in Members’ minds: ‘I am apt to think gentlemen will be more easy than if you give them time to harden one another’.⁴¹⁵ It was not a place bill that was eventually proceeded with: on 25 Jan., Godolphin wrote again following the completion of the report stage of the regency bill the previous night when the so-called ‘whimsical clause’, which would have disqualified all but about 40 named office-holders from the Commons after the Queen’s death, had been added to the bill. ‘You fought it so stoutly last night, and brought it so near’, he told Harley, ‘that I hope the House of Lords will be encouraged to ruffle the clause pretty handsomely, before they meet you upon it, in the painted chamber’. The Lords considered the Commons’ amendments on 29 Jan., but adjourned the debate on the whimsical clause. On 30 Jan. Godolphin told Harley that he hoped ‘we shall yet be masters of this bill in the House of Lords’. The Lords amended the clause on 31st, but the Commons rejected their amendments on 4 February. On 7 Feb. Godolphin was named to manage the resultant conference, and afterwards to draw up reasons for the Lords adhering to their amendments and the subsequent conference on 11 February. On 15 Feb. he wrote to Harley, ‘I have had this morning an account of a long tedious meeting betwixt the heads of the whimsicals and some lords of our House’, in which a compromise was thrashed out, with specific offices excluded from the Commons, rather than a blanket exclusion with certain exceptions. The Lords told them they might exclude negatively whatever they would in the next reign provided they would not disturb the queen and the present reign’, and ‘after much wrangling’, the two sides came to an agreement. Godolphin went on to ask that Harley, Boyle and Hedges take `as much pains as you can to agree this matter today, for nothing will be so uneasy to the queen as losing this bill’.⁴¹⁶ The Commons postponed consideration of the crucial clause until the 18th, when amendments including the exclusion of several offices including the prize office were passed, but the key demand of the whimsicals lost.⁴¹⁷ Godolphin was then named to the resultant conference on 19 February. On the 15th Godolphin had sent to Harley a draft of the queen’s speech to be read when royal assent was given to the supply bills for ‘your correction’, with alternative wording depending on whether the regency bill had been agreed: if it had, ‘all the bills may pass together upon Monday’; if it had not, ‘the money bills may pass tomorrow’. He ended with the heartfelt observation that ‘we live the life of galley slaves.’⁴¹⁸ Since the regency bill was then still in the balance, the money bills, including the annuities bill which helped to shift the government’s debt from the short-term to the long-term, were given royal assent on 16 Feb., when the queen made a short speech.⁴¹⁹

On 21 Feb. in the Lords, Godolphin (with Wharton, Halifax and Marlborough) opposed Lord Rochester’s motion (supported by Somers and Nottingham) to dispense with the standing order allowing 14 days after the commitment of a private bill.⁴²⁰ After 25 Feb. he did not attend until 4-5 Mar., and then he was absent until the last two days of the session on 18-19 March. In the interim he was involved in facilitating the loan to the Emperor through a commission authorizing trustees to collect contributions. He subscribed £5,000 himself, even though to do so he was ‘obliged to sell my stock in the Bank’ held under the name of Mr Hall.⁴²¹ He retained some stock under his own name, a printed list from 1710 showing that he had an investment of over £4,000.⁴²² On 10 Mar. he told Harley that ‘I go to Newmarket tomorrow for four or five days and I had a mind to have shown you a draught of a speech for the queen to make at the close of the session, which I shall now leave in the duke of Marlborough’s hands for your correction’. No treasury board was held between 6-18 Mar., and Godolphin wrote from Newmarket on 14 Mar. acknowledging Harley’s amendments to the speech and expressing the hope that the Commons would ‘take some effectual resolution about manning the fleet, since that matter does but too plainly want their immediate care’.⁴²³ He added that he expected to be in London on 16 March.⁴²⁴ On 18 Mar. he was ordered to attend the queen with their address concerning the Cotton Library. By the end of the session on the 19th, he had attended on 56 days of the session, 59 per cent of the total and been named to 20 committees.

By the end of the session, the germ of future disagreement between Godolphin and Harley can be discerned. On 22 Mar. 1706 Godolphin replied to a letter from Harley concerning political strategy: with 190 Tories, 160 Whigs and 100 ‘queen’s servants’, Godolphin thought ‘our business is to get as many [as] we can from the 190, without doing anything to lose one of the 160’. The behaviour of the Tories in the previous session had ‘shown as much inveteracy and as little sense as was possible’, and even if some of them could be separated from their fellows they would be unreliable. Any move towards them would result in a loss of Whig support.⁴²⁵ Such matters were of practical import as ministerial changes were expected. On 30 Mar. Ralph Bridges reported the queen’s imminent return from Windsor, ‘where the two great ministers have accompanied her majesty these holidays, in order, as they say, to determine the changes in the ministry so long discoursed of, which are also to be accompanied with several new honours and all they say in favour of the Whig party.’⁴²⁶ On 2 Apr. Simpson believed that ‘Godolphin ‘has taken pains with the Whigs to reconcile them to him, which was easier to do because the solicitor [Harcourt] joined with them in the question about places and some other great points and now they talk of making him attorney’.⁴²⁷ No treasury board was held between 30 Mar. and 12 Apr., Godolphin paying a second visit to Newmarket, and asking ask Harley on 4 Apr. to ‘let me know precisely when you think the duke of Marlborough will go, because my coming or stay here depends upon the certainty of it’.⁴²⁸ When nothing happened Godolphin evinced some concern on 16 Apr. over the pressure he was coming under from Somers ‘and his friends’ for ministerial changes, mainly the inclusion of Sunderland at the expense of Harley, ‘and I am sorry to say they are not all so reasonable as is certainly very necessary, for their own sakes as well as for everybody else’. No doubt, too, he had to deal with Sarah’s advocacy of Whig claims, saying on 19 Apr. that the main reason for his trip to Windsor was ‘to let her see the unreasonableness of her friends in some particulars’. Godolphin’s concerns were magnified by the knowledge that the queen would resist Junto demands for office: the ‘matter goes so much uphill with her, that she will hate one for endeavouring to persuade her to half of what is really necessary for her own good’.⁴²⁹

On 23 Apr. 1706 Godolphin recorded that ‘we gave yesterday the first proposal for a union to the commissioners of Scotland’.⁴³⁰ On 30 Apr. Simpson reported that Godolphin had ‘returned late from meeting with union commissioners ‘and said that by endeavouring to unite others he should break himself. If we were in earnest for a union I don’t think our great man would take so much pains at conferences I am afraid all is but grimace.’⁴³¹ Godolphin’s main political concern over the Union negotiations was to ensure that the Junto did not dominate the Scottish representation in the new legislature. He spoke on 12 June at a meeting of the commissioners on the proposed representation of the Scots in the Commons.⁴³² Financially, one of his major tasks was to negotiate the Equivalent (compensation for Scotland having taken on the debts of England incurred before the Union), which was agreed in July.⁴³³ He was also involved in lobbying Scottish politicians, such Roxburghe, to support the Union, as well as nagging his English counterparts, such as Newcastle, to make the effort to be present to sign the treaty. ⁴³⁴ The the Treaty of Union was completed on 22 July, though Godolphin was well aware that the Tories would oppose it in Parliament and already ‘it begins to be preached up and down that the Church is in danger from this Union.’ To which he coupled the complaint that ‘there’s no end of … the folly of the other [the Whigs] in affecting to bring in none but their own creatures and not making the bottom broad enough to be durable’.⁴³⁵ The Scots had their uses, however, as Johnston revealed on 21 Sept.: the Whigs were upset that the Scottish commissioners had ‘betrayed’ to Godolphin what passed between them, Godolphin owning that ‘he never knew so much of 32 [the Whig Lords’] disposition with respects to himself, as he has done since 67 [the treaty].⁴³⁶

The prospect of taking Ostend in May 1706, and with it a direct link into the markets of the Spanish Netherlands, saw Godolphin keen to ensure that the possibilities for trade were enhanced by executive action and then parliamentary statute, with all laws dealing with the prohibition of lace being lifted in the following session. In early June Godolphin had to deal with a threat from Ormond to quit his Irish lieutenancy, an inconvenience given the pretensions of Wharton to the post. Also in June he expressed his concern at the influence of George Churchill^‡, Marlborough’s Tory-inclined brother, on Prince George, for although Churchill ‘had contributed to make some things easy’, the ‘uneasiness’ shown at times by the Prince was attributed to Churchill. On 5 Aug. Godolphin went ‘into Wiltshire for three or four days to see my horses’ at his stables at Tilshead.⁴³⁷

Godolphin accepted the implications of his analysis that the Junto should be compensated for its political support, recognizing that Sunderland should be accommodated in the ministry. During the summer of 1706 he attempted to persuade the queen of the efficacy of such an appointment.⁴³⁸ He utilized Marlborough’s influence to convince her, but she remained obdurate in her refusal to remove Hedges in favour of Sunderland, and it seems that Godolphin even offered to resign, on or about 20 August. In response the queen offered only to bring Sunderland into the cabinet, with a pension, until a post became vacant, while noting that ‘it is impossible to be more mortified than I am to see my lord treasurer in such uneasiness, and his leaving my service is a thought I cannot bear and I hope in God he will put all such out of his own mind.’⁴³⁹

On 27 Aug. Godolphin went to visit Wharton at Winchendon, where he was expected to stay until the 31st.⁴⁴⁰ However, on the 29th he was already at St Albans. Almost immediately he was drawn into mediating between Sarah and the queen over one of the duchess’s more trenchant letters on behalf of Sunderland, by explaining that the queen had misread Sarah’s atrocious handwriting, reading ‘notion’ for ‘nation’.⁴⁴¹ On 30 Aug. the queen succinctly summed up Godolphin’s position: ‘you press the bringing Lord Sun[derland] into business that there may be one of that party in a post of trust, to help carry on the business this winter, and you think if this is not complied with, they will not be hearty in pursuing any service in the Parliament’.⁴⁴² Marlborough thought that Godolphin’s ‘quitting’ was ‘wholly impossible’, pointing out ‘without flattery’ that ‘his reputation is so great in all courts as well as at home, that such a step would go a great way with Holland in particular, to make their peace with France, which at this time must be fatal to the liberties of Europe’.⁴⁴³ Godolphin’s position was made worse by his unwillingness to hide behind the queen’s intransigence in his dealings with the Whigs, who ‘do really not see the difficulties as they are and one cannot go about to show them those difficulties without too much exposing 83 [queen]’.⁴⁴⁴ Nor, as Godolphin told Sarah on the 14 Sept, could he find a way of making the queen ‘sensible’ of her ‘mistakes’. When the queen rebuffed a further attempt, he responded on 13 Sept.: ‘it gives me all the grief and despair imaginable to find that your majesty shows inclination to have me continue in your service, and yet will make it impossible for me ... I cannot struggle against the difficulties of your majesty’s business and against yourself at the same time’. He ended pathetically, ‘I have worn out my health, and, almost, my life, in the service of the crown.’⁴⁴⁵

After holding a treasury board on 23 Sept. 1706, the next day Godolphin set out from Windsor for Woodstock, from where on 25 Sept. he wrote to Harley, enclosing a letter for the queen, in which he again pressed for ministerial changes: ‘I propose nothing but what is necessary for carrying on your majesty’s business, especially in this next winter, which is like to be the most critical of your whole reign’, he had written, plaintively: ‘I doubt whether all we can do will be able to keep off the peace this winter’.⁴⁴⁶ From Woodstock, Godolphin went to Newmarket, via St Albans, arriving on 30 September. He was still there on the 9 Oct., arriving back at St James’s on the 12th. The plan now was to delay the parliamentary session to allow for the completion of the Union.⁴⁴⁷

The sessions of 1706-7

In the run-up to the session, Godolphin turned his mind to more specific issues of parliamentary management. He was interested in the possibility of a treasury nominee filling the Devizes seat of John Methuen, who had died in July. In October he used Simpson to dissuade Methuen’s son, Paul Methuen^‡, currently serving as ambassador in Portugal, from standing in the seat, and to persuade him to use his interest to secure the election of someone else who ‘might be useful to the government during your absence and quit it to you at the next election’.⁴⁴⁸ The broad difference of opinion between Godolphin and Harley on political strategy continued in the run-up to the session. On 10 Oct. Godolphin thanked Harley for his thoughts on the subject, ‘though I differ in opinion’. He wrote that in the last session, there had been ‘an averseness at bottom’ to do anything that was thought to advantage the Whigs, though ‘without them, and their being entire, the queen cannot be served’. Now, he worried, the Whigs would be made ‘jealous and uneasy, and at best but passive. The consequence of which is that the majority will be against us upon every occasion of consequence’.⁴⁴⁹

By the end of October 1706 Godolphin was anxious for Marlborough’s return ‘for several things which ought necessarily to be done before the Parliament. And your being here before their sitting down, must needs have a very great influence toward hastening their preparation for next year’.⁴⁵⁰ On 12 Nov. Johnston thought that Godolphin and the Whig Lords ‘having concerted matters as to their own Parliament, seem more one than ever’.⁴⁵¹ On 15 Nov. Godolphin wrote to Harley that he did not think the Scots would ‘proceed upon the Union till they have perfected their act for security of their church’: in the meantime, he suggested ‘the pretext of the floods’ could be used for putting off the meeting of Parliament.⁴⁵² On 19 Nov. Godolphin was ‘so taken up’ with Marlborough and two meetings of the council that he could not see Sir David Nairne about Scottish affairs.⁴⁵³ Before the session began, Godolphin and Marlborough finally persuaded Harley of the need for the appointment of Sunderland, rather than Harley’s alternative scheme, at a conference between the three men taking place on 20 November.⁴⁵⁴ At last the impasse was solved by the resignation of Hedges and the appointment of Sunderland on 3 Dec., the opening day in the 1706-7 session.

In a list of promotions in the peerage in Godolphin’s hand on 29 Nov. 1706, Harley had inserted Godolphin’s advancement to an earldom.⁴⁵⁵ On 6 Dec. Harley sent to Godolphin’s son a draft by Erasmus Lewis of a preamble for his father’s patent, ‘my Lord’s great modesty made me afraid of displeasing him, therefore you will find only matter of fact mentioned without any embellishment: your great judgment in the language as well as the interest you have in it, makes me desirous to have it submitted to your correction’.⁴⁵⁶ In 1711 Peter Wentworth recalled that Lewis had drawn up Godolphin’s patent, which he had then given to Hare, ‘and after they had both modelled it, my Lord had the modesty to strike out above half, for as ‘twas to be supposed what the queen says, he thought ‘twas too many compliments for her to make to anybody’.⁴⁵⁷ Godolphin was introduced into the Lords as earl of Godolphin on 30 Dec. by Scroop Egerton*, 4th earl of Bridgwater, and Charles Montagu*, 4th earl Manchester. He attended on the first day after the recess, 7 Jan. 1707, and then only on 14 Jan. until 15 Feb., possibly in part due to ill-health for on 4 Feb. Johnston referred to him having been ill.⁴⁵⁸ On the 14th Kent registered his proxy with Godolphin, who on that day spoke against ‘Nottingham’s motion for the articles of the Union’, which ‘was quashed by [the] lord treasurer without a question’.⁴⁵⁹ According to Luttrell, Godolphin said that ‘the articles were near finished in Scotland, after which would be soon brought before the Parliament here’, and after being supported by Wharton, Somers and others, the matter dropped.⁴⁶⁰ On 17 Jan. Johnston thought that the Whigs had done so much for Godolphin that he seemed to be entirely for the Union.⁴⁶¹ On 28 Jan. the Articles of Union were read in the Lords, along with the Scottish Act ratifying it, and the Scottish Act to protect the position of the Scottish church. Godolphin informed Harley that a bill for the security of the Church of England had been ordered by the House of Lords that day, and had been ‘brought in with very good intentions and chiefly to hinder the House of Commons from beginning with that matter. I am to see it tomorrow night. I think the shorter and plainer it is the better; but something of that nature seems unavoidable the Scots having done it’.⁴⁶² On 29 Jan. Godolphin was present at a meeting at Sunderland’s with John Moore*, bishop of Norwich, Charles Townshend*, 2nd Viscount Townshend, the Marlborough, Wharton, Orford, and Halifax to consider the bill. They agreed the text, and made arrangements for its passage.⁴⁶³ On 15 Feb., the House took into consideration the articles of Union in a committee of the whole, where Godolphin was one of those against allowing the amendment of any of the articles.⁴⁶⁴

On 1 Mar. 1707 Nicolson recorded that Godolphin had spoken in favour of Nicholas Barnewall, 3rd Viscount Barnewall of Kingsland [I], during the debate upon his appeal, noting that Kingsland had married the duchess of Marlborough’s niece, Mary Hamilton, the daughter of the countess of Tyrconnell. Godolphin was not present on 8 Mar., preferring to attend at St James’s where Nicolson preached a sermon to commemorate the queen’s accession.⁴⁶⁵ On 4 Apr. Godolphin was confident that the session would end with the Whigs having ‘contributed to make the sessions so easy and so much to her majesty’s advantage’.⁴⁶⁶ He last attended on the final day, 8 Apr., when he was ordered to lay before the queen the report of a Lords committee on the keeping of records. He had been present on 38 days of the session, 44 per cent of the total, and had been named to three committees. Parliament was only prorogued until 14 Apr. because of ‘a wrangle betwixt the Lords and Commons’ over a bill concerning the drawbacks issue, the likelihood of customs fraud on goods transported between England and Scotland, and the desire to pass corrective legislation before the date the Union came into effect, 1 May.⁴⁶⁷ On 10 Apr. Godolphin wrote to Harley, ‘I think the prorogation of the Parliament puts us under very great difficulties, and some resolution must be taken quickly how to get out of them as well as we can.’ He also asked him to bring with him a copy of the queen’s speech.⁴⁶⁸ On 11 Apr. Godolphin wrote to Harley that ‘all the Scots will pour in upon us next week, I wish before they come we could pour out the English, and that I might go Monday to Newmarket’.⁴⁶⁹ No treasury board was held between 12-22 Apr. and Godolphin duly went to Newmarket on the 14th, for four or five days.⁴⁷⁰ Godolphin attended the brief session on 3 out of the six days, 21, 23 and 24 April.

The short April 1707 session failed to resolve the problem of fraud associated with the Union, which continued to exercise Godolphin. John Erskine*, 22rd earl of Mar, reported on 29 July 1707 that Godolphin had said that favour would be shown to the Scottish merchants ‘which was not contrary to the opinion of the queen’s counsel learned, and further he nor none of the queen’s servants durst advise her majesty to do without hazarding their heads.’⁴⁷¹ The Union also presented Godolphin with the problem of integrating the two systems of government, and the political problem of managing the expectations of Scottish politicians.⁴⁷² On 2 May 1707 he was summoned to a meeting with Sunderland, Cowper, Pembroke ‘and some of the Scotch Lords to consider the constitution of the Privy Council’; on 14 May he was ‘endeavouring to fix the customs house officers for Scotland’.⁴⁷³ At the end of the month, Godolphin quarrelled with Kent ‘about the two Scotch dukes’ created before 1 May, ‘contrary to a promise made by the treasurer and which the marquess thinks to be a slur upon the English Peerage’. There had been, it was said, ‘high words about this betwixt them’, ‘they say even in the queen’s presence.’⁴⁷⁴ There was also the imminent session of the Irish parliament to consider, plus the military situation in Spain following the defeat at Almanza, and planning for the descent upon Toulon.⁴⁷⁵ The affairs of the East India Companies also came under the purview of the lord treasurer. Between February 1707 and September 1708 he was often called on to facilitate negotiations between the two companies, or to deal with the detrimental effect of their currency transactions on the remittance of funds for the payment of troops in Flanders.⁴⁷⁶ After Godolphin’s mediation, letters patent were issued of the agreement uniting the two companies in September.⁴⁷⁷

Ecclesiastical matters also intruded into Godolphin’s consciousness. The death of Peter Mews*, bishop of Winchester, in November 1706 provided Godolphin with the opportunity to fulfil promises to his fellow Cornishman, Bishop Trelawny of Exeter, for advancement in the Church, in return for his electoral interest.⁴⁷⁸ However, Trelawny was not popular with the Whigs and there was competition for the vacant see from Burnet, and so Trelawny had to wait for his long promised the promotion.⁴⁷⁹ In February 1707, the death of William Jane, the regius professor of divinity at Oxford, saw Godolphin, Marlborough and the Whigs espousing the claims of John Potter^†, the future archbishop of Canterbury, but his promotion was put on hold because the queen preferred George Smalridge*, the future bishop of Bristol.⁴⁸⁰ In February, following the death of Nicholas Stratford*, bishop of Chester, the Whigs put together a compromise scheme whereby Samuel Freeman, dean of Peterborough would succeed Stratford; White Kennet^†, the future bishop of Peterborough, would succeed Freeman and Charles Trimnell*, the future bishop of Norwich, would replace Trelawny.⁴⁸¹ Unfortunately, the queen had already promised the vacant see of Exeter to Offspring Blackall*, who would eventually become its bishop, and that of Chester to Sir William Dawes*, who would also succeed there. She refused to break her word.⁴⁸² The Junto interpreted the subsequent indecision as a sign of Godolphin’s bad faith.⁴⁸³ This was not helped by the fact that within a few days of the death of Simon Patrick*, bishop of Ely, at the end of May, he was replaced by Bishop Moore of Norwich; Trelawny was translated to Winchester on 7 June; and later in June Godolphin secured the deanery of St Paul’s for his brother, Henry.⁴⁸⁴ As early as June 1707 Godolphin was hoping to leave the bishoprics of Chester, Exeter and Norwich vacant until Marlborough’s return, trusting that ‘before winter things will jumble into a better posture’.⁴⁸⁵ In the event, the issue was resolved in January 1708 when the queen kept her promise to Blackall and Dawes, Trimnell got Norwich, and Potter the chair of divinity.

By the end of June 1707 Godolphin feared a difficult winter in Parliament, as the queen’s ‘proceedings in some things will give 89 [Whigs] a handle to be uneasy and to tear everything in pieces if they can’t have their own terms’. Further, Harley hated Somers, Sunderland and Wharton so much ‘that he omits no occasion of filling 42’s [the queen’s] head with their projects and designs’. As usual when he faced difficulties with the queen, Godolphin urged Marlborough to return early from the campaign otherwise ‘there must be the greatest confusion imaginable in all the affairs of 88 [Parliament]’.⁴⁸⁶ By the middle of August Godolphin, writing to Marlborough, had fixed the blame for the queen’s intransigence on Harley’s ‘inclination of talking more freely than usually to 156 256 [Mrs Masham]. And this is laid hold of, and improved by 199 [Harley] upon all such matters, if not upon others, to insinuate his notions’ – notions of a different basis for the ministry.⁴⁸⁷

The session of 1707-8

On 25 Aug. and 1 Sept. 1707 Godolphin held meetings of the treasury board at Windsor. In between, on 27 Aug. he was at Wharton’s house at Winchendon, for the horse-racing at Quainton.⁴⁸⁸ On 1 Sept. Godolphin held a conference with Cowper, which ranged over matters of patronage and foreign policy, including the bishoprics crisis, wherein Godolphin revealed ‘how far he had gone to tell the queen the necessity of agreeing with the Whigs and court’, and the difficulties caused by ‘the queen’s personal inclination and engagements (one not being able when asked to tell her they were obnoxious to anyone)’. After a second meeting on 8 Sept., the two men also agreed ‘to consider heads for the queen’s speech’, which was ‘the best ground to speak to the queen upon [it] together’. Godolphin’s amendments to Cowper’s draft of 11 Sept., which was delivered by the queen on 6 Nov., are extant.⁴⁸⁹ On 4 Sept. Godolphin told Newcastle that he hoped to arrive in London by 4 Oct., ready to assist in ‘the many difficulties of the next session of Parliament’.⁴⁹⁰ Not the least of his problems was the need to set Parliament off on the right foot, for ‘in other years the encouragement to our allies abroad has often proceeded from their votes in the first week of the Parliament’.⁴⁹¹ On 18 Sept. Marlborough summed up Godolphin’s predicament: ‘if he stays in his place and does not entirely govern 239 [the queen] he will be duped by 199 [Harley]; and if he does what is certainly best for himself, quit, he will do great hurt both to the business at home and abroad’.⁴⁹² Godolphin did not hold a treasury board meeting between 26 Sept. and 20 Oct. and in late September he travelled to St Albans to pick up his son en route for Newmarket.⁴⁹³ While at Newmarket Godolphin considered whether it was possible to accommodate Marlborough by deferring the meeting of Parliament for a fortnight, ‘without doing more hurt than good’: such a delay would discourage ‘our friends, retarding all our preparations, and encouraging the opposing party’. Nevertheless, ‘nothing is fixed here to make 88 [Parliament] succeed, nor can 38 [Godolphin] do anything so shameful as to abandon 42 [the queen] but upon a joint measure with Mr Freeman [Marlborough]’.⁴⁹⁴ Godolphin arrived back in London on 17 Oct., having had ‘good fortune’, at Newmarket, ‘winning the queen’s plate and three other races’.⁴⁹⁵

Godolphin was present on the opening day of the session, 23 Oct. 1707. Both Whigs and Tories were now willing to unite in an attack on the ministry, for its military failures in Spain, the shortcomings of the admiralty and the attempt to tidy up Scottish government after the Union. Godolphin could count on a group of ‘lord treasurer’s Whigs’, comprising men such as Henry Boyle, John Smith, Sir Thomas Littleton, Spencer Compton, Hugh Boscawen, Thomas Coningsby, and Robert Walpole^†, the future earl of Orford, who defended Godolphin in the Commons from the attacks of the Junto Whigs.⁴⁹⁶ Godolphin’s scheme of management also involved independent Whig peers, such as Shaftesbury.⁴⁹⁷ After Sir John Cropley^‡ had met Godolphin in December, he reported to Shaftesbury that ‘the quarrel continues betwixt the Whig lords and the court’, with the queen reportedly saying that ‘she will never more return to consult them any more than Lord Rochester and that form of men, but will ever after trust herself in the hands of such as have never been on the stage in either party’. At the end of the month, Cropley added that Godolphin ‘has fixed his game to make a party of Whigs and Tories’, and was for ‘true Whigs that would be your Whigs and not the Junto’s’, with Newcastle having ‘gone into this scheme’ with Somerset and William Cavendish*, 2nd duke of Devonshire.⁴⁹⁸

Godolphin was absent from the first three sittings of the House after the Christmas recess, 7-9 Jan. 1708, first attending on the 12th. On 16 Jan., Joseph Addison^‡ reported that both Marlborough and Godolphin attempted to blunt Peterborough’s lengthy and not entirely coherent criticisms of the war in Spain.⁴⁹⁹ By the end of the month, Godolphin and Harley had come to a parting of the ways, Godolphin feeling that he had been betrayed by Harley, possibly over the latter revealing to the queen the shortfall in the number of troops at Almanza.⁵⁰⁰ It had come on top of the growing disagreement between the two men on how to manage Parliament, and more specifically Harley’s plans for a new ministry. At some point in January Godolphin had realized that any plans for working with the Tories would not provide a majority. Harley, nevertheless, continued to work on a new scheme in secret.⁵⁰¹ This set the scene for a power struggle, in which Harley attempted to force Godolphin from office with the assistance of the queen.⁵⁰² Godolphin’s trump card in this battle for power was the support of Marlborough, who, although he may have wavered, came down decisively on the side of the lord treasurer, despite several appeals from Harley pleading for the opportunity to justify himself.⁵⁰³ On 6 Feb. Godolphin and Marlborough told the queen they could not serve with Harley. Before the Cabinet met on 8 Feb. Godolphin resigned. The queen refused to accept, giving him until the following day to reconsider, but adding that ‘then he should do as he pleased, with all she could find enough glad of that staff’. When Marlborough, in turn, resigned, he was told that he ran his sword through her head. The cabinet refused to consider important business in their absence, signalling their lack of support for Harley.⁵⁰⁴ The queen only abandoned Harley when ‘upon the first report of my lord treasurer laying down, many of the Members had resolved not to go into the committee of ways and means that day, so that the day was spent in business of little moment’ and the Lords threatened to enquire more deeply into the treason committed by Harley’s under-secretary, Greg.⁵⁰⁵ Harley resigned on 11 February, allowing Godolphin and Marlborough to resume their roles.

Before the crisis, Godolphin had been negotiating with the Bank for a new subscription, on the one hand and drafting a proposal to the House for raising the remainder of the supply. On 4 Feb. Boyle reported that the Bank had agreed to open their books for an additional subscription of £2,200,000, ‘which will make the way easy for them to supply the government in the method my lord treasurer proposes.’⁵⁰⁶ On 5 Feb. Vernon reported that at the report stage of the annuity bill a new clause was offered ‘to enact what my lord treasurer had ordered already’, that no names should be taken as money received before the act was passed.⁵⁰⁷ A major preoccupation in the Lords was the abolition of the Scottish Privy Council, on which the Commons had resolved on 11 Dec. 1707. As the most effective instrument of executive control in Scotland, Godolphin fought to preserve it when the legislation reached the Lords.⁵⁰⁸ On 5 Feb. 1708 the Lords had ‘a long debate’ in the committee of the whole House on the bill for ‘completing the Union’ over whether the council should be dissolved on 1 May or 1 Oct.: ‘it was carried for the day already fixed in the bill by 50 votes against 45. It was chiefly argued by my lord treasurer and Lord Somers, who were of different opinions’.⁵⁰⁹ After the adjournment of the committee, Godolphin tried to use the influence of the court to overturn the vote. Thomas Fane*, 6th earl of Westmorland, was lobbied by Prince George on 6 Feb. following Godolphin’s late night visit to the queen.⁵¹⁰ The attempt was unsuccessful. After further sessions on the bill in the committee of the whole on the 7th, Cropley noted that the Lords had passed ‘our Scotch Bill taking away the council without any amendments,’ although Godolphin ‘spoke five times against this bill’.⁵¹¹ He duly entered his dissent to the bill’s passage.

On 14 Feb. 1708, Godolphin, on the advice of Cowper and Somers, proposed the adjournment of the committee of the whole on the cathedrals bill, promoted by Nicolson to overcome his current dispute with his high Church dean, Francis Atterbury*, later bishop of Rochester, until the 19th to allow time for the queen to be informed of its import. On 17 Feb., when Bolton reported from the committee of the whole and an address critical of the management of the admiralty was moved by Wharton and supported by both Whigs and Tories, it was carried without a division after ‘a faint opposition’ from Godolphin.⁵¹² As Cropley reported it, Rochester seconded the motion ‘saying the errors and mismanagements had been so notorious he blushed to name them considering the person that was at the head of the sea administration’ (who was Prince George); to which Godolphin replied ‘he should have hoped he might have blushed in making so severe a reflection on that person now at the head of the administration’.⁵¹³ On 2 Mar. Godolphin informed John Erskine*, earl of Mar [S], that he could not attend the committee that morning on the bill establishing a Scottish court of exchequer because he had to attend at Kensington. However, he had written to David Boyle*, earl of Glasgow [S], ‘to make my excuse to the committee and to give the papers there which they expected from’ him, which Glasgow duly presented to the committee.⁵¹⁴

By the end of March, the ministry were hoping for progress on a bill to improve recruitment for the army. Not present, however, at a meeting of Members on 29 Mar., held under the auspicies of secretary of state, Henry Boyle, he received a report of it on 30 Mar., and wrote that ‘they will do nothing tomorrow that will be worth delaying to put an end to the session in expectation of what they may do farther’.⁵¹⁵ On 31 Mar. he attended a meeting at Speaker Smith’s at which it was decided to prorogue Parliament on the following day, given ‘the difficulty, if not the impossibility of getting any effectual bill to pass for the better raising the recruits’.⁵¹⁶ Parliament was prorogued accordingly and on 2 Apr. Addison reported that Godolphin had gone to Newmarket.⁵¹⁷ He had attended on 74 days of the session, 69 per cent of the total, and been named to 16 committees. No meetings of the treasury board were held between 31 Mar. and 12 April. Godolphin returned to London on the 10th.⁵¹⁸ Godolphin had hoped that Marlborough would be back in London upon his return in order to assist in persuading the queen to admit both Somers and Wharton to office.⁵¹⁹ Upon his return the writs for the new Parliament were expected to be issued. Parliament was duly dissolved on 15 April.⁵²⁰

The 1708 election

Harley’s resignation had done little to reduce the pressure from the Whigs on Godolphin; and suspicions of Harley’s continuing influence with the queen were an additional irritant. Already Arthur Maynwaring^‡ was arguing that the inclusion of Somers in the cabinet in place of Pembroke would nullify Harley’s influence with Abigail Masham, because he agreed so perfectly with Godolphin, Sunderland and Boyle.⁵²¹ The queen, still resistant to Somers, was equally reluctant to advance Halifax’s brother, Sir James Montagu^‡, to be attorney general. Godolphin feared that the failure to include Somers would cause divisions among the Whigs, and hence make it more difficult to manage Parliament. On 15 Apr. 1708, Cropley told Shaftesbury that Godolphin was the

most open, plain man, the freest of art and trick I have ever known. The more heartily zealous and open this Lord is, the worse and worse he grows with the queen and the higher are the terms and demands from the Oaks [Junto Whigs] when even at the same time they do own he does all he can, that never man run greater hazards than he has done to serve them… You may have wagers that we shall see this Lord sacrificed at last and Mr Harley restored and in this Lord’s place.⁵²²

And indeed, on 6 May, having read to the queen another supportive letter from Marlborough, Godolphin recorded a conversation of two hours with her in which she resisted ‘all the plainest reasons and arguments that ever were used in any case whatsoever’, while disclaiming ‘any talk of the least commerce with Mr Harley, at first or secondhand, and positive that she never speaks with anybody but 41 [Prince George] upon anything of that kind.’⁵²³ About May Godolphin was classed as a court Tory on a list analysing the first Parliament of Great Britain. On 18 May he held a treasury board meeting and then went to Newmarket for a few days, where the ‘great quiet and little company’, he found there, coupled with a ‘very discouraging letter’ from the queen persuaded him to stay until the 24th. On 31 May he reported another long conversation with the queen over the merits of appointing Montagu to the attorney-general’s post, ‘which ended with the greatest dissatisfaction possible to both’.⁵²⁴

As usual, Godolphin took a close interest in the 1708 election. In mid May, he had ‘little reason to doubt, but the next Parliament will be very well inclined to support the war and (I hope) to do everything else that is reasonable, if they can have but reasonable encouragement. All seems to turn upon that’, but the queen remained ‘very inflexible’.⁵²⁵ To aid in the management of the Cornish elections, he replaced his son as warden of the Stannaries with his nephew, Hugh Boscawen. Facing opposition at Hereford, James Brydges was hopeful of a Cornish seat, having ‘presumed to lay my case before my lord treasurer and to have recourse to his Lordship’s favour for refuge in case of a disappointment at the city I served for before.’ Brydges was, in fact, successful at Hereford, and wrote to Marlborough of his gratitude for their recommendation at Truro on the Boscawen interest.⁵²⁶ On hearing news of Robert Molesworth’s^‡ defeat at East Retford, Godolphin suggested him (albeit unsuccessfully) for a seat in Cornwall.⁵²⁷ Following Sir Henry Peachey’s^‡ return for both Sussex and Arundel, Godolphin promoted first Littleton and then Thomas Hopkins^‡ to succeed him at the latter.⁵²⁸ Godolphin likewise paid careful attention to the election for Scottish representative peers, to be held in mid-June. As early as 26 Apr. he had noted that George Hamilton*, earl of Orkney [S], wished to have leave from the army to attend the election.⁵²⁹ On 7 May, by Godolphin’s ‘desire’, Seafield sent Marlborough the form of a proxy to use in the Scottish peerage election.⁵³⁰ On 8 May, the duke of Hamilton wrote to Sunderland that he had been told that Godolphin did not ‘approve of’ James Douglas*, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], being given the British dukedom of Dover.⁵³¹ On 3 June Henry Alexander, 5th earl of Stirling [S], reported a private meeting with Godolphin wherein ‘his lordship requested that I would give my proxy to any of the five he had named, whereupon I left it wholly to his lordship, who hath chose my Lord Seafield’. Godolphin then arranged a meeting for the following day at the treasury, where ‘he would there have the Scotch secretary to direct and assist me in the form and method of doing it. All which is done accordingly, and tomorrow I am to take the oaths and all is to be finished. And his lordship hath ordered the proxy to go down in his own packet’.⁵³² Godolphin himself wrote to Seafield, ‘I have taken some pains to send you my Lord Stirling’s proxy, which Sir David Nairne will take care shall come to you in time.’⁵³³

Tensions between Godolphin and the Whigs were such that in mid-July 1708, Roxburghe referred them as being ‘quite broke’, owing to the queen’s ‘aversion’ to the Junto, and Godolphin’s belief that he could construct a party from the Whigs and the Tories, which Harley supported. The Whig Lords ‘laugh at it’, he wrote, because the Tories could not be gained: Nottingham was especially averse to an alliance and recently, he recounted, Godolphin had ‘sent a message to Bromley, but that he refused to treat with him’.⁵³⁴ Godolphin’s attitude may explain why he felt able to write to Seafield on 25 June, ‘if you will keep my counsel, I will confess ingenuously to you, that I like your election much better than if you had carried your whole list’.⁵³⁵ Scotland was indeed a source of potential support for Godolphin. Robert Pringle told Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], that Somers ‘seemed to be very sensible’ that Godolphin’s ‘little regard’ to the Junto’s recommendations was a departure from ‘his ordinary road of a cautious, and prudent management between parties’. Somers attributed to Godolphin’s changed attitude to a belief that he would receive ‘support in a Parliament from those whose interest he espouses so much’—Queensberry and his court party—who had convinced the lord treasurer that ‘of the 45 Members returned from the North at least 40 are at their devotion’, although he was confident that Godolphin would be disappointed in this.⁵³⁶ Pringle added on 2 Aug. that the ‘situation’ at court ‘appears pretty odd’; Godolphin, ‘who has the sole management, seems to have little deference for the Whig Lords, of which they seem themselves very sensible, and at the same time it is hard to imagine how he shall be able to support himself without them’. He continued that there were ‘some talks of attempts and interviews towards a good correspondence betwixt him and the Tories, which still seems more odd, that he should take a party by the hand, that seems weaker this, then they were the last session of Parliament.’⁵³⁷ It is in the context of these manoeuvres that in June Somerset was involved in an attempt to detach Wharton from the Junto, by suggesting he take office instead of Somers. Godolphin was rumoured to have sanctioned this approach, and Maynwaring for one feared that Wharton might believe it to be the case.⁵³⁸

Hamilton thought that Marlborough’s victory at Oudenarde on 11 July would make Godolphin ‘see the advantage of 166 [the Whigs’] assistance and will therefore do everything to put them in good humour’ and ‘mind what 134 [Sunderland] says more than ever’: he advised Sunderland that he should insist ‘that nothing should be disposed of here’ until Sunderland’s allies had arrived; Queensberry had been trying to pre-empt it.⁵³⁹ On 27 July, Queensberry’s adherent Mar reported that Godolphin ‘was very kind and civil as he used to be’ with ‘no measures yet taken in order to the Parl[iament] and what or when they will be is uncertain; but I’m told the Junto is as high as ever and abated nothing by the victory [of Oudenarde]’.⁵⁴⁰

On 2 Aug. 1708 Godolphin announced that the following day he would travel to Wiltshire for three or four days. On the 4th he was at Tilshead. No meetings of the treasury board were held between 2 and 18 and 20-30 August.⁵⁴¹ On 24 Aug. he went to Winchendon, ‘to Quainton plate’, from whence he intended to be at Althorp on the 26th, and then return to Windsor on 28 August.⁵⁴² At about this time he organized another letter for Marlborough to dispatch to the queen advocating the employment of the Junto.⁵⁴³ On 20 Sept. Godolphin received fresh proposals from the Junto for accommodating their differences with the court.⁵⁴⁴ On 25 Sept. Sunderland was clearly expecting some political discussions to take place at Newmarket in early October: a few days later Erasmus Lewis^‡ reported that a ‘council of the Junto’ would be held at Newmarket ‘and not till then shall we know who will be Speaker’.⁵⁴⁵ The decision was in fact pre-empted at a meeting of the Junto and Godolphin, in London, on 30 Sept., in which they ‘pitched upon Sir Richard Onslow^‡ to be Speaker, and Sir Peter King is to be otherwise considered’.⁵⁴⁶ No meetings of the treasury board were held between 4-18 Oct., and on the 5th Godolphin went to Newmarket, in the company of his son Francis, now styled Lord Rialton, and Somerset.⁵⁴⁷ He had informed Marlborough on the 3rd that a proclamation had been issued for Parliament to meet on 16 Nov., ‘later than usual, in the view that you may be here some time before’. Godolphin, it seems, still held to the view that until Marlborough arrived ‘there is no meddling’ with Parliament ‘by any means in the world. This is a matter for which I think one cannot prepare you too soon’.⁵⁴⁸ With the decision over the Speaker already made, Harley was informed on 5 Oct. that though it had originally been supposed that Godolphin ‘would fix measures and capitulate with the Junto at Newmarket, but it’s said now that that work will be delayed some time and it’s probable that none of these Lords will go thither except those who are concerned in the diversions of that place’. Some people thought that Godolphin ‘finds great difficulties with the Whig lords, that the queen is very stiff and inflexible and will not consent to any treaty, believing that no terms which she can grant will be accepted by them’: he had even, it was said, offered to resign.⁵⁴⁹

Godolphin was under considerable pressure in early October because of a looming financial crisis, with the Bank thought to be scarcely able to survive until Christmas. He was said to have urged Marlborough to do ‘something of éclat’ to encourage public credit: ‘the scarcity of money has frightened him out of his wits, and there is nothing he will not do to oblige the Junto’. Private meetings had been held at Godolphin’s direction about raising money, with agreement that no loans could be raised on the general mortgage or almost any other fund: ‘in this exigency they could think of nothing but exchequer bills to be circulated by subscriptions, the interest to be secured by the malt tax for perpetuity, with the proviso usual in mortgages, redeemable however by Parliament.⁵⁵⁰ Godolphin was expected back in London on 16 Oct., although Maynwaring reported that Somerset had returned the previous day with him, ‘whether in anger to him or not I can’t tell’: Somerset was apparently ‘displeased’ that he had not been invited to a meeting at Newmarket, at the bishop of Ely’s.⁵⁵¹ On the 16th Harley wrote ‘that there has lately been a meeting of some great persons, and the lord treasurer has not only promised entirely to comply with the Junto but also to sacrifice the duke of Queensberry to them’. Harley had never had any doubts that Godolphin would ally to the Junto, for ‘he has for a long time been contriving to do it, though he at the same time exclaims against them, as they do him’.⁵⁵² A couple of days later Maynwaring revealed that one of the topics of discussion at Newmarket had been a reform of the admiralty. Godolphin had proposed a scheme to make the Prince’s council ‘responsible by a new law’, but this had been rejected as being ‘liable to as many objectors as the present administration and will not cure the evil, but will affront his Highness as much as anything else’. But the Junto insisted on reform, threatening that without it ‘they will not come into the measures of the court, not so much as in the first step of choosing a Speaker’. Nothing but the prince’s resignation, ‘even before the session’, would satisfy them.

The difficulties between Godolphin and the Junto were becoming more and more difficult to overcome: Wharton wrote in a letter to the duchess of Marlborough that at one point, possibly during his visit to Winchendon in August, Godolphin ‘had so little disposition to speak to him that if he had not forced himself into his room at six a clock in the morning [the] day he was to go away he had not had a word’s conversation with him. And [wh]at he said to him then was very dry and disagreeable’.⁵⁵³ On 19 Oct. Sunderland reported to Newcastle on a meeting at Althorp between Godolphin, the Junto and several of their lieutenants, in which Godolphin had been issued with an ultimatum—no further support for the court would be forthcoming unless Whig grievances were met.⁵⁵⁴ But the illness (and death, a week later) of Prince George weakened the queen’s willingness to resist. On 20 Oct. Maynwaring facilitated a meeting between Godolphin and Wharton for the following day, and later reported that he had met Godolphin ‘at Mr Boyle’s, who told me he had seen the other lord, and that they had had a very long conference, and that he believed they were both satisfied with one another, and he seemed to be in good humour and I in good favour’. Optimistically, Maynwaring felt that ‘there being nothing ill at bottom’, when ministers and the Whigs ‘are brought to understand one another, and to converse more openly and plainly together, I think they cannot disagree’. Maynwaring continued to believe that Godolphin and Marlborough ‘had acted a very sincere part in endeavouring to bring Lord Som[ers] into the Council’.⁵⁵⁵ This improvement in the relationship between Godolphin and the Junto was partly the result of the appointment, finally, of Halifax’s brother, Sir James Montagu, as attorney general on 21 Oct. 1708, the queen having ‘at last come to allow 38 [Godolphin] to make such condescensions, which (if done in time) would have been sufficient to have eased most of our difficulties, and would yet do in great measure, if 89 [the Whigs] will be but tolerably reasonable’. The admittance of Somers and Wharton to office followed in November.⁵⁵⁶ Pembroke’s acceptance of the admiralty in succession to Prince George was thought to be essential, balancing the advances of the Junto, for the session to be manageable: Maynwaring in late November ‘thanked God that Lord Pemb[roke] had accepted and that the lords [of the Junto] had not carried their admiral too, for then [the] lord treasurer could not have stood three months’. It had been ‘a necessary means of his own preservation’.⁵⁵⁷ Over the next few months, Godolphin appears to have attempted to survive through dividing the Junto, exploiting the discontent of Halifax and Orford at their continued exclusion from office while Wharton and Somers had achieved it, and relying heavily on his own remaining allies in the Commons, the ‘lord treasurers’ whigs’.

The session of 1708-9

Godolphin was present on the opening day of the new Parliament, 16 Nov. 1708. On 24 Nov. Johnston reported to Trumbull that ‘this day Conyers lost his chair of the committee of supply because he’s the treasurer’s man, say some’: the Whigs pressed the cause of their candidate, William Farrer^‡.⁵⁵⁸ Godolphin’s preoccupations at the beginning of the session, included the problem of recruiting soldiers for the army. He closely monitored the recruitment bill in the Commons, reporting back to Marlborough on 6, 10, 14, 17, 21 December. He was just as assiduous in detailing the progress of the augmentation of troops voted by the Commons, having managed to get it inserted in the queen’s speech.⁵⁵⁹ He told Marlborough that the Commons’ Address of 23 Nov. was ‘as full as you can desire, and cannot fail, I hope, of having a good effect.’ On 19 Nov. Godolphin had predicted that ‘I doubt we shall have no money next year under six per cent, even upon the land tax’ and it would seem he saw the necessity to defend the rate of return; on 10 Dec. Johnston wrote that in the committee of the whole considering the land tax bill ‘Mr Montagu of Wiltshire’ moved that only five per cent interest should be given for money on the land tax, ‘but the treasurer’s people carried six [per] cent. There appears no concert’. The six per cent interest clause was overturned at the report stage on 15 December. Johnston also noted that Anthony Hammond^‡ had been ‘thrown out as a creature of the treasurer’s’: the Whigs had found an excuse to expel him on the grounds that as a commissioner of the navy ‘employed in the outports’ he was ineligible from sitting in Parliament under the Regency Act.⁵⁶⁰

Godolphin was in attendance right up until the Christmas recess on 23 Dec. 1708, when he acquainted the House that the queen would receive their address on the capture of Ghent that evening. On 24 Dec. Godolphin warned Marlborough that although things appeared ‘to be upon a very good foot here, as to the support of the war; yet with relation to the credit of the government and the administration at home, they are in a very uncertain precarious condition’. He complained that the queen’s ‘intimacy and conversation seems to lean only to those who are enemies to all that are most useful in the public service’, and those willing to support the government were in consequence uncertain as ‘to whom they should apply, or upon whom they can depend’.⁵⁶¹ Scottish affairs continued to occupy Godolphin. On 23 Dec. papers on the failed Jacobite invasion were ordered to be considered by the Lords on 12 Jan. 1709. Godolphin co-ordinated the response to the order, arranging on 5 Jan. for Mar, Seafield and Hugh Campbell*, 3rd earl of Loudon [S], to meet the lords of the council on the following day to consider those papers it might be proper to place before Parliament ‘pursuant to their address before the recess’.⁵⁶² Meanwhile, there was the question of who would be appointed Scottish secretary, the nominee of the treasurer or the Junto. The Junto favoured James Grahme*, duke of Montrose [S], but the post eventually went to Queensberry. His appointment was to have been declared on 30 Dec. 1708, but on the 29th Godolphin took Somers with him to see the queen. Godolphin ‘seemed to be against Queensberry and to convince my Lord Somers of this went with him to the queen… and got a stop put to it, but whether it be only delayed or quite broke I know not’. For Johnston, this was a battle over the alignment of the Scots in Parliament and of decisive importance for Godolphin, ‘they being the only body of men which seem entirely to trust my lord treasurer, if he part with them, which he says he will not do, I know not where he can find such sure cards’. For this reason the Junto ‘will not trust such a strength in his hands for thus they say the Union would ruin all’.⁵⁶³

Over the Christmas recess Godolphin continued to worry about the recruitment bill: on 4 Jan. 1709 he recorded a meeting of two hours with Somers and ‘some gentlemen of the House of Commons, hearing Mr Lowndes read over the recruit bill which he has prepared… It will be ready to be offered to the House of Commons at their first meeting after the present recess,’ as indeed it was. In some apprehension, Godolphin on 6 Jan. admitted to ‘the spleen’ at ‘the prospect of nothing but difficulty and trouble in the course of this sessions from the very great unreasonableness one meets with in most people’. By virtue of the late start to the session, he also warned Marlborough that ‘our supplies will be more backward this year, than they were the last. There is only the land tax past hitherto, and the money does not come in upon that so fast as it used to do in former years’.⁵⁶⁴

Godolphin attended on the first day after the recess, 10 Jan. 1709, despite Johnston writing that ‘the treasurer has the stone and voids blood by urine and spits it too.’⁵⁶⁵ On 11 Jan. Sir Henry Shere told Trumbull that ‘there seems to be a confederacy and combination of both parties to distress the little great man in the Park nor do there want symptoms in both Houses of small devotion to his colleague abroad’.⁵⁶⁶ On 14 Jan., Godolphin admitted that ‘my head has been for some days much out of order’, not helped by the passage of several resolutions in the Commons on 12 Jan. relating to expenditure on the war: ‘people who have a mind to be troublesome in both Houses’, he complained, ‘are very busy in enquiries concerning the late invasion, Scotland, and the application of the money in Spain and Portugal’.⁵⁶⁷ On 21 Jan. Godolphin voted in favour of the motion that a Scots peer who possessed a British title had the right to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers, in favour of the rights of Queensberry. As John Tucker noted, he was joined by the archbishop of York, Rochester ‘and a great many other Lords, who used not to vote together (I hear) were on the same side in this division; and on the other side Lord Wharton, Lord Somers &c.’⁵⁶⁸ For the Junto, supporting Queensberry’s right to vote was part of a strategy to unify the party behind Orford’s claims to office; Godolphin marshalled the court vote behind Queensberry’s pretensions.⁵⁶⁹ James Johnston added that the Junto were helped to defeat the motion by ‘the Jacobite Tories… who would have their revenges on the treasurer for his diligence against Sir Simon [Harcourt]’, who had been unseated on petition in January.⁵⁷⁰

There were further battles over Scottish issues, especially the contested election for Scottish representative peers, in February. On 4 Feb. 1709 Johnston wrote that he was now ‘cock-a-hoop’ at having fooled the Junto in the business; he lost a first division by eight votes on a procedural motion on 26 Jan., but on the 28th ‘he carried it by four’ that a peer of Scotland who took the oaths within Edinburgh Castle was thereby qualified to vote at the election of the 16 representative peers; Johnston thought he would have won by a bigger margin in a vote on the following day, but it was not pressed to a division. As a result of the four who had petitioned against the result of the election, only William Johnston*, marquess of Annandale [S], was calculated as having been elected ‘and he the only man of the four whom the Juncto did not desire and thought to have kept out’. At this outcome, ‘hard words’ passed between Godolphin and the Junto, but the quarrel was patched up, Queensberry being declared Secretary, John Kerr*, duke of Roxburghe [S], and John Campbell*, 2nd duke of Argyll [S] and earl of Greenwich, put on the council and Montrose made privy seal in Scotland. The Junto were said to have conceded that they had ‘given the treasurer 16 votes’: ‘the truth is’, Johnston wrote, ‘they are partly out-witted, not knowing Scotch business as he does.’⁵⁷¹

On 25 Jan. 1709 John Smith, the former Speaker, and one of Godolphin’s allies, told Marlborough that ‘I must do that justice to my lord treasurer to say that all endeavours that the prudence of man can use to quiet men’s minds or to gratify their desires, he has done’.⁵⁷² The death on 22 Jan. Henry Herbert*, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, leaving a vacancy in the council of trade, illustrated his predicament: he had been inundated with about 50 applications, ‘but it is impossible to dispose of that till after the end of the session without disobliging 49’ of them. Meanwhile, supply was being held up by the failure to vote on the estimates for the war in Spain and Portugal while the expenditure on previous years was enquired into; until the total was fixed the committee of ways and means could not sit.⁵⁷³ On 15 Feb. one of the correspondents of Edward Harley^†, the future 2nd earl of Oxford, wrote of the ‘very great heats between the treasurer and his new friends’.⁵⁷⁴ On 18 Feb. Godolphin told Marlborough that his presence in England necessary, even though the supply measures had almost passed into law: many things had been left undecided, ‘which require to be settled before the beginning of this summer, which can never be well done without you, and it is likewise so necessary that we should adjust with you the measures proper to be followed this summer in order to another sessions of Parliament’.⁵⁷⁵

Godolphin and the Junto could close ranks to meet specific attacks: on 24 Feb. Gibson informed Humphrey Humphreys*, bishop of Hereford of plans for a debate in the Lords on Haversham’s speech earlier in the session, in which he pressed for an enquiry into the preparations for meeting the Jacobite invasion. It had been resisted by Godolphin’s allies who argued that it was designed only ‘to perplex and lose time’; though a debate was conceded instead on ‘the present state of North Britain of which I suppose the ministry will be able to give a better account.’ He added that in the last three weeks ‘it has been understood that the treasurer and the Whig lords or Junto as they call them, were breaking, and a country party forming, of Whigs and Tories, in opposition to the court’. However ‘by the turn given’ to Haversham’s motion of the 18th, ‘it appeared plainly enough that they were together; though I am afraid the union is but loose, nor like to continue long, unless my Lord Marlborough’s coming closes some breaches that are made and making’.⁵⁷⁶ On 26 Feb. Godolphin survived an attack on his stewardship of the treasury in the Commons instigated by Bromley’s report from a committee examining the arrears of the land tax receivers. It ended in a motion for an address for a state of arrears of the land taxes for 1706-8 and for royal orders that more effectual care be taken to prevent the like arrears for the future. Backed by Sir Thomas Hanmer^‡ and Annesley, the motion was watered down by Godolphin’s defenders, organized by Walpole, who turned the blame on to the receivers and amended the address merely to ask that the money be better collected.⁵⁷⁷

Godolphin only attended eight out of 18 sittings of the Lords in February 1709. After attending the first three sittings in March, 1st-4th, he next attended on 22 March. On 7 Mar. Johnston wrote an interesting commentary on the address sent by the Lords to the Commons on 1 Mar. ‘for the preservation of the repose and quiet of Europe’. The Commons sent it back on the following day with an amendment relating to the destruction of Dunkirk. According to Johnston, the Junto claimed to have ‘resolved and proposed the address without my lord treasurer’s knowledge, that they believe he takes it ill, but they say they can’t help it, for having saved him this winter in both Houses, if that do not satisfy him nothing can.’ Though the address was popularly believed to present an argument for continuing the war, the Junto conceded that the inclusion of a reference to the demolition of the fortifications at Dunkirk by ‘may indeed delay the Peace’, but disclaimed responsibility for the passage demanding the removal of the Pretender from the French dominions (Mohun, they said, ‘is not theirs’. ‘In short’, Johnston concluded, ‘this motion of theirs may have proceeded from their jealousy of which my Lord Somers seems full and Wharton to have none at all, or from a design not to be outrun by Rochester and Haversham, or in concert with the ministry as all the world believes.’⁵⁷⁸ On 11 Mar. Godolphin was reported to be ‘in good humour’ following the vote in the Commons on the previous day vindicating the ministry’s actions in response to the threatened attack on Scotland, which ‘has given him all the glory of our deliverance’.⁵⁷⁹

On 22 Mar. Godolphin was one of those successfully arguing in the committee of the whole that the clause in the bill improving the Union relating to treason trials, which allowed the accused a list of witnesses before the trial, should be thrown out because it made a dangerous change at such a time. On 25 Mar. he voted in favour of Seafield’s proposal to consider the validity of Scottish marriage settlements under the new treason law.⁵⁸⁰ He wrote that day ‘we are yet one step further in the Scot treason bill, but if at last it does go through both Houses, I believe it will not be without a good deal of difficulty’. On 1 Apr. he added that opposition to the bill had united ‘all the different parties of that nation’, and that it had been committed in the Commons ‘by so slender a majority that I don’t expect it should pass’, and if it did ‘all the fruit it is like to have will be to make some of our friends in that House angry with us’. With the session not predicted to end until late April, Godolphin took a short break to Newmarket. He had intended to leave on 5 Apr., but he was recorded as present in the Lords on 7 Apr., although he wrote a letter from Newmarket that day. He returned on the evening of the 9th.⁵⁸¹

Following the Commons amendment of the bill for improving the Union by adding clauses against forfeitures for treason and for providing the accused with a list of witnesses ten days before the trial, the Lords on 14 Apr. 1709 voted that the clauses should commence from the Pretender’s death. Johnston revealed that Godolphin ‘spoke four times for the amendment’: the Scottish peers spoke against it, hoping thereby to lose the bill.⁵⁸² The Commons agreed to the Lords amendments by six votes on 18 Apr. after the court had assembled ‘all their forces, the lame and blind and all’.⁵⁸³ Godolphin attended the last sitting of the session on 21 Apr., having been present on 58 days, 63 per cent of the total, and been named to four committees. The end of the session coincided with Marlborough’s arrival in London, and on the 25-28th Godolphin accompanied the duke to view the building work at Blenheim. He attended the prorogation on 19 May. Although by late May Godolphin was deeply engrossed in following the peace negotiations with France, he was sufficiently sceptical of French sincerity to remain relatively unmoved by the refusal of the French to sign the peace preliminaries.⁵⁸⁴

The 1709-10 Session and the Trial of Sacheverell

Following the end of the session, the Junto stepped up pressure on Godolphin to obtain the admiralty for Orford. On 20 May 1709 James Craggs^‡ told Marlborough that Somers had been deputed to speak to him ‘very plainly on this subject.’ The ‘Junctonians’ argued that the next session could not ‘be carried on without it, for as the majority are in the Whig interest, they will not be easy without being of a piece, for though there may be some few whimsicals yet the main would be put in good humour by it’.⁵⁸⁵ Godolphin seemed to share their analysis for on 5 June he noted that although everyone had been distracted by the peace, shortly the problem of putting the admiralty under new management would become acute as ‘the present is not to be supported next winter’: blame for the queen’s reluctance to employ Orford would fall upon himself.⁵⁸⁶

On 4 July, Godolphin explicitly linked military success to public credit, worrying of a shortfall of £1,200,000 on the supplies voted for the war.⁵⁸⁷ No meetings of the treasury board were held between 1-11 July and on the 5th Boyle reported that Godolphin had gone to Wiltshire.⁵⁸⁸ He was at Tilshead on 6 July, ‘to see his horses’ and had returned to Windsor on the 9th. He told Marlborough that the peace preliminaries had been sufficiently liked in England for the latter to resume negotiations on that basis should the French seek renewed terms.⁵⁸⁹ But Godolphin was worried about meeting Parliament without knowing if preparations had to be made for another year of war. His political intelligence network had also picked up notice of Harley’s tactics for the forthcoming session; from Rivers he learnt that Harley planned to portray Godolphin and Marlborough as implacably opposed to peace upon any terms. Thus the duumvirs would be at fault whether peace or war followed.⁵⁹⁰ On 17 Aug. he wrote from St James’s to Cowper about the peace negotiations.⁵⁹¹ He only held one meeting of the treasury board during August, on the 22nd, and towards the end of the month he retired again to Wiltshire.⁵⁹² On 15 Sept., Godolphin felt that ‘one good effect’ of the battle of Malplaquet was to create the favourable conditions for an approach to the Bank of England to circulate £600,000 worth of Exchequer bills as allowed by statute.⁵⁹³

By September 1709 the Whigs were confident that Godolphin and Marlborough ‘could not propose any safety but in the Whigs’.⁵⁹⁴ Whig pressure in support of Orford built up as the session approached. No meetings of the treasury board were held between 22 Sept. and 5 Oct. and on 29 Sept. Godolphin announced his departure shortly for Newmarket, where he had arrived by 3 October.⁵⁹⁵ On 4 Oct. Addison reported Wharton as ‘now going to Newmarket’ to see Godolphin.⁵⁹⁶ Godolophin remained there until at least 14 October. On 18 Oct. he was at Windsor, acknowledging that the queen had read a letter from Marlborough urging the appointment of Orford, but that she had ‘never once opened her lips to me upon the subject’, whereupon ‘I have not thought proper to begin with her till you come, and we have an opportunity of concerting what is best to be done’.⁵⁹⁷ Meanwhile, Sunderland awaited Godolphin’s return to discuss with the details of Orford’s admiralty commission—if ‘the affair should break’, he wrote to the duchess of Marlborough, ‘I don’t at all doubt but the world would censure my Lord Orford, for insisting upon a trifle, and also [the] lord treasurer, for breaking for a trifle’. He wrote again on 13 Oct. suggesting that the matter should be settled between Godolphin and Orford while at Newmarket: ‘if he comes away, leaving it quite unsettled there, I will venture to say there will be no end of it.’⁵⁹⁸ This underestimated Godolphin’s difficulties with the queen and the delay increased Orford’s uneasiness.⁵⁹⁹ By the end of October, however, the queen had been brought to agree to the appointment, although the make-up of the admiralty commission of which Orford would be head was still causing problems at the beginning of November, specifically with relation to Sir George Byng^†, the future Viscount Torrington, and Sir John Jennings^‡, the queen being ‘inflexible upon the two knights’.⁶⁰⁰ Sunderland blamed Godolphin for the impasse: ‘it is plain to a demonstration that notwithstanding it’s put upon the queen, it is nothing but his own pique to those two men, because they refused being of the prince’s council, when he had a mind to have drawn them in that snare’. In response Somers had ‘laid the matter very plain, and very home to him’, whereupon Godolphin had written to the queen on 5 Nov., who remained unmoved. Sunderland wanted the duchess of Marlborough to come to town to pressurize Godolphin, the fear being that unless Godolphin persuaded the queen, Orford would lose patience and leave London.⁶⁰¹ Eventually, a compromise was reached which omitted Jennings from the new commission issued on 8 November. On 12 Nov., Godolphin’s client Molesworth penned a panegyric to Godolphin in a letter to Shaftesbury:

never shall any man ever persuade me that the public minister who fixes a liberty of conscience, who unites two discordant nations, who promotes public registers, procures general naturalization, encourages the increase of people, the navigation of rivers, manages the public treasure so well, restores lost credit to a miracle, loves liberty, keeps secrets to a degree not known in England since Queen Elizabeth’s time, provides for all the war in its distant parts, bears disappointments, lives frugally, but not covetously, gives not into the designs of priestcraft of any kind, can do these through any bad intentions or be anything like a Tory.

‘It would be the greatest happiness that can possibly befall these nations’, Molesworth went on, reflecting on recent experience, if Godolphin could be preserved from being ‘ground between two parties like two millstones’.⁶⁰²

Godolphin was present on the opening day of the next session, 15 Nov. 1709. It seems likely that he played a role in the motion following the queen’s speech in the Commons on that day for Maynwaring referred to a meeting at which a paper he had prepared for Lord Coningsby was not considered, ‘for Mr Smith brought another paper in the lord treasurer’s hand, upon which they sat in consultation till twelve o’clock; and it was moved by Sir John Holland^‡, with some small alteration’.⁶⁰³ Even in mid-session, Godolphin took cognisance of elections for the Commons: on 1 Dec. Bolton wrote to Thomas Jervoise^‡ that ‘my lord treasurer has sent to desire the bishop [Trelawny] to be for you, I was present when he did it’, a reference to the by-election pending for Hampshire.⁶⁰⁴

In the crisis engendered by the death of Algernon Capel*, 2nd earl of Essex, and the disposal of his posts in January 1710, Godolphin and Somers tried, but failed, to persuade the queen not to appoint Jack Hill^‡, the brother of Abigail Masham, to the vacant regiment and thereby undermine Marlborough’s authority in the army.⁶⁰⁵ Following Marlborough’s furious departure to Windsor Lodge on 15 Jan., Godolphin counselled Marlborough against threatening to resign unless Masham were dismissed.⁶⁰⁶ On 16 Jan., Godolphin had ‘hunted’ Somers out and ‘hindered him from coming to the other lords’, who were meeting over the crisis, in order that Somers could wait on the queen.⁶⁰⁷ Godolphin was later at the House at the hearing of ‘Lord Bath’s cause’ over the Albemarle estates, and tried to formulate a united Whig response, marshalling a series of Whig grandees to put pressure on the queen. A compromise was ultimately worked out in which Hill obtained a pension rather than a regiment and Marlborough responded to a royal request to return to court.⁶⁰⁸ On 19 Jan. Maynwaring noted that Godolphin had shown ‘the greatest desire imaginable not to bring this thing to extremity’, although he had ‘endeavoured to show the ruinous consequences of the indifference and little notice’ that the queen showed of Marlborough’s ‘mortification and concern for her unkindness’.⁶⁰⁹ Sunderland, who had wanted to force the issue, ‘spoke very warmly’ to Godolphin saying ‘that he was sure none that had ever pretended to be Whigs would fail in this dispute, except 200 [Boyle] and Mr Compton, to which 38 made no reply, but seemed much nettled’.⁶¹⁰

On 16 Feb. 1710, when the Lords took into consideration the appeal of James Greenshields concerning the right to hold Episcopalian services in Scotland, Rochester ‘moved to send for the proceedings in Scotland and the person to make out the allegations of his petition’, and, according to Mar, Godolphin ‘and those who were for delaying the affair’ supported it. However, Rochester insisted that he had also proposed sending for Greenshields and the Edinburgh magistrates, which was seen as tantamount to accepting the appeal: a motion for adding the words was lost by 42-39, and the original motion was then passed by a great majority.⁶¹¹ Also on 16 Feb., the Lords agreed to join with the Commons in addressing the queen for Marlborough’s immediate departure for Holland: the motion said that he was ‘the most capable’ of executing the twin trusts of general and plenipotentiary; Coningsby thought that Godolphin had been responsible for changing it from Marlborough ‘alone’.⁶¹² The queen’s answer to the address, reported to the Commons on 20 Feb., had, according to the duchess of Marlborough, been the subject of strenuous negotiation between Godolphin and the queen. ‘Godolphin and the honest men’, she wrote,

had prepared a better in respect to what she said concerning the duke of Marlborough, but when he came to receive her directions about it she had been first prepared by Mr Harley and his cousin [Abigail] and she would have some things altered, some quite left out and would have put in something that was not true, and that would have been a mischief to the duke of Marlborough, upon which my Lord Godolphin argued it with her, and in the debate she said to him that upon her soul what she had desired was from herself and her own thoughts purely, which was not possible to have been true, and Lord Godolphin so far got the better in this as to have the speech tolerable and to do no hurt.⁶¹³

Nevertheless, the duchess was still being urged to put more pressure on the treasurer: as soon as Marlborough had departed on the 19th Sunderland pressed him to persuade the duchess to come to London, criticizing Godolphin for ‘a slowness and coldness about him, that is really terrible, and therefore all that can be must be done, to keep him up, and to animate him’.⁶¹⁴

The most important domestic issue on which Godolphin needed animation was the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell for a sermon preached on 5 Nov. 1709, on The Perils of False Bretheren. Sacheverell had taken particular note of ‘the crafty insidiousness of such wily Volpones’, a clear reference to Godolphin, who had been tagged with this uncomplimentary nickname since at least 1707.⁶¹⁵ Swift captured Godolphin’s ‘passionate pique’ at being dubbed a ‘wily Volpone’, and it was this sensitivity to charges of disloyalty to the Church which perhaps persuaded him to back the use of impeachment as a counter-measure, as proposed by Wharton and Sunderland.⁶¹⁶ The prosecution surprised Dr Stratford who ‘could not have thought this prosecution had come directly’ from Godolphin and Marlborough.⁶¹⁷ Dartmouth agreed, noting that neither Sacheverell nor the doctrine of passive obedience would have been questioned if the term ‘Volpone’ had not been used.⁶¹⁸ Godolphin never dealt easily with criticism, especially in printed form, and the sermon quickly became a best-seller. As Maynwaring told John Oldmixon in 1710, ‘Godolphin had the last contempt for pamphlets, and always despised the press’.⁶¹⁹ On 4 Feb. the Commons had voted to attend the trial as a committee of the whole House, thereby removing it from the bar of the Lords to the public arena of Westminster Hall. Godolphin’s initial reaction was apparently to drop the trial, rather than accede to the Commons request, but the Whigs decided to accept the challenge.⁶²⁰ By 21 Feb. Godolphin’s antennae had picked up an inkling of the intrigues taking place between some Whigs and Harley. A week later he remarked that ‘everybody’s whole time from morning to night [is] being taken up with Mr Sacheverell’s trial’.⁶²¹

He was certainly an active participant, for on 1 Mar. he moved for the adjournment of the trial till the next day after a tour de force of a speech by Sir Thomas Parker^†, the future earl of Macclesfield.⁶²² On 3 Mar. he noted that during ‘this troublesome trial’, he had not time ‘either to eat or sleep in any regularity’.⁶²³ On 4 Mar. he was ‘fiery for’ sending Judge Powell to the Tower for admitting to bail a person suspected of countenancing the riots, but instead a motion was passed that he had done his duty according to law.⁶²⁴ By 5 Mar. Godolphin felt that the trial was impairing his health and its outcome was ‘uncertain’, especially as ‘the great majority’ in the Lords, ‘which we had in the beginning of this sessions, encourages people to commit follies’. On 6 Mar. he was forced to leave the trial early ‘with very great pain of the gravel’. The last day of the trial on 10 Mar. brought little relief as Godolphin thought ‘the debate of that matter in the House of Lords will require two days more at least’.⁶²⁵ On 11 Mar., after the House had voted ‘to judge of the said impeachment according to the usage of Parliament, and the law of the land’, Godolphin moved that ‘the clerks should make out extracts of the books of Parliament of parallel cases’, ready for proceeding further.⁶²⁶ On 14 Mar. he wrote at nine o’clock having ‘just this moment come home from the House of Lords, where we sit every day almost to the extinguishing of nature’.⁶²⁷

On 16 Mar. 1710 Godolphin argued against Nottingham’s proposal for voting on the articles of impeachment in Westminster Hall, preferring it to take place in the Lords.⁶²⁸ As he reported, on 16 Jan., the House sat until ten o’clock, with the first article agreed by 68-52. On the 17th the other three articles were carried without a division: ‘the main question is still behind us, whether he be guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, which they intend to debate with us tomorrow, as long as is possible’.⁶²⁹ On 20 Mar. he voted Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.⁶³⁰ Following the verdict, Bishop Wake recorded that ‘we met [the] lord treasurer and lord president in the Prince’s Chamber; and agreed upon Dr S.[’s] censure. I wish I could have made it lighter: I did all I could for him.’⁶³¹ Godolphin recognized the risk that if the punishment, to be considered on the following day, ‘be not made lighter than (in itself) is reasonable’, some of the trial’s supporters might desert.⁶³² On 21 Mar. Godolphin seconded Carlisle’s motion detailing the punishment of Sacheverell, debarring him from receiving ecclesiastical preferment and preaching for seven years, plus three months imprisonment and the sermons to be burnt: in the event, a milder punishment was substituted.⁶³³ For Godolphin, the punishment had ‘dwindled’ so much ‘that all this bustle and fatigue ends in no more but a suspension for three years but from the pulpit and burning his sermons at the old Exchange’.⁶³⁴

Godolphin last attended on the penultimate day of the session, 4 Apr. 1710, having sat on 66 days, 71 per cent of the total, and been named to 12 committees. He then went on his usual trip to Newmarket, setting out on the 6th ‘for eight or ten days’ and returning on 16 April.⁶³⁵ In his absence the queen appointed Shrewsbury as her lord chamberlain, leaving people ‘divided in opinion whether it was without his knowledge or no’.⁶³⁶ On 17 Apr. Sir William Trumbull’s correspondent Thomas Bateman recorded that although Godolphin had been written to on the 13th ‘that t’would be done, but (tis said) [he] knew nothing before. This occasions variety of discourse, and especially about more removes, and the Lady’s [Masham] hand is said to be in it.’⁶³⁷ In fact the queen had written to Godolphin on 13 Apr. that ‘I have not yet declared my intentions of giving the staff and the key to the duke of Shrewsbury because I would be the first that should acquaint you with it.’⁶³⁸ Godolphin responded to her pointing out that Shrewsbury’s appointment, ‘just after his being in a public open conjunction in every vote with the whole body of the Tories, and in a private constant correspondence, and caballing with Mr Harley in everything’, would make every member of the Cabinet Council except Somerset and Queensberry ‘run from it, as they would from the plague’. Further, she should consider the ‘effect this entire change of your ministers will have among your allies abroad’, and on the conduct of war ‘by those who have all along opposed and obstructed it, and who will like any peace, the better, the more it leaves France at liberty to take their time of imposing the Pretender again upon this country.’⁶³⁹ Despite his objections, Godolphin, according to Coningsby, offered to enter into a ‘strict confidence’ with Shrewsbury.⁶⁴⁰ To Marlborough, he wrote on the 17th that although ‘mortified’, he hoped to be able to keep the Whigs ‘from flying out on this occasion into any measures that would ruin all the affairs abroad irrecoverably and do no good to those at home’. He felt that Shrewsbury would like to live easily with the duumvirs, although it was ‘plain’ that he came into office by the influence of Harley and Somerset.⁶⁴¹ On the following day he suggested that Shrewsbury’s appointment might in fact eclipse Somerset at court.⁶⁴² Sunderland, too, agreed with him ‘that we must endeavour to weather it, as well as we can, in order to preserve the Parliament from being dissolved’.⁶⁴³

Dismissal, 1710

Godolphin had by now realized that the queen would never be reconciled to the duchess of Marlborough.⁶⁴⁴ He finally seems to have persuaded her supporters to accept that there was no point in his taking up her cause. On 30 Apr. Maynwaring told the duchess of his belief that if the Whigs spoke to Godolphin ‘upon your subject, he would desire them not to meddle, tell them they do not know you (as he did Lord Coningsby) and rather than you should be reconciled by their means, he would never have it done.’⁶⁴⁵ Godolphin was aware that the animosity of the Marlboroughs and the Whigs to Abigail had led the queen to look to the Tories and others to protect her. He knew that Shrewsbury’s suggestion that the Whigs offer assurances to the queen that ‘she should not be made uneasy’ over Abigail, were unacceptable to the Marlboroughs. Godolphin’s loyalty to the duchess thus made him vulnerable. He plainly suspected Somerset of undermining him and Marlborough: Somerset’s close proximity to the queen allowed him to ‘tell lies and make impressions when nobody else has the opportunity of setting it right’. In the light of this, Godolphin advised ‘we must take care so to keep out temper as not to suffer ourselves to be provoked by the injuries done us by others, to make a wrong or unseasonable step; for that would not only be the greatest gratification imaginable’ to Somerset, Richard Savage*, 4th Earl Rivers, and Argyll, ‘but also draw the blame of any ill consequence upon ourselves’. Indeed, Godolphin adopted a form of political quietism; he professed to stand ‘stock still, and makes the same answer to abundance of applications of all sides, and even from the very best of 84 [Tories]; viz that while Mr Freeman [Marlborough] is absent, he can only thank them but not enter into any engagements without him’.⁶⁴⁶

The intimation, possibly as early as 12 May 1710, that there were plans to replace Sunderland, was a direct provocation. Godolphin realized that Marlborough ‘must look upon it as personal’ and couched his counter-argument in terms of the ‘hurt’ it would do abroad and the mortification it would be to Marlborough, while urging the duke that he should not be ‘provoked to any rashness or precipitation by any rumour from hence’; in return Godolphin would ‘obey your commands in not being wearied out of my life, as long as flesh and blood can bear it’. On 8 June Godolphin floated the idea that the grand pensionary of Holland, Heinsius, should write to Ambassador Vrijbergen that rumours of Sunderland’s impending dismissal were aiding the peace party in Holland. (His suggestion led to a memorial from the States and Heinsius, presented by Vrijbergen, which backfired: Godolphin had to report to Marlborough on 3 July that Shrewsbury and Somerset had persuaded the queen that they had ‘taken too much upon them’.)⁶⁴⁷ When the queen informed Godolphin of her decision to replace Sunderland on 14 June, Godolphin signed a joint letter with the Whigs urging Marlborough not to resign over his son-in-law’s dismissal.⁶⁴⁸

A dissolution of Parliament and new elections was particularly a matter for concern. On 16 June Godolphin was still hopeful of avoiding a dissolution, noting that the argument that a new Parliament would support the war was fallacious because once Parliament was dissolved ‘all the allies are in despair, and making their own terms, before it is possible for 88 [Parliament] to come again and to declare his intentions’. On 22 June Godolphin stressed to Marlborough that with a victory over the French ‘all this may yet come right again, and no other way do I see any prospect of it’. With some subtlety Godolphin realized that those Whigs who wished to show the queen that public credit was falling due to the ‘mortifications’ given to Godolphin and Marlborough, although acting out of good will, were mistaken, as public credit ‘once broken’ would take time to recover and ‘in the meantime the whole must be ruined’.⁶⁴⁹ Godolphin received his own ‘mortification’ in June when the queen decided that Emanuel Howe’s^‡ replacement at Hanover was not to be Godolphin’s nephew, Sir Philip Meadowes^‡, but Harley’s nominee, James Cresset.⁶⁵⁰

The political uncertainty was indeed creating a crisis of credit, as Godolphin’s problems at the treasury showed. On 15 June he had requested a routine loan from the Bank of England, which had been refused on the 22nd, and only agreed to a week later after two meetings of the directors. On 18 July he reported that ‘the credit continues to sink and the difficulties to increase, and unless there be a speedy remedy, the government will be very soon in the greatest extremities’. On that day he wrote to Seafield that ‘the continued noises of a speedy dissolution continue to have a most pernicious effect upon all our public credit here.’ When the Bank directors approached Godolphin on 3 Aug. for an assurance that the current Parliament would be continued, he asked them to put their request in writing. Armed with their memorandum, Godolphin saw the queen, but failed to get the assurance he wanted.⁶⁵¹

The undermining of Godolphin’s position continued. Coningsby’s replacement as vice-treasurer of Ireland by Anglesey he interpreted on 9 July as ‘another very disagreeable alteration’, caused by Coningsby’s ‘firm adherence’ to himself and to Godolphin, and by the need to compensate Anglesey for the failure to appoint him as Sunderland’s successor. On 12 July Godolphin reported to Marlborough an approach from James Vernon, on behalf of Shrewsbury, which he thought might be about the duchess’s relationship with the queen, a subject Godolphin thought ‘ought not to be treated with by anybody but’ Marlborough. On 21 July Godolphin reported that Shrewsbury had told Halifax that the queen ‘was resolved to make’ Godolphin and Harley ‘agree’, but that this resolution had been ‘delayed, if not retracted’.⁶⁵² Despite his opposition to a dissolution, Godolphin had one eye on preparations for an election. He responded to a request from Seafield by asking Marlborough on 30 June to ‘speak to all the North Britons in the army, to give us their help by joining with my Lord Seafield in the elections either of peers or commoners’ whenever they should come on.⁶⁵³ On 24 July he told Seafield that he was glad ‘you think we may not despair of a favourable election of the Commons, in case of a new Parliament, which threatens us more and more every day, as the reason increases against it’.⁶⁵⁴ Godolphin had attended the prorogations on 2 May, 20 June and 1 Aug., reporting that the prorogation to 26 Sept. had encouraged some people by the ‘remoteness of the day’. He comforted himself with the observation that the ‘reasons for continuing it grow every day stronger, by the renewing of the war in all places’. Meanwhile, Marlborough asked Godolphin to arrange the election of Stanhope should Parliament be dissolved. In September he issued the like request for Boyle.⁶⁵⁵ Neither of them were elected with Godolphin’s help, although it appears that Onslow acknowledged Godolphin’s help in securing a bolt hole at St Mawes.⁶⁵⁶

The process by which Harley eased Godolphin from office was not straightforward. On 3 July 1710 Harley drew up a memorandum for an interview with the queen in which he wrote ‘you must preserve your character and spirit to speak to [the] lord treasurer. Get quit of him’.⁶⁵⁷ However, it was over a month later on 5 Aug., when Harley wrote to Newcastle, ‘this is plain, it is impracticable 32 [the queen] and 37 [Godolphin] can live together. He every day grows sourer and indeed ruder to 32 [the queen] which is unaccountable, and will hear of no accommodation, so that it is impossible he can continue many days’.⁶⁵⁸ In the event, as Henry St John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, recorded in his Letter to Wyndham, personal reasons lay behind Godolphin’s dismissal—the queen had been alienated by ‘the personal ill usage which she received in her private life’, doubtless a reference to Godolphin’s well meaning attempts to reconcile her to Sarah and in particular his behaviour at cabinet on 30 July.⁶⁵⁹ On 7 Aug. the queen wrote to Godolphin, ‘the uneasiness which you have showed for some time has given me very much trouble, tho I have borne it, and had your behaviour continued the same it was for a few years after my coming to the Crown, I could have no dispute with myself what to do’. However, ‘the many unkind returns I have received since, especially what you said to me personally before the Lords makes it impossible for me to continue you any longer in my service’. His dismissal was sweetened by the promise of a pension of £4,000 a year, ‘out of the privy purse’, and the command that ‘instead of bringing the staff to me that you will break it, which I believe will be easiest to us both.’⁶⁶⁰ In reply, on the 8th, Godolphin defended his conduct, being ‘not conscious of the least undutiful act, or of one undutiful word to your majesty in my whole life.’⁶⁶¹ According to Sarah, the pension was never paid, so that ‘had not his elder brother happen to die he had been in very low circumstances’, Sir William Godolphin leaving him an estate worth a reputed £4,000 a year.⁶⁶²

On 14 Aug. 1710 Godolphin explained his dismissal in terms of the queen being ‘industriously wrought up’ to believe that Mrs Masham could never ‘expect any quarter’ from himself or Marlborough. He predicted the resignation of the Whigs following the dissolution.⁶⁶³ Although Bateman reported on 18 Aug. that Godolphin had ‘not been at council since he was out of office’, he did continue to help the government to finance its military commitments abroad, not least in facilitating the transfer of funds to pay Marlborough’s troops.⁶⁶⁴ Cropley wrote to Shaftesbury that the Bank had agreed to lend ‘at the earnest request of my Lord Godolphin’. Godolphin, he said, had also written to Marlborough ‘to give strong assurances to all princes the queen will go on with the war and that the next Parliament will support the war’.⁶⁶⁵ James Craggs the younger^‡ told Stanhope that when he had heard that Sir Henry Furnese^‡ and Sir Theodore Janssen^‡ had ‘refused to lend the new commissioners above £300,000 which they had agreed to lend my lord treasurer upon tallies’, Godolphin wrote them ‘a letter desiring them to keep to their bargain and support the nation’s credit, upon which they did give the money’.⁶⁶⁶ The day after his fall, Godolphin was busy speaking to the envoys of the Dutch and the emperor to encourage their war effort and arranging for a secure means for Marlborough to communicate with the queen, either via him to Boyle, or to Boyle directly.⁶⁶⁷

This did not mean that Godolphin was happy with what had happened. On 26 Aug. 1710 Harley wrote that Godolphin was ‘very peevish and makes Mr Secretary [Boyle] so’ and on 12 Sept. that Godolphin would not release Boyle from his ‘engagements’ to him.⁶⁶⁸ Swift, too, detected a similar demeanour, when following his arrival in London on 7 Sept., he recounted a visit to Godolphin on the 9th, who ‘gave me a reception very unexpected and altogether different from what I have received from any great man in my life; altogether short, dry and morose’, which was explained by his friends ‘that he was overrun by the spleen and peevishness upon the present posture of affairs, and used nobody better’.⁶⁶⁹ On 7 Sept. Maynwaring was desired by Devonshire and Sunderland to find out Godolphin’s views on how the other Whig ministers should behave, ‘for they would do, or not do, whatever he believed was best’.⁶⁷⁰ Godolphin’s view that the remaining Whigs would resign following a dissolution, was confirmed on 10 Sept., he having been ‘very lately in company’ with the Junto.⁶⁷¹

The Harley ministry and the 1710 election

In September 1710, Godolphin turned some of his attention to the elections. He took part in ‘a great cabal’ at Althorp designed to promote a Whig challenge to Tory hegemony in Northamptonshire, although ultimately to no effect.⁶⁷² On 12 Sept. he received a visit from Wharton and ‘some gentlemen of Oxfordshire’ who were keen to have Rialton stand for the county, but Godolphin thought it ‘wrong to go about it at this time’.⁶⁷³ On 13 Sept. he wrote to Seafield about the forthcoming Scottish peerage election.⁶⁷⁴ But in the latter part of the month, thoughts of recreation became uppermost. On 24 Sept. Godolphin wrote from Althorp to the duke of Kent to tell him of his plans of visiting him at Wrest the following week, and ‘of walking about your gardens and park all Friday, of going to Newmarket, Saturday’.⁶⁷⁵ By 2 Oct. Godolphin was at Newmarket. On 16 Oct. he wrote to the duchess of Marlborough perceptively analysing the tensions in the new ministry between Harley and Rochester. He described a dinner the previous day at Orford’s and characterized his own health as on the mend, although he could only bear the motions of a coach at walking pace.⁶⁷⁶ On 26 Oct. Walpole wrote from Newmarket that Godolphin was ‘much out of order with the stone and gravel’.⁶⁷⁷

According to Harley’s calculations of 3 Oct. 1710, Godolphin was expected to oppose the new ministry.⁶⁷⁸ However, Godolphin had told Marlborough that he did not expect to be in London until towards the end of November, and he was absent from the opening of Parliament on 25 Nov., first attending on 4 December.⁶⁷⁹ He attended a further three days in December, the last being the 18th. On 8 Dec. Peter Wentworth thought that some of the country gentlemen planned to impeach Godolphin, although ‘some great men… had art enough to get that waived’; on 19 Dec. Mungo Graham^‡ had heard nothing about an impeachment.⁶⁸⁰ Rumours of an impeachment were to resurface in March 1711.⁶⁸¹ On 17 Dec. Godolphin penned a critique of current affairs, which was shown to the queen on 21 Dec., probably by Dr Hamilton.⁶⁸² He dealt mainly with the resurgence of France, and accompanying ‘insolence’, which had been encouraged by the decline in public credit, the dissolution of Parliament and the expected removal of Marlborough from his military commands. He went on to warn that

talking never so big nor voting never so well signifies very little towards carrying on the war with effect, if there be not an entire conjunction and harmony betwixt her majesty and the allies abroad as it has been hitherto, and if, as the French have been already gratified in the first two points, they must also have further satisfaction of seeing assurances from their friends here made good by the duke of Marlborough’s not serving any more, this must needs give the finishing stroke to the drooping alliance, and make it fall to pieces immediately.

The end result would be the allies negotiating separately with France. ‘When the alliance is once broken’, he argued, ‘can it enter into anybody’s imagination that the queen and the British nation will have any terms from France, but what shall be in favour of the Pretender’?⁶⁸³ In the first ceremony since his own installation in December 1704, in Windsor on 22 Dec. Godolphin officiated at the installation into the garter of the electoral prince, the future George II*, then duke of Cambridge, as well as of the duke of Devonshire and the duke of Argyll.⁶⁸⁴

On 5 Jan. 1711 Godolphin spoke in the debate on the war in Spain in defence of Galway’s actions: Nicolson referred to his ‘puzzling remarks’.⁶⁸⁵ On 6 Jan. Dartmouth sent the queen’s commands to Godolphin that he comply with an order from the Lords for copies of his letters relating to the war in Spain and Portugal. Godolphin replied on the 7th that although he had written to Stanhope and Peterborough the letters contained ‘only my private thoughts’, and were of insufficient consequence to keep copies: orders to them from the queen ‘were always transmitted to them by the secretary of state’.⁶⁸⁶ This rather neatly removed the threat of his being censured ‘for using the queen’s name’ without her consent, or knowledge.⁶⁸⁷ On 9 Jan. he spoke in another debate on the Spanish war, when his motion that the House be cleared of strangers was rejected. On 11 Jan. he spoke in favour of hearing the petitions of Galway and Tyrawley on the conduct of the war and entered his protest against their rejection. He also spoke in the debate on the attribution of the blame for Almanza and protested against the conclusion that the defeat had been occasioned by the opinions of Galway, Tyrawley and Stanhope. He spoke in the censure debate on 12 Jan. to point out that it was important to distinguish between the cabinet council and the ministry: as ‘the word ministers was more copious, it was therefore improper in this case, because their Lordships ought to be sure whom they designed to censure’. He called, unsuccessfully, for an adjournment as it was late and ‘a person concerned in this debate was absent’. He later answered Peterborough, explaining why the earl’s project for an attack on Toulon had not been feasible.⁶⁸⁸ He entered his protest against the censure of the conduct of ministers for approving an offensive war in Spain. On 2 Feb. Kent registered his proxy with Godolphin, as did by James Berkeley*, 3rd earl of Berkeley, three days later. On 3 Feb. he entered his protests against further motions relating to the Spanish war: that the two regiments on the Spanish establishment at the time of the battle of Alamanza were not properly supplied and that the failure of ministers to supply the deficiencies of men voted by Parliament amounted to a neglect of that service. On 8 Feb. he entered his dissent from the presentation to the queen of the House’s conclusions concerning the war in Spain.

Godolphin was absent from the House from 22 Mar. until 9 May. This was partly because of a visit to Newmarket, from whence on 30 Mar. he wrote to Kent, promising ‘a great deal of diversion next week, and a very great appearance’: two of his horses were slated to race on consecutive days on 26-27 April.⁶⁸⁹ On 9 Apr. Godolphin registered his proxy with Charles Fitzroy*, 2nd duke of Grafton. The Tories, meanwhile, were planning a number of attacks on him. On 18 Apr. Poulett expounded a typical Tory view of Godolphin: ‘as the world is of all hands fully convinced Marlborough and Godolphin shifted only by setting mankind against one another and only throve by wars of all degrees and kinds’.⁶⁹⁰ The Commons on 24 Apr. voted that £35 million of public money was unaccounted for, and an investigation was launched. Godolphin’s defenders mobilized themselves in response, Arthur Maynwaring collaborating with Walpole on compiling a repudiation of the claims, and on 28 Apr., Walpole defended him from claims that procedures had not been properly followed, showing ‘how some accounts could never be passed in that form the exchequer required, and it was not possible the lord treasurer could compel an impossibility’.⁶⁹¹ On 1 May Alexander Abercromby^‡ wrote to Marlborough, explaining his delay in joining the campaign: ‘Lord Seafield, Mr Boscawen and some others of my Lord Godolphin’s friends not only advised my stay hitherto but also for some days longer.’⁶⁹² On 5 May it was reported to Robert Wodrow that the Commons had ‘come to two resolves one highly reflecting upon the late management of the treasury’, particularly on the late passage of accounts. ‘There was a great debate whether in the first resolve my Lord Godolphin should be named but upon a division it was carried in the negative.’⁶⁹³ According to Burnet, the missing £35 million could scarcely be attributed to Godolphin, who had ‘managed the treasury with an uncorruptness, fidelity and diligence, that were so unexceptionable that it was not possible to fix any censure on his administration’: he added, darkly, that the Tory-dominated Commons would not consent to allow the report of the committee on the arrears of taxes to be published, ‘for by that it would have appeared who had served well, and who had served ill.’⁶⁹⁴

Back in the Lords, on 10 May 1711 Godolphin was named to manage a conference on amendments to a bill for the preservation of pine trees in the American colonies. On 12 May he was named to two conferences on the bill for the preservation of game, as he was again on the 17th and 31st. On 15 May Maynwaring reported Godolphin ‘ill of a cold, and more touched by the removal of Lord Rialton than his own’ (his son having been dismissed as cofferer on the 13th).⁶⁹⁵ On 1 June in the debate in the committee of the whole on the Scottish linen cloth bill, according to John Elphinstone*, 4th Lord Balmerinoch [S], the only significant point at issue was the prohibition of the export of unmanufactured linen yarn ‘from Scotland or Ireland or any foreign part’, which came under considerable attack from English peers of all sides. Godolphin was one of the few who stood up for the Scots, speaking for them twice, ‘very heartily and very well’.⁶⁹⁶ As well as removing the clause, the Lords added a clause allowing the exportation of linen from Ireland to the plantations for 11 years, something which, Baillie felt, would have seriously disadvantaged the Scottish linen trade. Only Godolphin, Shrewsbury and Buckingham had spoken against the amendment.⁶⁹⁷ Godolphin last attended that session on 4 June, having attended on 62 days of the session, 55 per cent of the total, and having been named to a further six committees.

Over the summer, Godolphin worked on defending his own and his ministry’s reputation, calling on 25 July 1711 for material from Cowper on the Bewdley charter dispute, ‘in order to set the late representation of the House of Commons in a truer light’ (the catalogue of grievances against the Whig ministry which had been compiled in the Commons and voted to be presented to the queen on 31 May, and which referred to the long-running issue of the replacement of Bewdley’s corporation charter).⁶⁹⁸ On 21 Sept. he was at St Albans and by 4 Oct. he was at Newmarket, where he was still on 25 October.⁶⁹⁹ Godolphin’s name occurs on Nottingham’s list of list of peers put together probably at the beginning of December, possibly in relation to Nottingham’s alliance with the Whigs against the ministry’s peace policy, or the passing of the occasional conformity bill.⁷⁰⁰ Godolphin attended on the opening day of the 1711-12 session, 7 Dec., speaking in favour of inserting into the address the ‘No Peace without Spain’ clause.⁷⁰¹ He argued against the ministerial view that the matter should be postponed: the nation, he warned, could be bought and sold before it was considered; the outcome of the debate was being closely watched by the French.⁷⁰² On 8 Dec. his name appears on a list either as an opponent of the court in the projected division on the Address or in favour of presenting it with the amendment of the previous day. On 19 Dec., on a forecast for the division expected on the following day on the Hamilton peerage case, Godolphin’s name was amongst the opponents, but with a query.⁷⁰³ In the event he left the House rather than vote on the validity of patents of honour granted to peers of Great Britain who were peers of Scotland at the time of the Union, and their entitlement to sit and vote in Parliament. In doing so he avoided voting against the royal prerogative, although partisan advantage might have demanded it.⁷⁰⁴

The tactical advantage of a short Christmas adjournment obtained by the Whigs on 22 Dec. 1711 was obviated on 2 Jan. 1712 when the court (bolstered by the new peerage creations) succeeded in winning a further adjournment. Godolphin spoke against the motion, ‘insisting upon the irregularity of adjourning one house and not th’other’, but it was carried by 63-49.⁷⁰⁵ In late January Godolphin seems to have been consulted by Somerset on whether the duke should insist upon his wife leaving the queen’s service following his own dismissal.⁷⁰⁶ On 15 Jan., Abercrombie reported that following the report of the commissioners of public accounts in the Commons there was ‘some talk of impeaching’ Godolphin, among others.⁷⁰⁷ On 17 Jan., after the queen’s message to the Lords on the diminution of her prerogative over the creation of British titles and the need to satisfy the Scots, Godolphin proposed it be debated in committee of the whole House the following day, as it would require some time.⁷⁰⁸ On 31 Jan. Thomas Pelham*, Baron Pelham, registered his proxy with Godolphin, followed on 13 Feb. by John Hervey*, Baron Hervey (later earl of Bristol). On 21 Feb. Godolphin made a motion to adjourn the House until the 25th, but this was lost after a tied division.⁷⁰⁹ After 13 Mar. he did not attend again until 13 May. He registered his proxy with Cowper on 28 March. One of his horses was slated to run at Newmarket on 30 April.⁷¹⁰ After his return, on 28 May he seconded Halifax in the debate over the ‘restraining orders’ sent to Ormond and entered his protest against the resolution not to address the queen for an offensive war against France.⁷¹¹ On 7 June he spoke in the debate on the motion to address the queen thanking her for her speech concerning the peace negotiations, noting that although ‘he did not pretend to any great knowledge in trade’, yet he had observed that customs records showed that ‘the single trade of Portugal brought to England in times of war [was] double the wealth of the trade to Spain in times of peace’, so that it must be ‘presumed that the trade to Spain would still yield less for the future because the French had made themselves absolute masters of it’.⁷¹² He then entered his protest against the resolution not to amend the address on the queen’s speech concerning the peace. He last attended on 13 June, a week or so before the end of the session, having been present on 57 days of the session, 53 per cent of the total, and been named to a further nine committees.

On 26 June 1712 Godolphin sent a letter to Nottingham noting that ‘the second declaration of the duke of Ormond’s [presumably his announcement that he had received instructions to agree a ceasefire with the French for two months] makes a great noise here, and would have made a greater, I believe if it had not missed of its intended effect’.⁷¹³ On 7 July Godolphin accompanied the Marlboroughs from the Lodge at Windsor to London.⁷¹⁴ Upon their return to St Albans, Godolphin was present on 11 Aug. at a dinner held in Marlborough’s campaign tent on his bowling green.⁷¹⁵ At the end of July, his sister referred to Godolphin intending ‘a thorough progress now he has nothing else to do’.⁷¹⁶ This he seems to have undertaken, for on 18 Aug. he was visiting his niece, Dorothy Meadowes, near Winchester. He then moved on to Tilshead; and on 24 Aug. he was at Woodstock, dining with Sunderland, Maynwaring and Vanbrugh.⁷¹⁷ He then returned to St Albans, no doubt looking forward to a foray to Newmarket, where on 10 Sept. it was announced that one of his horses would run against one of Wharton’s at Newmarket on 8 October.⁷¹⁸

Godolphin did not live to see the race. He died at St Albans at 2 o’clock on the morning of 15 Sept., ‘having been long afflicted with the stone in the kidneys’.⁷¹⁹ White Kennet rather gruesomely described how in the process of ‘riding cross the country 40 miles a day, the motion of the coach broke a stone in the kidneys and the pieces coming down in great torture obstructing and bearing upon one another, one of them so lodged in a neck of water as to mortify and kill without possible help’.⁷²⁰ His sister wrote that it was a ‘great happiness in the midst of this misfortune that my Lord Godolphin is ill in a place where he is so carefully and tenderly looked after’ by the duchess.⁷²¹ L’Hermitage recorded that after his death they had opened him up and found a stone the length of a kidney.⁷²² On 7 Oct. his body was taken from his house at St James’s Park to the Jerusalem chamber of the Palace of Westminster. The next evening, about 11 p.m., he was buried in Westminster Abbey. Marlborough, Richmond, Schomberg, and Devonshire held the corners of the pall, and a large number of other nobles came up from the country to attend.⁷²³ There had been a slight delay in the burial ‘till they could get six lords of the Garter together to carry up the pall’, there even being a suggestion that ‘they don’t find the Tory knights so ready to come to town a purpose’.⁷²⁴

An unblemished reputation

After his death, the new earl of Godolphin declared that his father ‘died with no more money by him than £1500 which all people wonders at.’⁷²⁵ This should perhaps been compared with Godolphin’s self-assessment of his personal estate ‘including money at interest’ at about £10,000 in October 1689.⁷²⁶ Kennet recorded that on his death ‘his effects beside the paternal estate are said not to be above 25 thousand pounds, yet considering his public employs and private way of life must argue an integrity singular in that office’.⁷²⁷ L’Hermitage thought that he left only £50,000, apart from £3,000 in rents inherited from his older brother.⁷²⁸ On 23 Oct. Godolphin’s sister, Jael Boscawen, wrote that she was ‘more sorry than surprised’ that Godolphin had ‘left no more money to those that come after, and that what was thought to be left is not theirs, especially if there be any debts to pay’. Further, the ‘poor old estate has had debts and encumbrances upon it, to near the value of it, since my remembrance, but yet even at that time the owners were never straitened but had always plenty of money and the last of them left £4,000 which he disposed of in legacies.’⁷²⁹ According to the duchess of Marlborough, Godolphin ‘never made any great expense for he won at play and mortally hated all things of show and grandeur, but he was very charitable and generous’. When he died ‘he had not in the world but about’ £14,000 in tallies, of which £11,000 was not his ‘and many other small sums which he took off helpless people who thought themselves safe in his hands, and when all his debts were paid there could hardly be enough to bury him’.⁷³⁰

In the immediate aftermath of his death, the duchess described Godolphin as ‘the truest friend to me and all my family that ever was, and the best man that ever lived’.⁷³¹ Molesworth lamented that ‘the greatest man in the whole world for honesty, capacity, courage, friendship, generosity is gone’.⁷³² Boyer recorded in September 1712 that Godolphin’s ‘administration was found thoroughly clear, sound and unattachable. So that, as he lived, he died, with an unblemished reputation, to which the most candid of his enemies paid a due respect’.⁷³³ The Flying Post recorded that ‘he has left behind him the character of an accomplished statesman and a frugal and prudent manager of the public money’.⁷³⁴ Swift recorded that ‘the Whigs have lost a great support’ by his death.⁷³⁵ Hearne noted that ‘he was a man that could keep his temper, but was one of the greatest Whigs in the kingdom, and did as much mischief as the duke of Marlborough, these two ingrossing the treasure of the nation to themselves’.⁷³⁶ In 1685 Jael Boscawen had written of his ‘silent manner of his expressing himself to his best friends, which to those that don’t know him very well may give just occasion to doubt of him’.⁷³⁷ Godolphin himself once remarked to Coningsby that his ‘countenance was none of the best at any time’, and Hare thought his ‘silence was very particular and almost without example’ when under provocation.⁷³⁸ He may have needed it to deal with the clamour of those who wanted his attention: Maynwaring described the scene at his levee: ‘when my Lord himself comes out, they all crowd about him, press to be heard, and stick close to his ear, till he is gone out into the court.’⁷³⁹ As the perceived fount of most ministerial patronage, Godolphin was always troubled by ‘so many unreasonable people, that it is impossible for a man in his station to satisfy them all’.⁷⁴⁰ Nor was he helped by Marlborough’s determination to keep out of most patronage matters, relying on Godolphin to shield him from the incessant importunities of suitors and their patrons.⁷⁴¹ Nevertheless, if one could pierce his armour, Godolphin was loyal to his friends. Shaftesbury noted in 1709 that ‘once he has conceived a good opinion of a man, he will bear anything from him’.⁷⁴² Or woman for that matter, for perhaps his closest friend was the duchess of Marlborough, on whom he relied for ‘comfort and companionship’. He saw her every day when she was at court and they corresponded every day when she was absent.⁷⁴³

Although extremely hard-working, Godolphin could also be good company and was known to enjoy card-playing and, especially horse-racing. Foreign diplomats, such as the Prussian Ezekiel, Freiherr von Spanheim, took particular note of his regular attendance at Newmarket in the spring and autumn of each year.⁷⁴⁴ Godolphin told Burnet that his love of gaming ‘delivered him from the obligation to talk much’. Political opponents regarded Godolphin’s famed coolness as a mask for hypocrisy, an ‘affectation’, according to Dartmouth, for ‘though he had the grimace of refusing everything before he received it’, yet he had benefited his family through alliance with the Marlboroughs.⁷⁴⁵ The squibs of his opponents, such as Brown’s The Country Parson’s Honest Advice addressed to Lord Keeper Cowper, poured doubts on his probity.⁷⁴⁶ However, most contemporaries regarded him, as did James Brydges, as a man of ‘wisdom, probity and deep experience’.⁷⁴⁷ To Burnet, Godolphin was ‘the man of the clearest head, the calmest temper, and the most incorrupt of all the ministers of state I have ever known’. Time seemed only to increase his reputation: Thomas Carte in 1724 noted that ‘Godolphin had certainly the best head and capacity for a minister of state of any man in England and was a man that no country in the world might be ashamed of. He had not the least tincture of avarice and was the uncorruptest man in his time’ in the treasury.⁷⁴⁸

The traditional view of Godolphin is that of a highly competent administrator, who presided over a treasury which raised unprecedented funds for military purposes, whilst managing the relationship between the executive and the legislature.⁷⁴⁹ During 1702-9, Parliament raised over £40 million for the war. Further, Godolphin managed the supply much more efficiently than his predecessors, with better record keeping, more attention to the management of tallies and the use of exchequer bills, long term borrowing by the sale of annuities, and an attempt to prevent excessive profiteering by those remitting funds to pay the armed forces. In this he was not essentially an innovator, but a bureaucrat who had fully mastered the workings of the system. As one historian put it, ‘his forte was administration rather than originality’.⁷⁵⁰ The weakness of Godolphin’s financial management was ‘the floating departmental debt’, which grew each year and ‘came after 1708 to imperil the structure of credit’.⁷⁵¹ Even so, his reputation in this field was again higher 15 years after his death; looking back from the vantage point of 1727, a correspondent of Spencer Compton wrote that ‘a good judgment capable of weighing the several expedients that will always be proposed to it, is the chief quality required in a lord treasurer’, and Godolphin, ‘who knew but little of accounts, whose hand was perhaps one of the worst in England, and who did not even write at all without some difficulty, is generally allowed one of the best lord treasurers we ever had’.⁷⁵²

In political terms, Godolphin was reluctant to commit the court to a party campaign by sending signals of wholesale removals; what he did do, in Cropley’s words, was ‘dabble a little in a few particular places [to] influence, ’tis so gently done and unseen and so as really to signify very little’. In a sense, the objective was ‘to regulate the extent of official influence … in such a way as to leave one party victorious in the Commons but not uncontrollable’. If he had a weakness as a political manager, it was his distaste for the party battle.⁷⁵³ Around 1710, Raby referred to Godolphin as speaking ‘seldom in the House of Lords, but when he does is well heard, and speaks very handsomely and always much to the purpose’.⁷⁵⁴ This fits in well with the views of John Dunton that Godolphin was ‘a statesman of a profound and orthodox judgment’, and Abel Boyer, who at the end of a lengthy panegyric observed that Godolphin had ‘a very clear conception of the whole policy of the government both in Church and State’.⁷⁵⁵

Like his father and elder brother Colonel George Goring^‡, styled Lord Goring, Charles Goring fought for the royalists during the Civil War, serving under his brother at Marston Moor, the second battle of Newbury, Naseby and Langport. He also had a field command during the second Civil War but appears to have escaped to the Netherlands after that campaign’s failure and was in Antwerp in early 1652, when he, his father and brother were all specifically exempted from the benefits of the Act of General Pardon and Oblivion.⁵ He returned to England that spring to manage the affairs of his family’s estate in England, including the sale of Danny and other of the family’s estates in Sussex, and appears to have remained in the country thereafter, despite occasional harassment from the government.⁶

From late 1657, when Colonel Goring died in Madrid, Charles adopted the courtesy title of Lord Goring and became heir to his father’s earldom of Norwich. Sometime in late 1658 the new Lord Goring contracted a lucrative marriage with Alice Baker, a widow who brought with her from her previous marriage a personal estate of £10,000 and jointure lands of £1,000 p.a., including the richly furnished Forest House in Leyton, Middlesex.⁷

On 7 Jan. 1663, having just learned of his father’s death, he wrote to his former comrade in the royalist western campaign, Thomas Wentworth*, Baron Wentworth, predicting ‘nothing but ruin’ unless the king took compassion for ‘a family of loyalty and passionate affection for him’. He claimed that, under the pressure of providing for his creditors, his father had been reduced to an estate of £450 p.a. by the time of his death.⁸ Charles II did make some gestures to help him in his dire financial straits and Norwich was able to take over his father’s previous sinecure as secretary of the Council of Wales (where he had held the position of clerk under his father since 1661) and in 1664 the Crown bestowed on him the stewardship of the honour of Peverell in Nottinghamshire, an office which had also been held by his father during the reign of Charles I.⁹ Norwich also insistently claimed the residue of the pension of £14,000 (to be paid in instalments of £2,000 a year for seven years) that had been given to his father on surrendering the captaincy of the yeomen of the guard to George Villiers, 4th Viscount Grandison of Limerick [I] in 1661.¹⁰

Norwich first sat in the House on 18 Feb. 1663, and proceeded to attend 72 per cent of the meetings of the session of spring 1663, where he was named to ten select committees, mostly on private bills, but including those on bills to prevent gaming and to prevent duels. Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, forecast that Norwich would support the attempt in July 1663 of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon. Norwich had good reason to dislike Clarendon. The first earl of Norwich had blamed Clarendon directly for his failure to be appointed farmer of the customs in late 1662, and the second earl came close to holding the lord chancellor responsible for his father’s death, as he suggested that being passed over as customs farmer broke his father’s heart.¹¹ Norwich would already have witnessed the intense animosity between his brother, Lord Goring, and Sir Edward Hyde (as he then was) during the western campaign of 1644-5 and probably blamed Clarendon for the failure of many of his own petitions, such as his attempt to claim the Mulberry Garden in St. James Park, a plot of valuable land which had originally been promised to his father but whose grant had been aborted by the events of 1642.¹² He was connected with other opponents of the lord chancellor. He appears to have had some relationship, although it is difficult to determine what the exact connection was, with Clarendon’s rival Henry Bennet*, Baron (later earl of) Arlington. Norwich referred to Arlington in 1663 as his ‘cousin’ who would be able to attest reliably to the meagre state of his inheritance.¹³

Norwich was also connected to many prominent members of the English Catholic community and, if not a Catholic himself, he apparently had a good deal of sympathy for them and their religion. This too may have encouraged him to side with the Catholic Bristol against the religiously discriminatory measures associated with the lord chancellor. Goring considered himself enough of a member of the Church of England to have his burial in the Anglican parish church of Leyton.¹⁴ But his wife may have been a Catholic, for it was the abbess of the Benedictine convent at Ghent who was able to reassure the first earl of Norwich in 1659 that his new daughter-in-law was ‘a virtuous, rich and wise young lady’.¹⁵ The first earl had long served the Catholic household of Henrietta Maria; Colonel George Goring had formally converted to Catholicism before his death in 1657 and was buried in St. George’s Chapel of the English Jesuits in Madrid. Most tellingly, Norwich’s mother was of the Catholic Nevill family and his maternal cousin, the Catholic George Nevill*, 11th Baron Abergavenny, was on Wharton’s list of Clarendon’s opponents, as was the Catholic peer Christopher Roper*, 4th Baron Teynham, who on 14 July 1663 registered his proxy with Norwich to represent him during the proceedings on the impeachment. This proxy was vacated three days later at Teynham’s reappearance in the House.

Teynham gave Norwich his proxy again for the entirety of the session of spring 1664, during which Norwich came to all but five of the sittings and was named to five committees. He improved his level of attendance and activity at the next session, in 1664-5, when he came to 45 of the 53 meetings. He was nominated to 21 committees in all, almost all on private bills, and on 24 Jan. 1665 chaired a meeting on Francis Leigh’s estate bill which was adjourned with no discussion.¹⁶ He came to 75 per cent of the session of 1666-7 and on 22 Dec. 1666 was delegated to bring George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, from the Tower of London, where he had been incarcerated for an unseemly tussle with Henry Pierrepont*, marquess of Dorchester, to the bar of the House to make his submission and bind himself not to provoke Dorchester again. As Dorchester was brought before the bar at the same time by his nephew Gilbert Holles*, 3rd earl of Clare, this duty given to Norwich suggests that he may have been considered an associate of Buckingham. Their fathers had indeed been close companions at the courts of James I and Charles I, but they may also have been united in their dislike of Clarendon and their wish to see his fall. To exacerbate matters during 1666-7 Norwich was involved in a long dispute with the treasury about privy seals granted to a number of his father’s creditors and legatees which diverted to them first call on the pension money which Norwich claimed.¹⁷

It is not surprising then that in the session of 1667-8 Norwich supported the measures taken against Clarendon and attended the proceedings faithfully, coming to over three-quarters of the meetings of the autumn. He protested on 20 Nov. 1667 against the House’s decision to reject the Commons’ request that Clarendon be committed without a specific charge of treason and on 7 Dec. he was named to the committee to consider the bill for banishing the lord chancellor. He was named to a further nine committees in late 1667, but over the following two years his attendance and committee nominations slackened slightly. He did come to 80 per cent of the meetings of spring 1670 and was named to committees considering the decay of trade and for the bill against the fraudulent export of wool, among others. On 8 Mar. 1670 he chaired the committee considering the estate bill of Philip Smythe^‡, 2nd Viscount Strangford [I].¹⁸ That same day he stepped forward in the House to represent the interests of George Nevill*, 12th Baron Abergavenny, his five-year-old first cousin once removed, against the claims of Benjamin Mildmay*, 17th Baron Fitzwalter, to precedence over all the barons of England, and particularly of Abergavenny. Norwich opposed the bill for the divorce of John Manners*, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) and dissented both from its second reading on 17 Mar. 1670 and from its eventual passage 11 days later. After the summer adjournment, Norwich held Teynham’s proxy from 1 Nov. 1670, although he himself did not sit in the House until 4 Nov. and left it permanently on 11 Feb. 1671, probably owing to illness. He hurriedly composed his will on 2 Mar. 1671 in which, being childless, he left everything to his wife, acknowledging that almost all he possessed, apart from a few leaseholds in Yorkshire and Essex, came from her and the lucrative jointure she had brought with her. Without any male heirs, the earldom of Norwich became extinct. As early as April 1671 it was rumoured that the title would be conferred on Henry Bennet, Baron Arlington, but instead it, along with Norwich’s stewardship of the honour of Peverell, was bestowed on Henry Howard*, Baron Howard of Castle Rising (and later 6th duke of Norfolk) on 19 October 1672.¹⁹

George Goring was born into a cadet branch of a prominent family which had been settled in Sussex since the reign of Edward I. From about 1608, owing to family connections and to his charm and affable nature, he became a leading member of the households of James I and Charles I, closely connected with the royal favourite George Villiers^†, duke of Buckingham. He accompanied Buckingham and the prince of Wales to Madrid in 1623 to arrange the Spanish Match. With the failure of that project he then took part in negotiating the marriage of Prince Charles with the French princess Henrietta Maria, and he served her from 1626, first as vice-chamberlain and then as master of horse.

Goring began his parliamentary career in the Commons, where he sat for the Sussex borough of Lewes in every Parliament from 1621 until he was raised to the peerage on 14 Apr. 1628 as Baron Goring of Hurstpierpoint, Sussex. Sussex remained the base of his land-holding and political interest until he was forced to abandon and sell many of his properties during the Commonwealth and Protectorate. Throughout the first half of the seventeenth century he held a wide range of local responsibilities and commissions in that county.⁶ But the other centre of his influence gradually shifted to Westminster and the court. Through royal favour and his own financial acumen he quickly grew very rich. By 1619 he was receiving a pension of £3,000 p.a. and from 1623 he earned for himself a reputation as ‘captain projector’ for his involvement in many schemes of tax farming and monopolies. Under the protection of the crown and its patents and monopolies he acquired a fortune in the import or production and retail sale of soap, wine, tobacco and many other luxury and domestic goods. He was given the sinecure of secretary of the Council of Wales in 1630 and in 1639 attained his apogee of court influence when made vice-chamberlain of the royal household and a member of the Privy Council. At the time of his death in 1663 it was estimated that Goring’s income in 1641–2 had amounted to £26,800 p.a., much of it earmarked for the repayment of the massive debts of his extravagant and flamboyant heir, also George Goring^‡, styled Lord Goring.⁷

During the Civil War Goring remained loyal to the king and in August 1643 he was appointed ambassador extraordinary to France to try to firm up French assistance to the royal cause. He was back in Oxford by 28 Nov. 1644, on which date he was advanced in the peerage as earl of Norwich, the title previously held by his maternal uncle Edward Denny^†, who had died in 1637 without male heirs. Edward Hyde*, later earl of Clarendon, suggested that this promotion was influenced by the solicitations of Norwich’s son and heir, George, who was fast becoming the principal royalist military leader in the western and southern theatres of war.⁸ Norwich went abroad as the royalist cause collapsed, but had returned to England by May 1648 as general of the royalist forces in Kent and Sussex; during the second Civil War he was one of the commanders leading the besieged royalist forces in Colchester. After the city’s surrender in August 1648, Norwich was imprisoned for several months and in early March 1649 was condemned to death, but was reprieved by one vote in a division in the Rump on his petition for mercy.

Norwich was still stirring up trouble in Surrey in August 1649, but in September 1650 he was given a pass to go abroad, and he settled in the Netherlands from where he engaged in a frequent correspondence with Sir Edward Nicholas^‡.⁹ In 1652 he served Charles II as his agent to the duke of Lorraine and Elizabeth of Bohemia in the Netherlands, while in 1656–8 he took an active interest in the plans for a military alliance with Spain and a descent on England.¹⁰ Charles II for his part showed his appreciation of Norwich’s long service to his father and mother and in 1657 confirmed his appointment as captain of the Yeomen of the Guard, which had originally been conferred on him by Charles I in October 1645.

Norwich’s relations with Nicholas’ colleague Sir Edward Hyde were much cooler. He thought Hyde’s ‘overvaluing himself and undervaluing others, together with his grasping at too much’ would ‘bring irrecoverable inconveniences, if not ruin, to affairs’. ¹¹ For his part, Hyde in his History of the Rebellion portrays Norwich as a simple, inoffensive, almost buffoonish, courtier with no great political ambition or ability:

He had always lived in the Court in such a station of business as raised him very few enemies; and his pleasant and jovial nature, which was every where acceptable, made him many friends, at least made many delighted in his company. So that by the great favour he had with the king and queen, and the little prejudice he stood in with any body else, he was very like (if the fatal disorder of the time had not blasted his hopes) to have grown master of a very fair fortune; which was all that he proposed to himself.¹²

Samuel Pepys^‡ later recorded anecdotes which similarly emphasized Norwich’s jovial character, even in the solemnity of the French court.¹³

Norwich was in Antwerp preparing to return to England in early April 1660 and Samuel Pepys^‡ recorded his arrival at Dover on 10 Apr. as the Convention was preparing to convene.¹⁴ He was in England as an agent for the exiled court as the initial moves for a restoration of Charles II were made. On 21 Apr. it was reported that he had had a ‘civil reception’ from the council of state and George Monck*, later duke of Albemarle, while a week later, after the Convention had first met, Norwich and a number of other lords dined at the London residence of Algernon Percy*, 4th earl of Northumberland.¹⁵ Throughout May he acted as an observer on political affairs for the exile court, informing Nicholas, Hyde and James Butler*, marquess (later duke) of Ormond [I] (and later earl of Brecknock in the English peerage) of developments in the Convention and giving advice on actions to take and people to promote.¹⁶ Norwich himself first sat in the Convention House of Lords with the general influx of formerly exiled royalists on 1 June, on which day he was also reappointed to his places as privy councillor and captain of the Yeomen of the Guard. In this latter role he played a prominent ceremonial role in the coronation of April 1661.¹⁷ That his death in January 1663 occurred while en route from Windsor to the capital suggests that even in his advanced age he attended the court and Privy Council.¹⁸ However, the elderly Norwich was not active in the House and only came to 35 per cent of the sittings of the Convention and 15 per cent of the 1661–2 session of the Cavalier Parliament. He was appointed to only four committees throughout 1660–2 and signed one protest, that of 13 Dec. 1660 against the resolution to vacate the fines of Sir Edward Powell levied during the Interregnum.

Norwich was most concerned in the years following the Restoration with satisfying his creditors. To this end, in 1661 he surrendered his post as captain of the Yeomen of the Guard in exchange for a pension of £2,000 p.a. for seven years, and he frequently petitioned Hyde, now earl of Clarendon, for the restitution of the other lucrative offices and privileges he had enjoyed before the civil wars. He was reappointed secretary of the Council of Wales in 1661, but his ambitious request for the farm of the custom was turned down definitively in late 1662.¹⁹ Norwich blamed Clarendon directly for this, and on 2 Jan. 1663, as he lay deathly ill at an inn at Brentford, he composed an angry letter to Clarendon’s son Henry Hyde*, styled Lord Cornbury (later 2nd earl of Clarendon), complaining that he had received by the hands of his father ‘the most fatal blow’ to his fortune.²⁰ The same day he also composed a brief will, which is concerned almost exclusively with the settlement of debts and which made his second son (from 1657 his sole heir male), Charles Goring*, 2nd earl of Norwich, executor of this depleted estate. The 2nd earl, writing a few days after Norwich’s death on 6 Jan. 1663, claimed that Clarendon’s refusal of the farm of the custom had broken his father’s heart and had effectively reduced his estate to a mere £450 p.a.²¹ Despite his impoverished and lonely death, attended only by his few servants at the inn, ‘the good old earl of Norwich’ (as Nicholas dubbed him) was rewarded for his long and faithful service to the Stuarts by burial a week later in Westminster Abbey.²²

Given that the earl of Bath’s second peerage was the viscountcy of Granville of Lansdown, one would have expected that his heir would be styled Lord Granville but in practice it was the territorial designation of the viscountcy that supplied the title by which Charles Granville was known until he succeeded to the earldom in 1701. The subsequent creation of a second barony of Granville (of Potheridge) for his younger brother, John Granville, and a barony of Lansdown for his cousin George Granville creates occasional confusion.

In 1676, apparently a somewhat awkward teenager, Lansdown left England in the company of his kinsman, the diplomat Sir Peter Wyche, having been granted a pass to travel abroad for four years. Reports indicate that he got no further than Paris, where he became a pupil at the famous Foubert academy, which provided training in horsemanship, swordplay, and other courtly accomplishments. There the teenager soon appears to have acquired the sort of social polish appropriate to a young nobleman. Lady Penelope Osborne later described him ‘as complete a gentleman as ever’ she did ‘behold’.³ The improvement was ascribed to his governor or tutor, Nicholas Durell, whose services in that regard attracted admiration (and recommendations to new pupils).⁴ During Lansdown’s absence Bath negotiated a marriage between his son and Martha Osborne, daughter of Bath’s friend and political ally, the earl of Danby. The negotiations initially foundered over Bath’s insistence on a dowry of £10,000 but an amicable arrangement was eventually reached and Lansdown returned to England for the marriage before departing for Paris once again.⁵

Almost the only information we have about Lansdown’s religious beliefs comes from a single letter to his new father-in-law in January 1679 describing his dismay at the persecution of French Protestants in general and the associated threats to Foubert in particular. Lansdown suggested that Danby assist Foubert (who had been forced to close his Parisian academy) to move to England ‘for then our nobility might learn at home of a Protestant what they are now obliged to seek for abroad amongst the papists’.⁶ Danby presumably responded positively to Lansdown’s suggestion: Foubert re-opened his academy in London later that year, assisted by a royal grant.⁷

Lansdown finally returned to England in 1681. During his absence, and while he was still a minor, he had been elected to the Commons on his father’s interest. Like his father he supported Danby after his fall and imprisonment. In 1682 the Lansdowns separated, apparently as a result of incriminating letters that had passed between Lady Lansdown and William Leveson Gower^‡ (husband of Lansdown’s sister, Jane).⁸ Later that year Lady Lansdown was described as ‘a most sad sort of woman’ who was either flirting or having an affair with James Scott*, duke of Monmouth.⁹ Although Lansdown’s appointment as a supernumerary gentleman of the bedchamber in April 1683 demonstrated royal favour, it was by then a matter of common knowledge that he intended to go as a volunteer to fight in Hungary. Sir Ralph Verney^‡ was probably not the only person to link this decision to Lansdown’s marital misfortunes, remarking that ‘the discontents between Lord Lansdown and his Lady … are grown so high, I think he doth very well to go fight against the Turks, rather than see himself so much abused here’.¹⁰ Lansdown served with such distinction that he was awarded the title of count of the Holy Roman Empire, which Charles II ordered to be registered in the college of arms.¹¹ Having returned to England in 1684, Lansdown was appointed envoy extraordinary to Spain the following autumn, an appointment that was confirmed by James II at his accession.¹² In May 1685 he was elected as a knight of the shire for Cornwall but by the autumn of that year he was in Madrid and did not return to England until March 1689.¹³

On 8 Nov. 1688 Lansdown’s father, hitherto a staunch though disillusioned supporter of James II, defected to William of Orange, effectively handing control of the west country to the invading forces. Lansdown followed his father’s lead; he helped carry the train at the coronation of William and Mary and was summoned to the House of Lords in July 1689 as Baron Granville. Although he had had little opportunity to make a mark on the Commons he threw himself into his duties in the Lords with gusto. He showed little sign of political independence, becoming something of a shadow to his father – regularly acting with him in committees, divisions, and protests. Nevertheless, as a member of a substantial if rather loose west country political connection with members in both Houses, he was a significant parliamentary figure. Like his father, in the immediate aftermath of the revolution Lansdown worked closely with Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, against Carmarthen (as Danby had now become) and Daniel Finch*, earl of Nottingham. Lansdown and his father were both later listed by Carmarthen as being among the opposition peers in the House.¹⁴

Lansdown’s summons was dated 16 July 1689; he took his seat in the House the next day. He was thereafter present for all but one of the remaining sitting days of the session. On 25 and 27 July he was named one of the managers of the conference to discuss the amendments proposed by the Lords to the bill for duties on coffee, tea, and chocolate. The issues at stake were part of the perennial dispute between the Houses about the right of the Lords to amend money bills. On 30 July he demonstrated a belief in the reality of the Popish Plot when he voted with the minority against adhering to the Lords’ amendments on the bill to reverse the two judgments of perjury against Titus Oates and joined his father and other peers in protesting against the loss of the motion. On 2 and 5 Aug. he was named as one of the managers of the conferences to consider the attainder bill.

Lansdown’s attendance for the 1689–90 session remained high. He missed only three sittings, one of which was 5 Nov. 1689 when only three peers and a single bishop attended for the traditional sermon in the Abbey church. He became an active member of the committee for the Journal after being added to it on 23 Oct. 1689. On 23 Nov., again in company with his father, he entered a protest against the decision of the House to reject a clause which would have prevented the monarch from pardoning impeachments by the Commons. Since the clause in question was part of a transparent attack on Carmarthen, the protest clearly indicates that the once close alliance between the Granvilles and the Osbornes was definitively over. Quite why this should be remains something of a mystery. The misery caused by the breakdown of the Lansdown marriage, together with allegations against the virtue of Lady Lansdown, provides an obvious explanation but it is not entirely clear that it is the correct one. As late as October 1688 the then earl of Danby had asked his wife to ‘Give my blessing and kind remembrance to Lansdown’.¹⁵ Perhaps Carmarthen’s grief at Lady Lansdown’s death in September 1689 had changed matters but the grudge seems to have been one held by the Granvilles against Carmarthen rather than the other way round and may well have originated in Bath’s discomfiture about Carmarthen’s promotion in the peerage and his own failure to receive the coveted dukedom of Albemarle. Other members of the Granville clan were equally obsessed with obtaining new peerages or reviving ancient ones. It is not unreasonable therefore to speculate that the Granville animus against Carmarthen was based in political and personal jealousies rather than resentment over the breakdown of the Lansdown marriage.

Lansdown continued to be an active member of the House. On 9 Dec. 1689 he was named to the committee to draw the address to the king to put the laws in execution against papists. He was then present on every day of the first 1690 session. On 31 Mar. 1690 he was a teller in the division that resulted in the affirmation of the chancery decree in Gore v Rolt, and on 13 May 1690 he protested against the failure to allow more time to the City of London to instruct counsel concerning the reversal of the quo warranto and restoration of its ancient privileges. Over the summer he was back in the west country, playing a leading role in collecting intelligence and organizing the defence forces against a potential French invasion. With command of a militia force said to number 30,000 he was able to assure Queen Mary of their readiness to ‘venture their lives and fortunes in defence of her majesty and the present government’.¹⁶

Lansdown was present for just over 98 per cent of sitting days in the 1690–1 session; he was absent on a total of 12 days, 3 of which can be explained by a brief spell of imprisonment at the behest of the House. In October 1690 there were fears of a duel between Lansdown and his erstwhile brother-in-law, Peregrine Osborne*, the future 2nd duke of Leeds, then styled earl of Danby but sitting in the House of Lords under a writ in acceleration as Baron Osborne. Whether the quarrel, which had apparently festered for a year, was a manifestation of the feud between the Granvilles and the Osbornes is unclear, especially as the young Danby was a somewhat mercurial and unpredictable character. Lansdown’s second was to be his cousin George Granville (later Baron Lansdown) and Danby’s was to be Thomas Stringer^‡. The House ordered all four to be arrested; as a result, Lansdown was held in the custody of black rod for five days before being discharged on 27 Oct., after promising on his honour to ‘do nothing, directly nor indirectly, either as principal or second’ in furtherance of the quarrel.

On 6 Oct. Lansdown underlined his Protestant credentials by voting against the resolution to release James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower, with Carmarthen adding that he would be ‘as his father’.¹⁷ On 30 Oct. he registered a protest against the decision to release them from bail. The same day saw him entering a protest at the passage of the bill to clarify the powers of the admiralty commissioners, in what amounted to yet another oblique attack on Carmarthen, the instigator of the bill. Nevertheless, on 3 Nov. Lansdown and Danby publicly shook hands in the House of Lords, promising not to quarrel any further.¹⁸ After the end of the session, when the House was further adjourned on 31 Mar. 1691, Lansdown, together with Francis Newport*, 2nd Baron Newport, introduced Edward Villiers*, Viscount Villiers.

In the same month Lansdown contracted a second marriage, one that allied the Granvilles to one of William III’s closest friends.¹⁹ Bath once again played an important part in the marriage negotiations, securing the promise of a dukedom for himself as well as several financially advantageous arrangements from the queen, although in the event the crown reneged on the agreements made and only £6,000 of the promised £16,000 was received as the bride’s portion.²⁰ Lansdown was now sufficiently high in favour to be appointed joint lord lieutenant of Cornwall and Devon with his father. On 28 June 1691 Bath registered his proxy in favour of Lansdown; theoretically it should have been discharged on 3 Aug. 1691 when Bath was present for the announcement of a further prorogation, but since this was a formality and he was then absent until 14 Nov. 1691 it may have continued in force until that date. Lansdown’s own attendance fell markedly during this session, to just 53 per cent of sitting days. He covered a short absence from the House in February with a proxy in favour of his brother-in-law George Carteret*, Baron Carteret. The proxy was registered on 9 Feb. and discharged on his return to the House eight days later. Although there is no evidence as to its intended use it seems likely that the proxy was expected to be deployed in connection with the attempt of Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, to divorce his wife.

In April 1692 Lansdown was despatched to the west country to oversee defensive arrangements there.²¹ He was also deeply involved in the local manifestations of the power struggles at court, having (at some point before May 1692) removed Nottingham’s ally, Jonathan Trelawny*, bishop of Exeter, from the deputy lieutenancy.²²

During the 1692–3 session Lansdown attended 89 per cent of sittings and on 4 Nov. 1692 he was as usual named to the sessional committees for privileges, the committee for the Journal, and the committee of petitions. On 7 Dec., in what was effectively an attack on Nottingham, he protested against the Lords’ decision to reject the motion that a committee of both Houses consider what advice should be given to the king regarding the state of the nation. On 20 and 21 Dec. the campaign against Nottingham continued when Lansdown was appointed as one of the managers of conferences to consider the papers that Nottingham had presented to the Lords. Later that month he voted in favour of the place bill. In January 1693, as predicted by Thomas Bruce*, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, Lansdown voted in support of Norfolk’s controversial divorce bill. Despite his known support of the place bill he gave in to court pressure and was one of those peers whose abstention on 3 Jan. enabled the bill to be narrowly defeated. The following month he voted that Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, was not guilty of murder. On 8 Mar. he entered a protest at the decision to reject a proviso concerning searches of peers’ houses in the bill for reviving and continuing laws.

By that time, concern about the political reliability of the Granville clan meant that Nottingham was considering who could be appointed to the lord lieutenancy of Cornwall in place of Bath and Lansdown. The only alternative candidate he could come up with was Charles Bodvile Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor, who was not thought to be of sufficient weight to command the county.²³ Lansdown was threatening to resign over the non-payment of arrears owing to him for his embassy to Spain on behalf of the previous regime.²⁴ He was so upset that he resigned all his places.²⁵ Nevertheless he remained sufficiently in favour to be given 150 ounces of gilt plate by the king in May 1693 at the christening of his son.²⁶ Just as Lansdown himself had been named Charles in honour of the newly restored king, so the name of his son, William Henry Granville*, (later 3rd earl of Bath), emphasized the Granvilles’ continuing loyalty to William III.

During the 1693–4 session Lansdown attended 87 per cent of sittings and was named to the usual sessional committees and 17 other committees of the House. These included, on 22 Feb. 1694, the committee for the bill for the speedy payment of the debts of his west country neighbour John Stawell*, 2nd Baron Stawell, deceased. On 14 Mar. he was also named to the committee for a similar bill for another deceased west country neighbour, Bryan Rogers of Falmouth. In what amounted to a further attack on Nottingham, on 15 Jan. 1694 Lansdown was appointed one of the managers of a conference with the Commons to investigate intelligence failures during a naval expedition against the French fleet in the summer of 1693. On 13 Mar. 1694 he was one of several peers ordered to appear before the House as part of an investigation into abuses in the use of letters of protection. During the following, 1694–5, session he attended 69 per cent of sittings and was named to the committee of privileges and nine other committees.

The first session of the 1695 Parliament saw Granville present at 75 per cent of sittings and named to the committee for privileges and 15 other committees of the House. Despite having been a regular attender for some six years, it was perhaps a commentary on the extent to which he was in the shadow of his father and his forceful younger brother that, at the taking of the oaths on 22 Nov. 1695, he was listed as John rather than Charles, Lord Granville. Lansdown, like his father, was by now moving back to his Tory roots. On 21 Jan. 1696 he, together with his father and an entirely Tory group of peers – Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, Robert Sherley*, 8th Baron Ferrers, John Jeffreys*, 2nd Baron Jeffreys, and the soon to be disgraced bishop, Thomas Watson*, of St Davids – protested against a clause in the bill to prevent false and double returns in elections which they maintained was derogatory to the powers and privileges of the House of Lords. Although his brother in the Commons was reluctant to do so, Lansdown signed the Association on 28 Feb. 1696.

Lansdown attended 83 per cent of sittings in the 1696–7 session of the 1695 Parliament and was named to 13 committees of the House. In December 1696 he failed what was essentially a test of loyalty to the new regime when he opposed the Fenwick attainder. He entered dissents to the conduct of proceedings on 15 and 18 Dec., voted against the bill, and protested when it passed its third reading on 23 December. The following month, on 23 Jan. 1697, he protested against the decision not to give a second reading to the bill for regulating elections to the House of Commons. On 15 Apr. he entered yet another protest, this time against the failure to agree with a committee amendment to the bill to restrain the number and ill practices of stock-jobbers. In February 1697, despite all previous promises to his father, the coveted title of Albemarle was bestowed on the king’s favourite, Arnold Joost de Keppel (though as an earldom rather than a dukedom). Thereafter, like his father, Lansdown’s loyalties were unequivocally Tory.

In the next, 1697–8, session Lansdown attended 80 per cent of sittings and was named to 44 committees of the House. He was also named to the committee to consider the indictment and proceedings against Charles Mohun in relation to the death of William Hill, the committee to consider methods of restraining the expense of suits in courts of law and equity (which was almost certainly prompted by his father’s ongoing litigation over the Albemarle inheritance), and the committee for the bill for determining differences by arbitration. On 7 Jan. 1698 he was also named to the committee to consider the constitutionally and politically contentious issue of appeals from decrees made in the court of chancery in Ireland. He was presumably in agreement with the decision that an appeal from that court lay to the House of Lords in England rather than to the House of Lords in Ireland because on 20 May he was named to the committee to draw up an address to that effect. In March 1698 he opposed the bill for punishing Charles Duncombe^‡ and on 1 July he entered a protest at the resolution to give a second reading to the bill to establish the two million fund and settle the East India trade.

Lansdown attended 81 per cent of sittings during the 1698–9 session and was named to 22 committees of the House including, as usual, the committee for privileges. He voted against the Lords’ resolution to assist the king in retaining the Dutch guards and on 8 Feb. 1699 entered a dissent when the resolution passed. On 27 Mar. he was named to the committee to draw an address to the crown to restore Captain Desborrow to the command from which the House agreed that he had been unjustly removed.²⁷ On 3 May he was appointed as one of the managers of a conference with the Commons regarding the bill for a duty on paper.

The 1699–1700 session saw Lansdown attending 89 per cent of sittings; he was named to 18 committees. In February 1700 he was predicted to be a supporter of the East India Company bill and he voted in favour of adjourning the House into committee to consider amendments to the bill.

In the first Parliament of 1701 Lansdown attended 81 per cent of sittings and was named to 19 committees of the House, including that for the address on the king’s speech on 12 February. On 8 Mar., in the continuing fallout from the Desborrow affair, he entered a dissent to the resolution to address the king for the removal of the suspension of Captain John Norris for great neglect of duty. On 15 Mar. he protested against the Lords’ decision to reject the second and third heads of Nottingham’s report on the partition treaty. Three days later, together with Nottingham and others, he entered two protests against resolutions that were intended to impose parameters on the content of an address to the crown on the partition treaty. Lansdown, along with a small group of mainly Tory peers, wanted the committee to include criticism of the exclusion of the emperor from the negotiations but not to condemn the actions of Louis XIV or warn against his future ambitions. On 20 Mar., together with a much larger group of peers, he protested against the decision not to send the address on the treaty to the House of Commons for their concurrence. The following month, on 16 Apr., he protested against the resolution to address the crown against censuring or punishing the Whig peers until the impeachment had been tried. Later that day he entered a second protest, this time against the decision to expunge the reasons for the first protest. On 3 June he again entered two protests, this time against the wording of the response to the Commons over their failure to mount a timely prosecution of the Whig lords. Nevertheless, in June 1701 Lansdown voted for the acquittal of his father’s friend, John Somers*, Baron Somers.

Lansdown made his last appearance in the House of Lords on 24 June 1701. Although he succeeded his father as earl of Bath on 22 Aug. he never attended the Lords in that capacity. On 4 Sept. 1701 he was found dead, a gunshot wound to his head and a ‘brace of pistols’ beside his body. It was said that he had been ‘melancholy for some time past’ but the coroner’s inquest returned a verdict of death by misadventure.²⁸ ‘That may be, if a man can be supposed to be listening to a pistol while it is going off’, remarked James Vernon, who like most observers believed that Bath had committed suicide and that the coroner’s verdict was a transparent fiction intended both to protect the family’s honour and to save his estate from confiscation by the crown.²⁹ It was widely believed that Bath’s distressed state of mind had been caused by his horror at revelations about the extent of his father’s debts. Many blamed the long-running legal battle over the Albemarle inheritance which had strained the family finances and damaged its reputation.³⁰ Evelyn lamented the death of such a ‘hopeful young man’ who had ‘so bravely behaved himself against the Turks at the siege of Vienna’.³¹ Both the old and the young earl of Bath were buried in Kilkhampton, Cornwall, on the same day.

Despite being a member of a prominent and powerful West Country family, George Granville’s early fame was as a literary rather than a political figure, and it is as a minor poet, playwright and early patron of Pope that he is now chiefly remembered. His literary achievements are well described elsewhere.² His first foray into the political world took place in 1702. As a result of the death of his uncle and cousin, the 1st and 2nd earls of Bath, the previous year, the powerful Granville clan had fallen under the care of the 1st earl’s younger son and namesake, and it was through the influence of the younger John Granville (created Baron Granville of Potheridge in 1703) that George Granville was returned for the Cornish borough of Fowey.

He was heir to a somewhat mixed political inheritance. The 1st earl of Bath had deserted James II at the Revolution; he and his two sons subsequently engaged in a brief flirtation with the Whigs. Differences with William III meant that they soon moved back towards the Tories. Another uncle, the 1st earl of Bath’s brother Denis Grenville, erstwhile dean of Durham, went into exile with the toppled king and was nominated by him as archbishop of York in 1691. Granville himself also had Jacobite leanings. In 1688 he offered to fight for James II, a somewhat quixotic gesture given that he had no military experience, but was forbidden to do so by his father. His poem The Progress of Beauty written in or about 1700 includes complimentary references to the exiled king and queen; Mary of Modena was said to be his muse. The prospect of office inculcated a certain respect for Queen Anne, reflected in the 1707 production of his play The British Enchanters in which the final scene depicted the queen as Oriana (i.e. Elizabeth I). Nevertheless, in or about 1705, Elizabeth Burnet reported that she had been told that,

when he had principles was a Jacobite, and fancied himself in love with the Q[ueen] at St Germains. That they believed his strait circumstances forced him to take the oaths against his conscience, and that since that he had given up himself to follow some of his friends right or wrong.

She also reported that he was said to be ‘of no judgment more than a child, that he was affected and conceited’.³

Granville’s own assessment of his abilities and of what was owed to his family was very different. Despite his known Tory sympathies he abstained over the Tack and fell out with the Tory leader Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, who led the attack against Granville’s brother, Bevill, over his record as governor of Barbados. Granville attached himself to Henry St John*, the future Viscount Bolingbroke, and Robert Harley*, later earl of Oxford, but the advancement he so confidently expected did not materialize. In August 1705 he wrote to Harley complaining that: ‘It is so well known to everybody how much I have devoted myself personally to your service, that I flatter myself you will confound my interest a little with your own, since the injuries that are offered to our friends are so many affronts to ourselves’.⁴

In 1707 the death of Granville of Potheridge and the continuing minority of his nephew, William Henry Granville*, 3rd earl of Bath, left Granville as the senior adult male in the family with a claim (contested by the young earl’s grandparents) to take charge of its west country interests. It is a measure of the discrepancy between his aspirations and his actual status that he remained the representative for Fowey rather than stepping up to the more prestigious county seat, which was held from 1705-10 by his rival, Hugh Boscawen^‡. Granville took an active role in the 1708 elections, incurring further enmity from Boscawen who threatened, publicly, to have him turned out of the governorship of Pendennis. As Granville pointed out Boscawen’s threat amounted to a serious miscalculation, since Granville’s ability to retain that office served to bolster Harley’s reputation and ‘will contribute as much as anything to the keeping the gentlemen of this county in temper, for as inconsiderable as I may seem at London, I find myself not without consequence here.’⁵

Granville increasingly acted both as an intermediary between St John and Harley and as a conduit for patronage requests from west country allies to the court. He also acted as Harley’s go-between in an attempt to win the support of the young Henry Somerset*, 2nd duke of Beaufort.⁶ Still best known as a literary figure, Granville’s political prospects were transformed by the collapse of the administration of Sidney Godolphin*, earl of Godolphin and John Churchill*, duke of Marlborough. The change of ministry and associated appointment of Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, as lord lieutenant of Cornwall during the minority of the earl of Bath helped to revive the Tory interest there. According to his own account Granville also played an important role as mediator between Harley and St. John.⁷ His close association with St John reflected his own commitment to the virulently anti-Whig section of the party and his opposition to Harley’s attempts at compromise. Granville’s continuing support was extremely important to Harley, and his name appears on Harley’s September list of ‘Members of the House of Commons which are immediately necessary should be provided for before their elections’.⁸ Granville’s ensuing appointment as recorder of Launcestown and as secretary at war, against the express wishes of Marlborough, confirmed his new status as a major figure in both local and national politics.⁹ Armed with such signal marks of royal favour, at the ensuing elections he dislodged Hugh Boscawen as knight of the shire for Cornwall.¹⁰ He also managed to secure the return of his brother Bernard Granville for Camelford and that of his close associate John Manley^‡ for Tintagel. It soon became apparent that he wanted still more. Anticipating difficulties in dealing with Marlborough, he asked to be made a privy councillor,

a favour that will cost the queen nothing, and ’twill give me a great deal of ease in my correspondence with the general when he comes home, by putting me above the servile attendance which he may expect by having been used to it by my predecessors in the same post. It will likewise be a public approbation of my endeavours for her majesty’s service upon the late occasion, which will be very acceptable to my countrymen and add to my credit among them.¹¹

The sudden death of Rochester, caretaker lord lieutenant of Cornwall, on 2 May 1711 left Granville touting himself as successor. When he learned that objections had been made to this he suggested instead James Butler*, 2nd duke of Ormond, as Bath’s nearest maternal relative.¹² Bath himself died only two weeks later leaving Granville at the head of a family connection that was no longer distinguished by a peerage. On 18 May, just a day after his nephew’s death, Granville began his campaign for a peerage. The queen, he argued, should ‘not suffer a name and family always so devoted to the service of her ancestors to be buried in the same grave with my Lord Bath.’ Furthermore, her service required some distinguishing mark to be conferred on Granville lest the interest he had carefully built up in the west country ‘return into the hands of her enemies ... If I am thought unworthy to be continued upon the level with those who have gone before me, I shall think myself unworthy to live, or at least to show my face again in my own country.’¹³ He was equally concerned about the fate of the vacant lord lieutenancy, decrying the possibility of appointing Charles Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor, about whom ‘there is that general aversion … that they will give everything for lost if such a step be taken’ and also opposing his kinsman, John Carteret*, 2nd Baron Carteret (later Earl Granville). Carteret was not only whiggishly inclined, he was also Granville’s opponent in litigation over the family estates. Granville still wanted the lord lieutenancy for himself, but he was happy to support the candidacy of yet another kinsman, Henry Hyde*, 2nd earl of Rochester (later also 4th earl of Clarendon), whose appointment was widely expected, and welcomed, by the gentlemen of the county.¹⁴

Meanwhile Granville continued to press his claim to a peerage. His countrymen expected it (or so he said) and ‘a declaration of her Majesty’s pleasure in this case without any delay would be of public service in the county, as well as fix my own private affairs.’ Mention of his private affairs amounted to an oblique reference to the unsettled litigation over the Albemarle and Bath estates and the advantages that membership of the House of Lords could confer on litigants. Granville had taken possession of the family seat at Stowe with an income reputed to be between £6,000 and £8,000 each year, but his hold on the property was uncertain and he claimed that ‘this favour … will settle me in the quiet enjoyment of it.’¹⁵ Although he was well aware of the need to counter objections that a peerage might be considered incompatible with his office as secretary at war, he may not have realized that the vacant lord lieutenancy was also a bar to his ambitions. Lord Keeper Simon Harcourt*, later Viscount Harcourt, seems to have believed that were he to be ennobled it would be necessary to confer the lord lieutenancy with it, and that was something that the ministry was extremely reluctant to do.¹⁶ At the same time as Granville was seeking an English peerage he was also petitioning the queen for permission to use the title, equivalent to an earldom that had been conferred on his cousin the 2nd earl of Bath by the Emperor Leopold.¹⁷

Over the next year Granville continued to act as a conduit for patronage requests and continued to seek advancement for himself and family. He also implemented something of a political purge in Cornwall in order to reduce the influence of the Godolphin and Boscawen families on local corporations.¹⁸ In June 1711, along with St John and Dean Swift, he became a founding member of the Tory ‘Brother’s Club’.¹⁹

By December 1711 it had been settled that Granville was at last to get the peerage he craved, although at least one observer thought he was to get the revived earldom of Bath rather than a mere barony.²⁰ The details of the new creation seem still to have been undecided on 29 Dec. when Granville wrote to William Legge*, earl of Dartmouth, in an unsuccessful attempt to secure a special remainder that would bring his younger brother Bernard into the succession ‘as he suffers himself so very heavily from a former omission of that kind that he is sufficiently warn’d not to repeat the like neglect.’²¹ The peerage also brought other problems to the fore, specifically the question of just how he was to support his new dignity. He claimed to have spent some £4,000 in the last elections, a sum ‘too great for a private man with a private fortune’ and was still owed some £1,500 on that score. He now overcame his previous reluctance about asking for recompense,

being in a very few days to change my condition, though very much to my advantage, yet a new expense and a considerable one is created at the first entrance, and being thrown so far back for the present by my expenses in the queen’s service, I find myself pressed to apply to you to be reimbursed at least some part of that charge. Your Lordship may judge how unwillingly I make this application, by my never doing it before, nor could anything have brought me to it, unless you had first mentioned it yourself, but an absolute necessity.²²

His financial exigencies were almost certainly a factor in his decision to marry. Mary Thynne was some 20 years his junior but was otherwise an eminently suitable choice since her parents were prominent Tories (with pronounced Jacobite tendencies) and she was also an heiress. Created Baron Lansdown of Biddiford, a title that acted as a reminder of his family’s Civil War service, he was introduced in the Lords on 2 Jan. 1712 by Charles Butler*, Baron Butler of Weston, and Charles Boyle*, Baron Boyle (also 4th earl of Orrery [I]) in a ceremony that both reflected his Tory credentials and his family association with the Butler earls of Ormond. Despite Oxford’s need for support in the House, Lansdown then attended for only 16 per cent of the remaining sitting days of the 1711-12 session. His poor attendance rate did not prevent him from continuing to press the demands of his west country allies in terms that sometimes seem to amount to virtual blackmail. One list of requests made to Oxford ended with an application for a land surveyorship in Bideford, suggesting that ‘you will not let my credit appear so little in a town entirely my own as not to be able to obtain this preference for my friend.’²³ On 19 May 1712 he registered a proxy in favour of Lord Harcourt, probably for use during the crucial June divisions on the French peace. It was vacated at the end of the session. During the recess he demonstrated his usefulness to the ministry in a new way – acting as go-between to secure the vote of his kinsman Lucius Henry Cary, 6th Viscount of Falkland [S], in the by-election for a Scots representative peer to replace the late William Keith, 8th Earl Marischal [S].²⁴ Oxford continued to confer marks of favour upon him. Lansdown was appointed to the prestigious post of privy councillor and perhaps more importantly to the extremely lucrative one of comptroller of the household. His appetite for rewards was by no means sated; by the end of the year he was putting forward requests on behalf of his brother in law, William Villiers*, 2nd earl of Jersey, in addition to his normal clutch of demands for lesser individuals.²⁵

The short 1713 session saw Lansdown present on 36 per cent of sitting days. Oxford again counted on Lansdown’s support for his various measures including the French commercial treaty and Lansdown in return was active in support of ministerial candidates during the ensuing general election.²⁶

The first session of the next Parliament opened on 16 Feb. 1714. Lansdown attended for just 29 per cent of sittings. He may have been distracted by ongoing family litigation, including an action that he himself had brought in chancery in January 1713, as well as by the substantial losses he was said to have suffered as a result of the failure of a London goldsmith.²⁷ In March 1714 he had to relinquish his claim to the estates of his uncle John Granville, 1st earl of Bath, to the earl’s daughters: Catharine (wife of Craven Peyton^‡), Grace (wife of George Carteret*, Baron Carteret) and the heirs of Jane (wife of Sir William Leveson-Gower^‡). Although Lansdown’s attendance was low, he still managed to be present for all the crucial divisions on the queen’s speech, the protestant succession, the peace treaty and also for the schism bill, for which Nottingham anticipated Landown’s support. Proxies were widely used for these divisions. It was probably for this purpose that Lansdown held that of Gilbert Coventry*, 4th earl of Coventry from 12 Mar. until 28 May. On that day Lansdown entered a proxy in favour of Jersey, which was in turn vacated when he returned to the House on 4 June. Lansdown’s last attendance of the session was on 11 June; two days later he registered a second proxy in favour of Jersey.

Shortly after the death of Queen Anne early in the morning of 1 Aug. 1714 Lansdown was one of the signatories to the proclamation of the accession of George I. Then, like the other Tories, he was swept from office by the new king. He attended 27 per cent of sittings during the brief second session of 1714 but seems to have taken no active part in proceedings. The strength of Lansdown’s Jacobite connections coupled with his association with Bolingbroke and Oxford meant that the new regime was bound to be wary of him whilst his surviving correspondence with the exiled court suggests that there was good reason for such suspicion. For the time being, however, Lansdown seems to have had no inkling of what was in store for him and his erstwhile ministerial colleagues. In November 1714 when he celebrated the final settlement of the long-running family litigation over the disposition of the Bath and Albemarle estates, he appears to have been convinced that the new king would happily recreate the various Granville titles in order to distribute them amongst the heirs:

My Lady Carteret having the Cornish estate, should be created countess of Bath, and as I am entitled by virtue of King Charles’ warrant to assume the earldom of Corbeil, as the direct male descendant from Sir Bevil, I cannot think a patent would be refused me for it, if it was represented to the king, as an article that would give peace to the family.’²⁸

In January 1715 Lady Carteret became Countess Granville; Lansdown remained a baron.

The 1715-16 session saw something of a witch hunt against suspected Jacobites, in part of course because the activities of the Jacobite conspirators were well known to the government. According to the Jacobite agent Allen Cameron ‘the government was going on with such violence, he thought every suspected person that stayed in London, especially lords that did not sit in the House, was in hazard of being taken up every day’.²⁹ Between the beginning of the 1715-16 session and his arrest on 21 Sept., Lansdown was present on nearly 34 per cent of sitting days. The thrust of his parliamentary activities was to protect his former colleagues, Oxford, Ormond and Bolingbroke, from attempted impeachment. To this end he held several proxies from fellow Tories: on three occasions (21 May to 21 June, 27 June to 12 July and 16 July to 15 Aug.) he held that of William Stawell*, 3rd Baron Stawell, and between 15 July and 8 Aug. he also held Harcourt’s proxy. On 8 and 9 July he entered dissents to the proceedings against Oxford; on 18 Aug. he protested against the passage of Ormond’s attainder. He then dissented to a resolution concerning proceedings against Bolingbroke and entered a protest at the passage of Bolingbroke’s attainder.

Lansdown was deeply involved in the Jacobite conspiracy, maintaining a correspondence with supporters in England as well as with the exiled king’s illegitimate brother, James FitzJames*, duke of Berwick, in France.³⁰ Just four days before his arrest he wrote a coded letter to fellow conspirator Sir William Wyndham^‡ encouraging him to believe that a rising was imminent:

I can’t help communicating to you an intrigue of a certain lady, whom you have wished a great while to be better acquainted with, being this moment let into the secret that she is with child, and in daily expectation of the happy hour: you will wish her I am sure as well as I, an easy labour, a safe delivery, and a brave boy for the honour of the fathers, for there are more than one who must have had a finger in this pie. You will be very dull if you miss guessing at my lady, I shall not name her you may be sure, the affair not being yet public, but it can’t be long a secret ...³¹

After a brief period of house arrest Lansdown was committed to the Tower. Rumours that he would be the first of the conspirators to be tried proved inaccurate, probably because the government had failed to persuade any of the conspirators to give evidence against him.³² The letter quoted above was produced as evidence against him and was used to secure an indictment against him at the Middlesex sessions in May 1716. In order to proceed further the indictment had to be removed to the House of Lords by writ of certiorari so that Lansdown could be tried there, but there seems to have been no attempt to do so. The prosecution case was flimsy and made all the more difficult because the letter in question was unsigned and the handwriting, although said to be Lansdown’s, was difficult to identify with any certainty as one of the clerks in the war office was known to have been in the habit of imitating Lansdown’s hand.³³ Lansdown was eventually pardoned and released on 8 Feb. 1717, probably as part of an attempt to widen the gulf between supporters of Bolingbroke and Oxford in advance of the trial of the Jacobite lords. Notwithstanding the pardon, Lansdown’s Jacobite contacts remained convinced of his loyalty to the exiled court.³⁴

The next parliamentary session began on 20 Feb. 1717. Lansdown did not attend until 6 May. He was then present on 23 days before the session ended on 15 July. All but three of his attendances were concentrated on the period from 22 May when the major issue of the day was the impeachment of Oxford. Lansdown was named, along with all others present in the House, to the committee to consider precedents and was present on 25 May when, as a result of the committee’s report, the House decided that the proceedings against Oxford were still valid. Given his previous relationship with Oxford it is difficult to believe that he agreed with this decision, but he did not sign the resultant dissent. Lansdown may also have been interested in the possibility of fomenting a constitutional clash over the rights of the English and Irish parliaments as he was present on 31 May and 12 June when the day’s business included a consideration of the precedents in the controversial case of Annesley v. Sherlock, which pitted the rights of the English House of Lords against those of its Irish counterpart.

Lansdown did not attend at all during the following (1717-18) session. On 18 Nov. he registered a proxy in favour of John Leveson-Gower, 2nd Baron Gower, though technically it was invalid as he had not attended to take the oaths. He came to the opening of the 1718-19 session and was thus named to the committee for privileges. Between 5 Dec. 1718 and 7 Jan. 1719 and then again between 11 Feb. and 16 Mar. 1719 he held Gower’s proxy but had little opportunity to use it as after the opening of the session he attended only twice, on 18 and 19 Dec. when the House debated the bill to strengthen the protestant interest, which despite its innocuous title was intended to repeal the occasional conformity Act. On the one hand it strengthened the powers of the Anglican church to refuse communion to occasional conformists; on the other it subverted the intent of the Test Acts by allowing those who had been refused communion to take office. This was an issue on which Lansdown purported to have strong views and, according to the opening lines of his speech on 19 Dec., it prompted his first and only contribution to a debate in the House. The speech attracted much attention with its vitriolic condemnation of dissenters, ‘those followers of Judas who came to the Lord’s supper only to sell and betray him’, who made ‘the god of truth subservient … to acts of hypocrisy’ and who profaned the eucharist in order ‘to seek … preferment in this world by eating and drinking to … damnation in the next.’ Although strangers had been excluded from the House during the debate, the speech was quickly published. It was issued twice in 1718 and again in 1719.³⁵ Lansdown was sufficiently proud of it to include it amongst his collected works published in 1732. His commitment to the cause was, however, not quite as great as he had made out. He was not listed in the presence list on 20 Dec. when the bill was considered in detail by a committee of the whole and when his contribution would have had practical rather than purely propaganda value.

During the 1719-20 session Lansdown attended on just 12 days. His first appearance was on 14 Jan. 1720 when the major item of business was whether a writ of summons could be issued to Charles Douglas, 3rd duke of Queensberry [S], in right of his post-Union (British) title as 2nd duke of Dover. His personal attendance may have been necessary because of problems over his proxy, which had been registered on 7 Dec. 1719 to Rochester but, because he had not yet attended the House, was technically invalid. It was cancelled on 11 Jan. 1720. Lansdown was then present on a further ten days in February and March when on all but one of the days in question the main business before the House related to appeals from Scotland concerning the forfeited estates of convicted or attainted Jacobites, including those of John Erskine*, 22rd earl of Mar [S]. His last attendance of the session was on 7 May. Having left for France in July 1720, he did not attend the 1720-21 session although he registered a proxy to Allen Bathurst*, Baron (later Earl) Bathurst, on 12 Feb. 1721, the validity of which was questionable.

Although Lansdown returned briefly to England in the autumn to assess the damage (reputedly £10,000) to his finances caused by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble and although his wife continued to maintain friendly relations with members of the court of the Prince and Princess of Wales, Lansdown spent the next four to five years amongst the coterie of Jacobite sympathizers who had gathered in Paris.³⁶ In the summer of 1721 he was appointed secretary of state in any provisional government to be formed after a successful Jacobite insurrection. The failure of the projected insurrection to materialize left him in an embarrassing position since the titular James III expected him to join him in Rome. Lansdown, who was effectively being paid £1,000 a year via a pension to his wife to stay away from England and keep out of Jacobite conspiracies, was desperate to avoid an open declaration of his Jacobite sympathies and had to throw himself on the Pretender’s goodwill to extricate himself from the situation.³⁷ Nevertheless, his allegiance to the Jacobites was sufficiently important for the Pretender first (in October 1721) to create him earl of Bath and then (in November 1721) to confer on him the peerage so long coveted by the Granvilles, the dukedom of Albemarle. In 1722 he was the author of one of the most stirring pieces of Jacobite propaganda of the day, A Letter from a Noble-Man Abroad, to his Friend in England On the approaching General Election.

Over the next few years Lansdown was deeply involved in the factional in-fighting of the Jacobite exiles. By the mid-1720s his friendship with Mar, his continuing receipt of a British pension and the intensity of conspiratorial Jacobite politics had created a belief, not entirely unjustified, that Lansdown was a double agent. Out of favour with the Pretender and deeply in debt, he threw his lot in with the Hanoverians instead. His rehabilitation was in part signalled by the marriage of his stepson, Thomas Thynne*, 2nd Viscount Weymouth, to the daughter of the leading Whig peer, Lionel Sackville*, duke of Dorset, in December 1726. The accession of George II and the Walpole ministry’s policy of leniency towards former Jacobites smoothed the path still further. By spring 1729 Lansdown was back in London. He attended the House just once more, on 19 Jan. 1730. He had no son to succeed him and when he died in January 1735 his honours were extinguished with him.

A legacy of debt

John Granville, earl of Bath, served as a member of the House of Lords for 40 years. Throughout that time he was a significant figure in local and national politics yet an effective assessment of his career is extremely difficult because of the almost total loss of his family papers. Documentary material is particularly rare for the period when Bath’s influence was at its height, that is to say, during the reign of Charles II. Within ten years of his death, his dynasty had failed and what was left of his estate passed through the female line to the Carteret family. Granville’s financial legacy was, to say the least, a tangled one in which allegations of fraud and forgery were never far away. His political legacy involved suspicions of a growing rapprochement with the exiled James II*, which were reinforced by the activities of his Jacobite brother Denis (sometime dean of Durham) and by the outspoken ‘country’ party sympathies of his younger son, John. The family’s Jacobitism was seemingly later confirmed by the activities of his nephew George*, later Baron Lansdown. It is tempting to speculate whether any or all of these factors contributed to a deliberate decision to destroy the family papers, yet it is equally possible that the destruction was carried out as an unthinking consequential effect of the demolition of the family mansion in the 1720s. A few of Bath’s key papers do however survive among those of the family of the dukes of Grafton.

The Grenvilles had been established in Kilkhampton since the thirteenth century. Despite claims of Norman aristocratic ancestry the family were ranked as no more than minor gentry. In the early seventeenth century they were proud to bask in the military glory won by their Elizabethan ancestor, Sir Richard Grenville of the Revenge, but the lustre was wearing decidedly thin. By the mid-1620s Sir Bevil Grenville was so deeply in debt that he sought election to Parliament as part of a strategy to protect himself.³ Even so he was forced to enter into a debt trust in 1639 to pacify his creditors; at that time he owed some £20,000.⁴ At the outbreak of the civil wars he fought for the king and revived the family fame by his heroic death at the battle of Lansdown.

The young John Granville’s inheritance was thus heavily encumbered. His financial problems were further compounded by Parliament’s attempts to sequestrate the Granville estate, but his own decision to fight for the royalist cause then worked in his favour. In 1651, when he relinquished the Scilly Isles to parliamentarian forces, the articles of surrender contained, inter alia, a provision protecting his estates from sequestration.⁵ The terms of the agreement permitted him to join the king in exile but he chose instead to return to England, where he contracted an advantageous marriage and divided his energies between royalist plotting and attempts to wrest possession of the patrimonial estate from his father’s creditors.

The surviving documentation from his various legal actions paints a picture of an unscrupulous individual who, backed by a network of kinsmen and allies in the West Country, including John Arundell of Trerice (father of Richard Arundell*, later Baron Arundell of Trerice) and Peter Prideaux^‡, was prepared to use any means to attain his objectives. The allegations against him included claims that he had repossessed lands that had been mortgaged or sold by his father by producing fraudulent deeds to establish that Sir Bevil had acted illegally. He was also alleged to have threatened to rig criminal charges against some of his opponents and to have used his soldiers and threats of actual force against others.⁶ In the years after the Restoration he proved to be as ruthless with his own creditors as with those of his father.⁷ It is perhaps also noteworthy that after the Restoration both his brothers (Denis and Bernard) found themselves in similar financial difficulty and embroiled in what appears to have been largely vexatious litigation.

Restoration and the rewards of loyalty

Only two years’ older than Charles II, with shared interests and perhaps also shared grief and anger at losing a father at a young age, Granville and Charles II seem to have become close friends. The young king’s surviving letters to Granville are informal, sometimes written in his own hand and close with the phrase ‘your affectionate [occasionally “very affectionate”] friend’. From as early as November 1649 the new king promised Granville that his absence from the exiled court would never prejudice his interests, and subsequent letters include promises of future rewards ‘on any seasonable occasion that may manifest your deserts and the esteem and kindness I have for you’.⁸

In the summer of 1659 Granville became involved in negotiations with George Monck*, the future duke of Albemarle, about the possibility of restoring the king. Monck was Granville’s cousin (their mothers were sisters) and had reason to be grateful to the Granville family. Granville’s uncle, Sir Richard Grenville, had rescued him as a youth from a charge of murder and had fostered his early military career; John Granville had presented the general’s younger brother Nicholas Monck*, later bishop of Hereford, to the rich living of Kilkhampton. John Granville, his younger brother Bernard Granville^‡, and Nicholas Monck were all involved in the negotiations that led to the Restoration but it was John Granville who was entrusted with the king’s commission to treat with Monck and who gained most credit for the success of the negotiations, together with renewed promises of recompense ‘suitable to your desires’.⁹

That Granville was to be created earl of Bath was already well known before the king’s return to England. Early in April 1660 he was promised an earldom, along with payment of his debts, the office of groom of the stole, and an estate worth at least £3,000 a year. A number of letters, including one from the king himself, referred to him as Lord Bath long before the letters patent were sealed in April 1661.¹⁰ Almost immediately afterwards he received a potentially lucrative commission to compound with those who had obtained goods, jewels, and money owing to the crown during the interregnum.¹¹ He received other rewards and also benefited from the ability to act as middleman for individuals seeking office or other valuable grants. In the late summer of 1660, for example, he was instrumental in securing a grant to publish lotteries for Sir Edward Ford and Robert Yarway, in return for which he was to be paid his expenses and receive half the profits.¹²

More significantly, Bath received two royal warrants. That of April 1661 recognized his (probably false) claim to descent from Rollo, duke of Normandy, and hence to kinship with the king. Two of the ancestors so claimed included Hamon Dentatus, earl of Corbeil and lord of Thorigny and Granville in Normandy, and Robert Fitzhamon, lord of Gloucester and Glamorgan. Bath’s desire to emphasize his family’s Norman ancestry appears to have been behind the decision to encourage the use of the name Granville instead of Grenville or Greenville both as a surname and as a peerage title. The warrant went on to promise that should the earldom of Glamorgan become available during Charles II’s lifetime it would be conferred on Bath and that in the meantime Bath and his heirs could use the titles of Corbeil, Thorigny, and Granville. The second warrant, issued in December 1661, stated that Bath and his father had ruined the family estate by contracting debts in the royalist cause and that the king accepted that £25,000 of these debts should be recognized as public debts. Additionally, in recognition of Bath’s services towards the Restoration he was, as previously promised, to be given an estate (or pension in lieu) worth £3,000 a year.¹³ A further £1,000 a year was to be paid in silver plate as his salary as groom of the stole. Bath calculated that he was to receive a total of £5,000 a year over and above diet and board wages for this post, although, as he would soon discover, in practice the king’s revenues were insufficient to ensure regular payment and the arrears steadily grew. Finally, he was entitled to an annual fee of £1,022 as governor of Plymouth.¹⁴ Bath’s claims to such lavish rewards were backed by Albemarle, with whom he formed a close alliance.

The promise of financial rewards was accompanied by a number of key appointments in the government of the West Country, enabling him to build a formidable power base there. In so doing he provided the court with a reliable ally in an area notorious for religious Dissent and parliamentarian politics, as well as with a capable military commander to oversee a strategically important (and vulnerable) coastline. As warden of the stannaries he played a crucial role in negotiating the potentially profitable pre-emption of tin. He also enjoyed a powerful position at court, where as groom of the stole and first gentleman of the bedchamber he had ready access to the person of the king. His standing with the royal family must have been enhanced still further by his wife’s appointment in June 1663 as one of the ladies-in-waiting to Charles II’s new queen.¹⁵ His sister-in-law, Lady Isabella Wyche, became a dresser in ordinary to the queen in or about autumn 1675.¹⁶

Parliamentary life and West Country magnate, 1661–7

Bath took his seat at the opening of the 1661–2 session and was present for some 67 per cent of sitting days. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions and to 17 other committees. Some of the bills considered by these committees were of obvious personal or local interest, such as Albemarle’s bill, the bill for distribution of money to loyal commissioned officers, and those for the duchy of Cornwall and the pilchard fisheries in Devon and Cornwall. Others, such as the two bills for Westminster streets, may have reflected interests acquired as a result of Bath’s appointment (for life) as keeper of St James’s Palace. A number of the bills dealt with the aftermath of the civil wars and interregnum, such as that for reversing Strafford’s attainder, the restoration of the lands of Charles Stanley*, 8th earl of Derby, and the repeal of acts passed by the Long Parliament after 1640. Others reflected Bath’s position both as a courtier and as a significant figure in the defence of the new regime: these included the committee to draw an address to the king for communicating his intention to marry, the committee to consider the Quakers’ petition, and the militia bill. On 24 May he was added to the committee for the preservation of the king’s person which had been named earlier that day, suggesting that he had perhaps arrived late to the sitting.

The destruction of the family papers makes it difficult to be absolutely sure that he had a working partnership with his various kinsmen and dependants in the Commons but the parliamentary activities of his brother Bernard Granville and his brother-in-law Sir Cyril Wyche^‡ are certainly suggestive of a productive family alliance.¹⁷ It is likely that Bath had similarly close political relationships with other West Country members, including Peter Prideaux^‡ (married to Bath’s sister), Thomas Higgons^‡ (married to another sister), and his more distant kinsman Sir James Smyth^‡. The Granville family were also closely associated with Sir William Morice^‡, to whom there was probably a family link via Albemarle and the extensive Prideaux clan.

Bath’s attendance fell markedly during the 1663 session, when he was present on only 40 per cent of sitting days. He did not take his seat until 23 Mar. 1663, a month after the session had begun. He spent his time instead in the West Country, where he had invested much time and effort settling the affairs of the tinners and organizing the militia, tasks that he considered essential in ‘a county so full of disaffection’. He was particularly proud of his work with the tinners, claiming that he had recovered revenues of £12,000 for the crown that had been ‘lost many years’ and, despite the rewards he had already received, was anxious for more.¹⁸ He was absent from Parliament on 1 July when George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, launched his attack on Edward Hyde*, earl of Clarendon, and his intentions are made no clearer by his appearance on the notorious list compiled by Philip Wharton*, 4th Baron Wharton, as both a supporter and an opponent of the chancellor. It seems likely that Bath opposed Clarendon. His uncle, Sir Richard Grenville, had been at loggerheads with Clarendon during the interregnum, and Bath had a close personal and political relationship with Albemarle, who is known to have disliked Clarendon. Equally it seems unlikely that, as a courtier, Bath would have openly opposed Clarendon at this stage. Albemarle’s intentions towards Clarendon at this time are also obscure.

Bath was present almost every day of the short spring 1664 session and was appointed to three committees. It is a telling mark of the importance of his position at court that in the summer of 1664 he was specifically exempted from the consequences of the king’s order to suspend payments of pensions.¹⁹ During the 1664–5 session he was present for 65 per cent of sitting days and was named to committees on three bills, including one for the sale of lands in Devon by Sir Edward Hungerford^‡. He held the proxy of Mildmay Fane*, 2nd earl of Westmorland, from December 1664 but there is no indication that this was for any specific purpose. Westmorland was probably infirm: his last attendance in the House was on 17 May 1664 and he died in February 1666. Bath also held the proxy of his fellow civil-war conspirator John Mordaunt*, Viscount Mordaunt, from December until it was vacated by Mordaunt’s attendance on 20 Jan. 1665; again there is no indication that it was to be used for any specific item of business.

Despite the rewards he had already received, Bath was keen for more. In the summer of 1665 he used Albemarle as go-between in an attempt to secure the keepership of the privy purse. Although Albemarle declared that he would be ‘much troubled’ by a refusal of the request, Bath lost out to Baptist May, who commanded a still more influential patron – the king’s mistress, Lady Castlemaine.²⁰ Bath missed the brief October 1665 session altogether, probably because he was still in the west country, where he had been sent by the king in September 1665 to secure the peace of the region.²¹ Between sessions, he was one of the peers who acquitted Thomas Parker*, 15th Baron Morley, after he was tried for murder in the court of the lord high steward in April 1666.²² By July 1666 he was back in Devon (where he was by now deputizing for the ailing Albemarle as lord lieutenant) in order to ensure that defensive preparations against the Dutch were in hand, and securing the election in September 1666 of Sir Gilbert Talbot^‡ to represent Plymouth.²³

During the troubled 1666–7 session Bath was present on nearly 63 per cent of sitting days and was named to seven committees, including bills on the coinage and for the rebuilding of London. On 23 Jan. 1667 he entered a protest over the failure to allow for an appeal to the House of Lords in the bill creating the fire court. At court he was pursuing his arrears. Neither the £25,000 nor the £3,000 a year promised him in 1661 had yet materialized. He settled instead for payments of £5,000 a year towards the £25,000 capital sum and interest.²⁴ He acted as intermediary to promote a reconciliation between the king and Charles Stuart*, 3rd duke of Richmond, after the latter’s rash marriage to ‘La Belle Stewart’ in April 1667. That same month also provides a glimpse into Bath’s problems at court, where he was at odds, perhaps for a second time, with the grooms of the bedchamber over rights to the king’s linen.²⁵ By the summer he had once again returned to Plymouth to take personal command of the defences along the coast.²⁶ It was at this point that Albemarle, preparing to go to sea, petitioned the king for a reversion of his dukedom to Bath:

in regard that your petitioner is grown old, and having only one son under age who may not live to have issue, your petitioner intends for failure thereof to settle all the crown lands granted by your majesty to your petitioner in fee simple upon his near and most deserving kinsman John earl of Bath, whom your petitioner hath chosen in that case to inherit his estate, and doth most humbly recommend unto your majesty to enjoy his titles of honour rather than any other of his kindred, not only for being his near relation in blood and the most deserving but more particularly for his late personal merit in conjunction with your petitioner for your majesty’s most happy restoration, wherein the said earl of Bath was intrusted alone by your majesty to treat and conclude with your petitioner about those important affairs, which he did most faithfully perform with so much hazard, courage, secrecy and prudent conduct, as was requisite in those dangerous times for carrying on that great work …²⁷

A week later the king issued a warrant under his signature promising ‘upon the word of a king’ to confer both the crown lands (especially Theobalds Park) awarded to Albemarle and the Albemarle dukedom on Bath in case of failure of male heirs and exhorting his successors to honour the undertaking.²⁸

The deteriorating political situation led at least one observer to suggest that Bath was ‘not a little pleased with this disgrace of my lord chancellor’.²⁹ During the ensuing (1667–8) session he attended on 80 per cent of sitting days. He held the proxy of Francis Talbot*, 11th earl of Shrewsbury, from 12 Oct. and that of Christopher Hatton*, Baron Hatton, from 27 November. On 20 Nov. 1667 he followed Albemarle and George Villiers*, 2nd duke of Buckingham, in signing a protest against the refusal of the House of Lords to agree with the Commons over the commitment of Clarendon on a general charge. He was named to ten committees, including subjects of national importance such as Clarendon’s banishment and public accounts, as well as of personal interest, such as the bill to permit John Cosin*, bishop of Durham, to lease lead mines. Bath’s younger brother, Denis Granville, was not only archdeacon (later dean) of Durham but was also married to Cosin’s younger daughter.

Parliamentary life and west country magnate,1668-85

The financial crisis caused by war made Bath’s position as warden of the stannaries even more important, with the result that during the second half of 1668 through into the spring of 1669 much of his time was taken up acting as an intermediary between government and tinners during negotiations over the pre-emption of tin.³⁰ Shortly after the end of the session, in April 1669, he negotiated the marriage of his eldest daughter, Jane, to William Gower^‡ (later Leveson-Gower).³¹ The match provides further indications of Bath’s attitude to Clarendon. His new son-in-law’s father, Sir Thomas Gower^‡, had been involved in a number of activities such as the commission on public accounts and the enquiry into the miscarriages of the war, suggestive of enmity to Clarendon.

By May 1669 Bath’s arrears of salary as groom of the stole and first gentleman of the bedchamber had reached £7,250 and new arrangements were made to ensure payment. Continuing discussions of the arrears suggest that these new arrangements were not entirely successful: although the arrears had been reduced to £5,250 by the following May, by July 1670 they had risen to £7,250 again.³² Bath’s financial situation may have been the more pressing as the marriage of Jane to Leveson-Gower had taken place the previous month and Bath had agreed to settle £1,800 a year on her.³³ That same month he joined Charles Gerard*, Baron Gerard of Brandon, and Sir Gilbert Taylor in petitioning for lands in Denbighshire and Flintshire that might be reclaimed by navigation works on the River Dee.³⁴

When Parliament reconvened for the short session of autumn of 1669 Bath was present on 72 per cent of sitting days. His friend and patron Albemarle was by this time a very sick man; he died early in January 1670. The king immediately selected Bath as the person to inform the young Christopher Monck*, 2nd duke of Albemarle, that he was to be invested with his father’s vacant garter.³⁵ Bath was also appointed lord lieutenant of Devon during Albemarle’s minority. The death of the duchess soon after left Albemarle an orphan so that Bath, together with Albemarle’s maternal uncle Sir Thomas Clarges^‡, now became responsible for the welfare of the teenage duke – a responsibility that included oversight of the Albemarle fortune, which was valued at some £22,000 a year.³⁶ Although Bath was clearly a court supporter his precise position in the factional kaleidoscope of court politics in the years immediately after the death of the 1st duke of Albemarle is difficult to determine. By 1676–7 he was firmly in the orbit of Thomas Osborne*, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), but the speed with which he adopted that trajectory remains uncertain.

Bath was present on nearly every day of the first part of the 1670–1 session, last attending on 11 Apr. 1670 – the day on which the Roos divorce received the royal assent. During this period, in what seems to have been a deliberate action, he collected proxies, holding that of James Howard*, 3rd earl of Suffolk, from 15 Mar. and that of Aubrey de Vere*, 20th earl of Oxford, from 2 April. Towards the end of March 1670 he was also offered that of Richard Vaughan*, who sat in the House as Baron Vaughan but was better known by his Irish title as earl of Carbery. Bath appears to have declined it with the excuse that he would be detained at Plymouth and unable to use it.³⁷ Unless there is an error in the dating this was clearly untrue since Bath was in London in March 1670; it seems more likely that he knew he would receive Oxford’s proxy and be unable to accept another but did not wish to give offence by an outright refusal. Presumably the proxies were for use in connection with the controversial business of the session – conventicles, supply, union with Scotland, and the Roos divorce – but we have no indication of the way in which they were to be employed.

During that spring Bath was named to seven committees, including those on the Roos divorce and the projected union with Scotland. He was absent from the House for the remainder of the session, which did not end until April 1671. Scattered references suggest that that he spent much of that period in the west country tending to the defences there.³⁸ He was even absent for the passage of the Albemarle estates bill and had to send in written confirmation of his willingness to become one of the young duke’s trustees.³⁹ From March 1671 he covered his absence by entering a proxy in favour of John Belasyse*, Baron Belasyse.

In May 1671 Bath was back in the London area; it was reported that he was to take part in a garter investiture ceremony at Windsor where he would stand in for the duke of Saxony.⁴⁰ He did not stay long. By July he was once again back in the west country, making elaborate preparations for a visit to and inspection of the fortifications there by the king. The entertainment was lavish and expensive. Bath

entertained his majesty with all his officers and followers in the citadel at his own cost, and also kept a table in the town … where his lordship entertained the duke of Monmouth*, the marquess of Blanquefort [i.e. Louis de Duras*, later 2nd earl of Feversham], with many others of the nobility, having provided all things in very great plenty to entertain his majesty with all the nobility and persons of quality, and giving money to all his majesty’s inferior officers at their departure.

In return, the king bolstered Bath’s position still further by promising his royal favour to the corporation.⁴¹ Bath was also the recipient of other marks of royal favour: he was one of a very small group of individuals whose pension was specifically exempted from the stop of the exchequer.⁴² He probably continued to divide his time between London and the west country; he was supervising building works at Plymouth in September 1671 but was in London when he attended the prorogation days at the House on 16 Apr. and 30 Oct. 1672.⁴³ In August 1672 he and his heirs were also awarded in perpetuity an annual pension of £3,000.⁴⁴

When Parliament reconvened in 1673, Bath was present for almost every day of the session. He was also once again involved in difficult discussions with the tinners, whose demands for what Danby considered an ‘unreasonable price’ meant that negotiations continued well into December 1674.⁴⁵ He held the proxies of Charles Fane*, 3rd earl of Westmorland, and Edward Conway*, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway, from 12 and 22 Feb. 1673 respectively. In keeping with the Test Act he took the sacrament together with other leading courtiers in a somewhat ostentatious public ceremony on the Sunday before Easter 1673.⁴⁶ In June 1673, together with Francis Hawley^‡, Baron Hawley [I], he became trustee for the pension of £1,000 from the aulnage awarded to the recently widowed Frances Stewart, duchess of Richmond. As such he gained additional patronage through his control over the actions of the officers and collectors of the aulnage.⁴⁷

Bath was present for all four days of the autumn 1673 session. He continued his high attendance through the 1674 session and both those of 1675, not missing a single day. He held the proxy of James Bertie*, 5th Baron Norreys (later earl of Abingdon), for both sessions of 1675 as well as that of William Ley*, 4th earl of Marlborough, from 12 May 1675, re-entered on 14 Oct. 1675. During the 1674 session he was named to five committees to consider legislation, including one for the estates of the underage Charles Cornwallis*, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, and (somewhat ironically, given allegations about his future activities over the Albemarle inheritance) one for the prevention of frauds and perjuries. On 16 Feb. he was also named to a committee to consider a master and servant bill which was specifically asked to consider adding a clause regulating ‘in what manner, and upon what terms, slaves, either blacks or any other foreigners, not being Christians, may be used in England’. As one of the trustees for Albemarle, who had inherited his father’s role as one of the proprietors of Carolina, Bath may well have had a personal interest in slavery and in the contentious issue of whether slavery could be said to exist in England. However the committee seems never to have met and details about just what such an amendment might have been expected to achieve and who had promoted it remain tantalizingly elusive. Bath was also named as one of the mediators between the Hamburg Company and its creditors. During the first session of 1675 he was named to seven committees. Two forecasts for divisions confirm that, as one might expect, his political allegiances were to Danby and the court. In April he was listed as a supporter of the non-resisting test and in November he opposed making an address to the crown requesting a dissolution. During the second session he was named to the committee for privileges.

Throughout this period Bath continued to act as the hinge between central and local government, representing the interests and claims of individuals and corporations in the west country to the crown. His involvement in west country patronage and politics continued even after 1675, when Albemarle reached his majority and assumed the lord lieutenancy of Devon in his own right. Bath also looked to the interests of his own family. In December 1674 he obtained a promise from the king that his brother Denis would be promoted to the deanery of Durham.⁴⁸ Meanwhile, by January 1675 plans were well advanced for the marriage of his youngest daughter, Grace, to George Carteret*, the future Baron Carteret. Grace Granville was six years old; her new husband only two years older.⁴⁹ The marriage confirmed the close alliance between Granville and his fellow courtier and old royalist ally Sir George Carteret. Occasional glimpses of Bath’s correspondence confirm that by this date he was working closely with Danby, keeping him informed of events at court and hoping to cement the alliance by arranging for his son and heir, Charles Granville*, then styled Viscount Lansdown (later 2nd earl of Bath), to marry one of Danby’s younger daughters. It was perhaps symptomatic of the high value that Bath put on himself and his dynasty that negotiations initially foundered over Danby’s reluctance to pay the substantial dowry (£10,000) that Bath demanded.⁵⁰

Bath’s attendance over the troubled sessions between 1677 and the end of 1678 was again high. During the 1677–8 session he missed only three days; he missed another four days during the first session of 1678 and one during the second session of that year. He held proxies from Norreys and also from Charles Howard*, 3rd earl of Nottingham, from the beginning of the 1677–8 session; Norreys’ proxy was re-entered in October 1678. He also held those of Robert Bertie*, 3rd earl of Lindsey, from 22 Feb. 1677 to 5 Mar. 1677, Thomas Colepeper*, 2nd Baron Colepeper, from 14 May 1677 to 15 Jan. 1678, Charles Dormer*, 2nd earl of Carnarvon, from 23 Feb. 1678, and James Scott*, duke of Monmouth, from 28 Feb. to 11 Mar. 1678.

Predictably, Anthony Ashley Cooper*, earl of Shaftesbury, listed Bath as triply vile. During the 1677–8 session he was named to 26 committees, mostly estate bills. He was also named to the committee to trace the author of Some Considerations upon the Question, Whether the Parliament is Dissolved by Prorogation for Fifteen Months. Only one bill (that for the stannaries) was of obvious personal interest to him. During the first session of 1678 he was named to four committees, one of which concerned his west country neighbour Sir John Weld. Another, for boats carrying coals, might also have been of personal interest as Denis Granville had a financial interest in coal mines. Bath was not named as one of the original members of a fifth committee – that concerning the unlawful killing of deer – but was added later, which suggests that this too may have been a subject in which he was interested. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert*, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. During the second session of 1678 he was named to five committees whose business was related to the growing fears of a popish plot; he was also named to the committees for privileges and petitions.

In June 1678 Bath entered a protest against the decision to proceed on the claim of Robert Danvers alias Villiers to the title of Viscount Purbeck, arguing that it was impossible ‘upon complicated and accumulative questions [to] give a resolution; nor hath the practice been so, but upon the case agreed, or single propositions, except where the House is unanimous in judgment; whereas in this cause they appear yet much divided’. Also that year he was summoned as one of the peers to sit in the court of the lord high steward for the Cornwallis trial; along with the majority of his fellow lords triers, and in the face of the evidence, he found Cornwallis not guilty.⁵¹

In November 1678 in a committee of the whole considering the Test, Bath voted against making the declaration against transubstantiation attract the same penalty as the oaths. On 20 Dec. he was one of those named to draw up arguments for the conference on disbanding the forces. This was a matter in which as the commander of a military garrison he had both a personal and a professional interest. That day the House went into committee and agreed extensive amendments to the bill, including changes that specifically exempted troops at Bath’s garrison in Plymouth and at Pendennis (commanded by Bath’s political ally and neighbour, Arundell of Trerice) as long as they had been recruited before 29 Sept. 1677. He was not named to the subsequent conference to discuss the amendments, possibly because the provisions regarding Plymouth and Pendennis were not matters of controversy. On 26 Dec. he voted in favour of insisting on the Lords’ amendment relating to the payment of money into the exchequer and the following day he voted against the motion to commit Danby.

Bath was present at the opening of the first Exclusion Parliament on 6 Mar. 1679 and was present at five of the six days in the first abortive session. He missed only one day of the 61-day second session, attending 98 per cent of all sitting days. He held the proxy of Edward Clinton*, 5th earl of Lincoln, from 2 Apr. 1679 and that of Norreys from 15 Apr. to 24 April. His close relationship with the king was demonstrated by his willingness to obey the king’s instructions to seal Danby’s pardon.⁵² Two days later Bath carried a message from the king to Danby whereby Danby was instructed to withdraw himself.⁵³ On 27 Mar. Bath was again the messenger who conveyed the king’s commands to Danby. He made it clear that, despite the king’s expressions of support, Danby would be safer ‘the other side of the water’. He added that Danby should be encouraged by the attempt to pass an act of attainder rather than banishment, ‘the said bill being of that nature that it is believed it will very hardly ever pass the Lords house much less the royal assent’.⁵⁴

Bath was consistently listed by Danby as a supporter and became an important intermediary between Danby and the king, as well as with Danby’s wider network of allies, even to the extent, some said, of perpetuating Danby’s influence in the Privy Council.⁵⁵ He provided the king with a list of persons to be canvassed in Danby’s favour, campaigned himself on Danby’s behalf, and kept open a correspondence in which each kept the other abreast of developments at court.⁵⁶ He voted against the attainder on 4 Apr. 1679 and entered dissents on 8 and 14 Apr. to the resolution to include in the heads of a conference a declaration that Danby’s case could not be used as a precedent and the resolution to agree to the Commons’ amendment. Then, on 1 May, he voted against appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. On 10 May he was named as one of the managers of the conference to consider Danby’s petition and on 14 May he entered a dissent against the passage of the bill to regulate trials of peers. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.

During the elections for the second Exclusion Parliament, Bath lent his support to Sidney Godolphin*, later earl of Godolphin, who was successfully returned for Helston.⁵⁷ At a by-election in November 1680, his eldest son, styled Viscount Lansdown, was returned for Launceston. From December 1680, Bath held the proxy of John Manners*, 9th earl (later duke) of Rutland. Bath’s confidence in his own position and prospects now resulted in a project to rebuild his home at Stowe. The new house was said to be so magnificent that even ‘the kitchen offices, fitted up for a dwelling-house, made no contemptible figure’.⁵⁸ It is tempting to speculate whether Bath’s decision to rebuild was influenced in any way by his relationship with Albemarle. Although Albemarle was still a young man, his alcoholism meant that he was often ill, his wife was mentally unstable, and their ten-year marriage had not produced any children. As one of Albermarle’s closest male relatives, accorded what seems to have been a free hand over the Albemarle estates, Bath may have been encouraged to embark on an ambitious building programme because he believed that he and his heirs would ultimately inherit the Albemarle fortune. Such a possibility was certainly being talked of by the end of 1684 and Bath probably knew that he was named as the principal heir in a will made by Albemarle in 1675.⁵⁹ It is perhaps also worth noting that 1680 was the date at which he took control of the estates inherited by his young son-in-law Carteret.⁶⁰

Despite his close connections to the court, Bath did not know, as late as 13 Oct. 1679, that when Parliament met on 17 Oct. it would immediately be prorogued to the following March.⁶¹ His attendance was again exemplary; he missed only two days. On 15 Nov. 1680 he voted to reject the Exclusion bill at its first reading and a week later voted against the appointment of a committee to consider in conjunction with the Commons the state of the kingdom. On 7 Dec. he voted with the minority to find William Howard*, Viscount Stafford, not guilty of treason, the only officer of the bedchamber to do so.⁶² Bath missed the opening day of the Oxford Parliament but was present on all the remaining days. Not surprisingly, given his record, he was expected to support Danby’s attempt to be bailed from the Tower, although in the event he, together with other allies of Danby, allowed the matter to be delayed and then lost at the dissolution on 28 Mar. 1681.

During the subsequent four-year interval before the next Parliament, Bath continued to play a central role in the campaign to free Danby and in the communications between Danby, the court, and the outside world.⁶³ He was one of many loyal courtiers who attended the trial of Fitzharris in June 1681 and he was present to support Danby when his application for bail was rejected by the judges of king’s bench in June 1682.⁶⁴ Bath was also active in the campaign against the corporations, bringing in a clutch of surrendered charters. He was appointed recorder of Lostwithiel, with the power of appointing the common clerk, under that borough’s new charter in 1682.⁶⁵ Presumably the charter left the borough insufficiently loyal for another was issued in 1684.⁶⁶

For almost a year, from 1682 to the spring of 1683, Bath was involved in an unpleasant quarrel at court about the right of access to the king. The quarrel was given just a little more edge because his opponent, Henry Bennet*, earl of Arlington, was a politician on the wane and one of Danby’s enemies. Arlington, who was lord chamberlain of the household, complained that he had been refused admission to the bedchamber ‘in a very rude manner’ and had thus been prevented from speaking with the king. Bath, who, as groom of the stole, was in charge of the bedchamber, defended himself by producing a book of rules and orders, supposedly dating from 1661. This incensed Arlington still further, who complained that the rules were ‘never seen before by himself or his predecessors wherein over and above the wrong to the petitioner, as he conceives, in the abridgment of the best part of his privileges and jurisdiction of his office, many other clauses are inserted to the disturbance of the king’s service’.⁶⁷

Edward Conway, now earl of Conway, somewhat gleefully remarked that he would be ‘very glad to hear that my lord chamberlain gets the better of my lord of Bath’ but the ensuing investigation appears to have found in Bath’s favour. A group of privy councillors declared that the 1661 book of rules that had been confirmed by the king as recently as 1678, and on which Bath relied, did ‘exclude generally all persons whatsoever, except the princes of the blood, and such as are sworn of the bedchamber’. Nevertheless they concluded that the 1661 orders had rarely been implemented and contained items that were ‘unusual and not agreeable to constant practice’.⁶⁸ It has been argued that Bath was acting with the connivance of the king, who was consciously seeking to restrict access to his person and to distance himself from his subjects.⁶⁹ Bath also emphasized his right to supervise the pages and other servants of the bedchamber, who were ‘to be sworn to be obedient in all things to the groom of the stole as the chief officer under the king’.⁷⁰

Almost contemporaneously with this quarrel Bath found himself defending his conduct as trustee for his teenage son-in-law, Carteret. Carteret was still a minor and was abroad on his travels but in his absence his grandmother, acting on his behalf, sought information about the state of his finances, which Bath (the only active trustee) refused to disclose.⁷¹ Carefully declaring that Carteret’s trustees were ‘persons of honour worth and integrity’ whose ‘fidelity, sincerity and punctual performance’ was not doubted, she nevertheless took Bath to court in what may have been a collusive action to force the information out of him.⁷²

In Feb. 1684 Bath stood bail for Henry Arundell*, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, one of the Catholic peers who had been accused and imprisoned during the Popish Plot scare.⁷³ He continued to be active in securing the surrender of charters and later that year he was appointed recorder of Plymouth for life under that town’s new charter; his brother Bernard, his son Lansdown, his protégé Albemarle, and his friends Arundell of Trerice, Sir Edward Seymour, and the future bishop of Bristol, Jonathan Trelawny*, were all appointed burgesses.⁷⁴

Loyalty under pressure, 1685–8

In February 1685 Bath’s loyalty and friendship for the royal brothers was such that he and Feversham were the only Protestants to be present at the death of Charles II.⁷⁵ The change in regime also marked a partial eclipse in Bath’s fortunes. Although he regarded the office of groom of the stole as his for life, James II dismissed him and appointed instead his close friend, Henry Mordaunt*, 2nd earl of Peterborough. In a petition to the new king Bath drew attention to his arrears of pay and the still unpaid debt of £25,000; he also claimed that he had been forced to encumber his estate and that his dismissal from office amounted to such a sign of disfavour that it had encouraged his creditors to become more pressing.⁷⁶ He was promised that his pension and salaries would be continued at the rate of £5,000 a year and that he would receive compensation for his place and the six years of arrears owed to him. ‘God grant I may see it’ wrote his brother. ‘Otherwise my brother in his old age will be uneasy in his fortune after 40 years’ service.’⁷⁷ Bath also claimed the dead king’s bed and furniture as a perquisite of office.⁷⁸

In part it seemed that his loss of influence at court might be compensated for by the growth of his family connection in Parliament. In 1685 his brother Bernard and his older son Charles were joined in the Commons by Bath’s younger son, John, and his nephews. Bath’s local influence remained undiminished. In March 1685 he was appointed recorder of Plympton under the stannary town’s new charter. He and Albemarle also became burgesses.⁷⁹ He also became recorder of Liskeard, where the list of freemen under the new charter included Bernard Granville, Lansdown, Arundell of Trerice, Jonathan Trelawny, and a host of other well-known loyal courtiers. Bath himself became recorder of at least nine local corporations.⁸⁰ When Parliament assembled in May 1685 it was said that Bath had brought in 15 charters and had been dubbed as a result the prince elector.⁸¹

Bath was absent for two days in the first half of the 1685 session and did not attend at all after 19 June, having left London to assist in the subjugation of Monmouth’s rebellion. By 22 June he was in Exeter organizing the Cornish and Devon militias; he remained there after the capture of Monmouth to deal with the prisoners.⁸² In August he received notification that he was to be appointed lord lieutenant of Devon, following Albemarle’s resignation. He insisted that he also be appointed custos rotulorum, ‘it being always an occasion of discord when they are divided’.⁸³ The death of Arlington led to rumours that Bath would succeed him as lord chamberlain but these proved inaccurate and Robert Bruce*, earl of Ailesbury, was appointed instead.⁸⁴ Towards the end of October the king instructed Bath to return to London.⁸⁵ If he did so, he did not attend Parliament, for which he apologized to the king while at the same time asking for payment of the arrears of his pension and remarking that the result of his activities was that ‘The town of Plymouth is now as loyal and dutiful as the garrison.’⁸⁶

Yet within months there were signs of major disagreement between Bath and the king. Bath, who considered himself an expert on the political and military management of the west country, asked that he be given the command of the standing forces there and that the forces be dispersed to avoid complaints about quartering too many together. On behalf of the king Robert Spencer*, 2nd earl of Sunderland, refused both requests.⁸⁷ Monmouth’s rebellion had shaken the king’s faith in Albemarle as a military leader and one wonders whether the level of support displayed for Monmouth in the west had also diminished the king’s belief in Bath’s ability to manage the area. Although Sunderland insisted that the king’s reply was in keeping with the rules for other parts of the country, it is difficult not to read an implication of distrust into the response. Bath’s anxiety to keep on good terms with Albemarle perhaps exacerbated this. He ensured that the Devon militia would continue to march ‘under the name and colours of Albemarle’ and told him,

that your power, interest and command in Devonshire is still as fully absolutely in yourself as formerly, and shall ever so remain whilst I am honoured with the commission of lieutenancy, which I shall rejoice, and be always desirous, as once before, to lay at your grace’s feet whensoever you will be pleased with his majesty’s approbation to accept the same …⁸⁸

In 1686 revelations of irregularities in the tin industry prompted Bath to suggest new elections to a convocation of tinners. Given the difficulties of earlier attempts to come to terms with the tinners, this was an undertaking fraught with difficulty. The rights and customs of the stannaries were a matter of controversy, having been disused since the civil wars. Bath nevertheless claimed to be in no doubt that the stannary towns would ‘elect such loyal sober persons, as would breathe new life into those languishing laws’.⁸⁹

The actual convocation proved to be something of a mixed blessing. While Bath insisted in November 1686 ‘that no meeting could ever end better that had so ill a prospect of agreement before it met’, he was equally convinced that his authority had been undermined by Jonathan Trelawny, recently appointed bishop of Bristol. Just as Bath had had a long and close attachment to Charles II so the Trelawny family had had a similarly close association with James II. Trelawny owed his elevation to the episcopate to his friendship with the new king and, according to Bath, he flaunted his new influence at court,

insinuating that he had by his interest at court procured the convocation ‘to get them a farm’ and a good price for their tin; on all occasions making use of the lord treasurer’s name and the king’s authority; acting therein contrary to his [Bath’s] commission: which made it very difficult to reconcile all things to the satisfaction of the tinners and convocators, and impossible to mention a less price, as the bishop had so raised their expectations.⁹⁰

Meanwhile, although Bath’s attitude to the repeal of the Test Act remained determinedly ambiguous (his contemporaries variously listed him as opposed to repeal, supportive of repeal, and undeclared), he was caught up in the king’s new campaign against charters. He managed to persuade several Cornish boroughs by prescription to exchange their ancient rights for chartered ones.⁹¹ Early in 1688 he set out for Cornwall to put the three questions, though Roger Morrice for one was convinced that this was against his inclination for ‘there is no men in the kingdom that do more abominate the Protestant Dissenters, nor that have been more severe upon them’.⁹² Jonathan Trelawny correctly predicted a high level of resistance:

I was glad to find the gentry unanimous for the preserving the Test and our laws and what pleased me as much, resolved to appear in their several corporations and not suffer so many foreigners to be put upon them, as were returned hence by the wheedle of the earl of Bath our lord lieutenant, whom they will attend in a body upon his coming into the country, and with the decency of a complement desire that they themselves may be permitted to serve the king in Parliament, which if his lordship will not yield to, but answer that he has the king’s commands for the return of such as his majesty named to him, the gentry, at least a great part of them will assert their particular pretensions in such boroughs as have dependence upon them, and try whether the earl of Bath will with a high hand turn out such mayors and magistrates as will not comply with his nominations, disoblige the gentry, and endanger the kingdom.⁹³

Early in March 1688 Bath was ‘very joyfully received’ at Exeter but the town’s new charter, granted the same month, sent a chilling message to those most anxious to defend the Anglican Church. It provided a model for the charters that followed, containing clauses that empowered the king to appoint as well as to remove members of corporations and that dispensed them from the Test.⁹⁴ The joy soon dissipated. By 23 Mar.,

Letters from the west bring the news that the earl of Bath labours with as little success in the counties of Devonshire and Cornwall who return most of the members to Parliament as other lord lieutenants have met with in other parts of the kingdom, notwithstanding he has very seriously offered to the inhabitants to grant them the sale of tin, which would give them the facility of delivering all the tin they might dig out to his m[ajesty] at the rate of £3.10 – pr cwt – and to receive cash for it on delivery without having to wait for other buyers or having to send it to market.⁹⁵

When Bath returned to London in April he confirmed this in person. His failure marked a major setback for government policy. As a result *Sunderland and William Herbert*, marquess of Powis, both postponed planned trips to their own lieutenancies.⁹⁶ Yet Bath was still willing to be party to the order to read the Declaration of Indulgence in churches.⁹⁷ Twists in royal policies caused other troubles too. In the summer 1688 he received a letter from Albemarle, now governor of Jamaica, pointing out the contradictions in his instructions and asking Bath to find out what it was that the king really wanted him to do.⁹⁸

Bath went back to Cornwall in August, and the following month, despite the setbacks, he was given a list of approved parliamentary candidates.⁹⁹ As the political crisis deepened and the king began to backtrack, Bath was left to sort out the contradictions. By early October he had received the writs for parliamentary elections in Devon, Cornwall, and Exeter, as well as the proclamation for ‘surcease of all proceedings thereon’, and had to ask for advice about what to do with them. In a long and pointed but restrainedly polite letter to Sunderland he nevertheless left no room for doubt about the extent of his anger and frustration both at the changes in policy and at the way in which he himself had been marginalized. He referred with false modesty to his own ‘weak endeavours’ to serve the king, castigated the ‘irregularities and extravagances’ of the regulators and went on to declare ‘that the best expedient for settling matters in cos. Cornwall and Devon is to put things in such a method that they may return to their ancient course’. He particularly drew attention to the problems of Exeter,

which gives laws to all the rest, but it is so miserably divided and distracted that I dare affirm there is not a place in the king’s dominions that wants more speedy or serious consideration. It is the bishop’s seat, the residence of the dean, canons and prebendaries. The great interest of the place consists of church men, and it has always been true to the church and consequently loyal to the king. Its motto is Semper fidelis [always faithful]. You may easily imagine it to be a great mortification to them to see the most substantial, rich, loyal citizens turned out of the government for no offence … and this in such a hurry that they destroyed their charter for very haste. It cannot choose but be grievous to them to be domineered over by a packed chamber of dissenters, and to see the sword … carried every Sunday before the Mayor in state to a conventicle. The animosities, I am told, are so great that they would be dangerous in the most peaceable times. In these they may be fatal if some speedy course be not taken.¹⁰⁰

Bath had already sent lists of justices to be added and removed from the commissions of the peace to the lord chancellor, George Jeffreys*, Baron Jeffreys. He was careful to secure royal approval for reinstating prominent individuals and tried to balance conflicting demands by nominating a number of ‘gentlemen of the first rank’ who were sympathetic to Dissent but whose status would make them acceptable to loyal Anglicans. The earlier purges had resulted in the addition of men who were ‘of mean quality and small estate and very unacceptable to those worthy gentlemen who are now to be restored’ and he suggested that they should be removed. Jeffreys complied.¹⁰¹

So deep were the worries that news of the birth of a prince of Wales caused economic as well as political upset in Cornwall. The newly appointed farmers of the pre-emption of tin found that ‘the difficulties of the times’ had delayed the passing of their patent, which was perhaps fortunate as they also claimed that the market had collapsed.¹⁰² On 23 Oct. 1688 Bath wrote to Godolphin reporting that the convocators had ‘grown peevish and suspicious’ and prone to ‘new jealousies and difficulties’. The restoration of charters recently ordered by the king had had little effect because its terms excluded most of the Cornish corporation charters. Nor could he follow the king’s instructions to ‘take care’ of Exeter as the militia was commanded by the mayor, who

was a person in whom he had no confidence, as he had often faithfully acquainted the king; the rest of the officers had tendered him their commissions, and desired to be excused from serving under him (the mayor), so that his lordship might easily judge what was to be expected from such a commander in case of necessity. He had not thought fit to remove him, but would be glad of his majesty’s pleasure therein by the next post. Without putting the militia of that city into better hands it was impossible (unless the king sent some of his standing forces) to preserve that important place long in peace, or defend it against an enemy.¹⁰³

Revolution and defection to the prince of Orange, 1688–92

Bath’s reputation as the king’s man and his apparent willingness to accept policy changes, even when he disliked them, seems to have blinded James II to the depth of his rage. On 30 Oct., as the prospect of invasion became ever more likely, Bath was one of several lords lieutenant of strategically important counties to receive instructions to keep watch on the coast and to remove ‘all horses oxen and cattle fit for burden or draught’ 20 miles inland from any attempted landing place.¹⁰⁴ Others were equally sure of his loyalty. In the confusion that followed the landing of William of Orange there were reports that Bath had attempted to thwart the invaders by ordering all haystacks and provisions to be burnt and that as a result he had been killed at the hands of an Orangist mob.¹⁰⁵ As the political situation continued to deteriorate, a sceptical Van Citters reported back to the estates general that Bath’s interest with the west country’s tin miners, ‘who are in great numbers’, was being used by the court in a desperate and ineffective attempt to shore up support.¹⁰⁶

In reality Bath was already in touch with the invading forces.¹⁰⁷ He had been unwilling to commit himself when approached earlier by Henry Sydney*, the future Viscount Sydney, but just three days after the prince of Orange’s landing an approach by Edward Russell*, later earl of Orford, who brought with him a personal letter from the prince, changed his mind. Russell asked Bath to name his terms; Bath declined to do so, trusting to the prince’s gratitude and goodwill, but he must have made at least some of his pretensions known verbally for in a letter of 20 Nov. 1688 William promised ‘to see justice done you’ and added a note in his own hand to the effect that he would never forget Bath’s services.¹⁰⁸ Theophilus Hastings*, 7th earl of Huntingdon who was staying with Bath at Plymouth reported that on the evening of 17 Nov. Bath left Plymouth, saying he would return within half an hour but he had not come back by the following day. Presumably he was visiting William for on 18 Nov. he wrote to the prince, agreeing to obey his commands, which included the seizure of the citadel, raising the militia, and imprisoning Huntingdon.¹⁰⁹

In the meantime Bath continued to play the part of attentive host, offering his own shalloop to Huntingdon, who had expressed an interest in visiting St Nicholas Island. Although pleased at the favour, Huntingdon declined; it was not until later that he realized that Bath had intended to leave him there as a prisoner. He was invited instead to dine with Bath, who explained to his somewhat gullible listener that he had restrained ‘port liberty’ for his soldiers as part of their training ‘the better to accustom them to a siege’. During what seems to have been a pleasant and genial dinner, Bath’s men seized the citadel and removed all the Catholic officers and soldiers. As soon as he was informed that the operation was complete, Bath placed Huntingdon under arrest.

The next day, 26 Nov. 1688, Bath had the prince of Orange’s declaration read to the garrison who greeted it with huzzas and threw up their hats. The declaration was then posted on the gates of the citadel.¹¹⁰ When, shortly afterwards, the justices, deputy lieutenants, and principal gentlemen of eastern Cornwall met at Saltash they unanimously endorsed Bath’s actions, as did the townsfolk and the militia. Following Bath’s lead they signed the Association. Bath was confident that Charles Robartes*, 2nd earl of Radnor, and the gentlemen of west Cornwall would follow suit and arranged for copies of the declaration to be published in the remaining boroughs and market towns of the county. Thanks to Bath the invading fleet was able to anchor safely in Plymouth harbour, which then became William’s principal naval base.¹¹¹

In December 1688 Bath was only one of three peers who received a summons to the Parliament that James had scheduled for January.¹¹² The other two peers (Huntingdon and Edward Griffin*, Baron Griffin) were stalwart supporters of James II and it seems that Bath’s writ was obtained at the request of Lady Huntingdon to ‘facilitate’ her husband’s freedom.¹¹³ When the Convention assembled on 22 Jan. 1689 Bath was probably still at his house in Cornwall where he had gone to celebrate Christmas.¹¹⁴ He took his seat on 2 Feb. and was subsequently present for just over 85 per cent of sitting days. By now he commanded a considerable family connection in Parliament. His younger brother Denis had followed James II into exile but the remaining members of the family transferred their loyalties to the new regime. Bath’s nephews Bevil, Bernard, and George and his nephew-in-law, Alexander Pendarves^‡, joined his brother Bernard and younger son John in the Commons, while his son Lansdown received a writ in acceleration to the Lords (where he was known as Lord Granville) and his son-in-law Carteret also took his seat in the Lords. Other members of the Commons who represented west country constituencies undoubtedly also looked to him for leadership.

Bath now appeared to be distancing himself from his own political past. His once close relationship with Danby had turned sour, but dating the breakdown is extremely difficult. One factor in the transformation may have been the failure of Lansdown’s marriage to Martha Osborne in or about the summer of 1682.¹¹⁵ Yet there is no evidence of any enmity between the two men before the Revolution; rather it seems likely that it was the Revolution that was the catalyst that provoked Bath’s jealousy. His anger was also inextricably intertwined with the Albemarle inheritance. News of the death of Albemarle reached England almost contemporaneously with the Dutch invasion. Bath believed that he would succeed to the Albemarle estates and thus consolidate still further his position as a regional magnate; he also expected to be created duke of Albemarle, pursuant to the promise made him by Charles II. There was too the ongoing issue of the outstanding debts due from the crown.

Bath returned to London in January 1689 determined to pursue all these claims. His first step seems to have been to register the warrant of April 1661 – with its claim to the earldom of Glamorgan and the titles of Corbeil, Thorigny, and Granville – with the college of arms.¹¹⁶ In a petition (which from the style of address is likely to have been written shortly before the formal offer of the crown to William and Mary on 13 Feb.) he also laid out his claim to the office of groom of the stole or for compensation for the same. He was distressed by the appointment of Hans Willem Bentinck*, earl of Portland, to the office and still more distressed by the decision to grant Bentinck possession of Theobalds Park. Furthermore the crown still owed Bath a substantial sum. Initially he sought to make an ally of Portland, telling him ‘that you having taken possession of my office it is but just that you should mediate with the king that I might have right and justice done me in compensation’.¹¹⁷

While Bath found it necessary to besiege the crown with petitions for what he perceived to be his just recompense, Danby enjoyed a privileged position as one of the ‘immortal seven’. Before the Revolution Bath’s earldom had enjoyed higher precedence than that of Danby; until 1685 as both groom of the stole and a trusted friend of Charles II he had also been closer to the centre of power than the erstwhile lord treasurer. Danby’s promotion to a marquessate (as Carmarthen) in April 1689 and his ability to command office under the new regime meant that their relative positions were now reversed: he was now more powerful than Bath and also outranked him.

Bath’s parliamentary activity undoubtedly also contributed to the process. In February 1689 both men voted consistently in favour of the words ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is thereby vacant’ and both were named as managers of the conference to consider amendments to the declaration declaring William and Mary to be monarchs. Then in May, when Carmarthen led the campaign against reversing Oates’s convictions for perjury, Bath not only parted company with him but went on to enter three protests against the refusal to do so. In so doing he allied himself with Carmarthen’s Whig enemies. He held Carteret’s proxy from 12 July so was able to employ that in the division on Oates that took place on 30 July 1689. During the session he acted as teller on seven occasions, leading one to wonder if he had been similarly involved before the Revolution (for which records of tellerships do not survive).

On 5 Mar. Bath told on the division for an amendment to the bill for the trial of peers; on 23 Apr. for the division concerning the Commons amendment to the abrogating oaths bill; in June for that on the addition of a proviso to the land tax bill which would have bolstered privilege of peerage by enabling the peers to name their own commissioners and on the vote for reversing the 1682 judgment against the former sheriff of London, Thomas (now Sir Thomas) Pilkington^‡. In all these cases, although solid evidence is lacking, it seems likely that he voted with the Whigs. In September 1689 news of the death of Lady Lansdown, which was said to bring ‘joy’ to Bath, removed the final link between him and Carmarthen.¹¹⁸ At or about this time the relationship between Lansdown and his brother-in-law Peregrine Osborne*, styled earl of Danby, later 2nd duke of Leeds, was so poor that that Lansdown had been forced to promise the king that the pair would not resort to a duel.¹¹⁹ Osborne’s volatility however was such that it is difficult to be certain that the quarrel stemmed from family animosity or some other cause.

Alongside his parliamentary activities during this session, Bath also took the first steps in what was to become a long-running attempt to gain possession of the Albemarle fortune. As noted above, he had expected to be the major beneficiary under the 2nd duke of Albemarle’s will. He was therefore dismayed to discover that Albemarle had made a new will shortly before leaving England in 1687 in which, after safeguarding the interests of his wife during her lifetime, he had entailed virtually the whole of his property on a Col. Henry Monck and his two sons, Christopher and Henry Monck. Col. Monck had been a protégé of the 1st duke of Albemarle; the 2nd duke had taken a similar interest in the careers of Christopher and Henry junior. There is no extant evidence to confirm a family connection but Albemarle clearly believed that he and Col. Monck were related to each other through the paternal line. It seems that it was not until 1684 that he realized that his relationship to Bath was through their mothers and that Bath was not therefore the heir to the Monck patrimony.¹²⁰

The will of 1687 was drawn up by the leading lawyer Henry Pollexfen^‡. Albemarle took the original with him to Jamaica but made sure that two certified copies were left in England; the original and both copies were opened in the presence of witnesses on 8 Apr. 1689. Within six months Bath was embroiled in a case in the prerogative court of Canterbury to overturn the 1687 will and in a suit and counter-suit in chancery to the same end.¹²¹ He produced what he claimed to be a deed of settlement drawn up by Albemarle in 1682, which contained a clause nullifying any subsequent disposition of the Albemarle estates unless witnessed by six individuals of whom three had to be peers of the realm. His case rested on the legality and authenticity of this deed and the somewhat preposterous claim that Albemarle had deliberately drawn up an invalid second will in order to avoid the importunities of his mentally fragile duchess. The various suits and counter-suits generated by the dispute, and the allegations of perjury and fraud that accompanied it, fascinated the social and political elite for nearly 20 years.

During the 1689–90 session Bath was present for 71 per cent of sitting days. His activities during this session are more difficult to trace but his protest on 23 Nov. 1689 about the loss of a proviso to the bill of rights that would have required royal pardons to impeachments to have the approval of both Houses of Parliament suggests open enmity to Carmarthen, who marked him as an opponent of the court in a list he compiled between October 1689 and February 1690. His attendance over the short first session of 1690 rose to nearly 92 per cent, perhaps because his presence in London was required in order to continue litigation over the Albemarle inheritance. In March 1690, as a result of an enquiry into protections, he withdrew one protection and claimed that a second was forged.¹²² On 13 May he joined with leading Whigs in a protest against the refusal of the House to grant further time to the City of London in connection with the bill to reverse the judgment against it. In the meantime his case against the duchess of Albemarle continued with an appeal to the court of delegates and fresh moves in chancery, where he produced a copy of Charles II’s 1667 promise that if the Albemarle line should ever fail the dukedom would revert to Bath.¹²³ After the end of the session, when the king had left for Ireland, Bath was once again instructed to attend to the defence of the west country by directing the militia there and preparing to deal with possible mutinies by the tinners.¹²⁴ His reluctance to do so (he sent his son instead) annoyed the queen.¹²⁵

The 1690–1 session saw Bath’s attendance rise to nearly 90 per cent. He almost immediately faced a challenge to his claim of privilege in the Albemarle case.¹²⁶ He was discomfited still further by the arrest of Lansdown, who was rumoured to have revived his quarrel with Danby.¹²⁷ Legal complications over the attempt to court martial Arthur Herbert*, earl of Torrington, resulted in October 1690 in a bill to clarify the powers of the commissioners of the Admiralty. Bath, clearly part of an alliance against Carmarthen that stretched across both Houses and that was led in the Lords by Bath’s Cornish neighbour Charles Powlett*, duke of Bolton, and Laurence Hyde*, earl of Rochester, entered a protest at the passage of the bill, as did his son Lansdown. On the same day Bath also protested at the resolution to discharge James Cecil*, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Peterborough from bail; previously, on 6 Oct. he had voted against their discharge from imprisonment in the Tower, with Carmarthen adding the comment that he was ‘easy to be made [to] follow the king’s mind by what he holds under him’.¹²⁸ In the Commons John Granville’s defence of Torrington was such that the king removed him from all his offices.¹²⁹ One might have thought that such disapprobation would extend also to Bath, yet in the spring of 1691 preparations for Lansdown‘s second marriage, to Isabella de Nassau van Auverquerque, the daughter of one of the king’s closest companions, sparked gossip that Bath was to be promoted to a dukedom.¹³⁰

Various enquiries had supported the validity of Bath’s financial claims.¹³¹ As a result his claims on the crown and his son’s marriage settlement were being negotiated together. On 12 Mar. 1691 Queen Mary signed a warrant summarizing the results of the settlement. Bath was granted the right to nominate a ‘fit person of estate and quality’ to an English barony or to receive £10,000 in ready money, over and above the £6,000 already paid as dowry, in lieu. He was also promised the dukedom of Albemarle at the next creation of dukes or payment of the arrears relating to the original promise to pay £15,000 (which by then amounted to over £50,000), plus payment of his pensions and arrears as governor of Plymouth. The warrant makes it clear that William III was fully aware of the agreement that had been reached and that it was backed by ‘the royal word of a king and queen’.¹³² As a result, in August 1691 Henry Guy notified the paymaster general that Bath’s pensions of £5,000 a year had been confirmed and that payments were to be made, backdated to Christmas 1690.¹³³

Other matters progressed in a less satisfactory manner. In May 1691 the delegates – who included Carmarthen, Daniel Finch*, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and Thomas Herbert*, 8th earl of Pembroke, unanimously rejected Bath’s appeal against the duchess of Albemarle.¹³⁴ In July Bath’s post-revolutionary enthusiasm for the Whigs was underlined still further when he acted as godfather to Bolton’s infant grandson.¹³⁵ Whether the Whigs really were enthusiastic about gaining the support of a man who had been so prominent in the Tory reaction of the 1680s is unclear; in a letter to Portland that must have been written some time after Portland’s appointment as groom of the stole in March 1689, Bath revealed that he had been unable to obtain a private audience with the king since his return to London from the west, which suggests that even at that early stage he had powerful enemies at court.¹³⁶

Bath was absent when Parliament reassembled for the 1691–2 session, not taking his seat until 14 Nov. 1691. He did not attend after 27 Jan. 1692 at all. He covered his absence during the first part of the session by a proxy to Lansdown and during the second part by a proxy to Carteret. There were other scattered absences so that overall his attendance was just under 58 per cent. During November, after an exceptionally long trial, Bath won his case against the duchess of Albemarle. Carmarthen spoke so reluctantly for the duchess that neither she nor Bath were satisfied with his testimony.¹³⁷ Lansdown’s marriage had already raised Bath’s political and financial credit. Now his legal victory implied that he could take possession of an estate valued at between £6,000 and £10,000 a year. It was also reported that the salary of £5,000 awarded to him by Charles II as groom of the stole was to be resumed, ‘being given him upon the account for what he lost for Charles the First’. ¹³⁸ This report was only partially correct since the resumption of the pension was part of a deal whereby Bath waived arrears of £20,000.¹³⁹ Nevertheless his creditors were delighted. Rumours of his imminent creation as duke of Albemarle began to circulate once again.¹⁴⁰

Only partial information is available about the state of Bath’s finances at this time. He was apparently still in possession of a substantial quantity of plate issued to him during the reign of Charles II and never returned, and it seems that even after Bath had relinquished his claim to the arrears of £20,000 the crown still owed him some £10,000.¹⁴¹ Perhaps it was a sense of fellow feeling that led William George Richard Stanley*, 9th earl of Derby, to believe that Bath would vote in favour of his bill to secure the restoration of estates lost in the civil wars. In the event Bath was absent from the House on 25 Jan. 1692, the day of the second reading, but Derby’s predictions were in any case unsound. The bill was rejected even though he thought he would win by an overwhelming majority.¹⁴²

Overplaying his hand, 1692–1701

Shortly before the 1692–3 session began Bath petitioned the queen about his pension. Having, in his view, sacrificed £20,000 in return for a contractually guaranteed payment of £5,000 a year, he was incensed to find that that payment had been stopped, allegedly because of financial exigency, but more probably because William III was trying to force Bath to exercise his influence over his two sons in order to persuade them to support the administration.¹⁴³ Over the session Bath’s attendance was again high (some 84 per cent). He took his revenge on the government first by protesting at the decision not to propose a joint committee to consider the state of the nation on 7 Dec. 1692 and then, in the face of the king’s known displeasure, by voting in favour of committing the place bill on 31 December. Within days of the place bill vote, however, he had moved back to a Whiggish pro-court position. He supported the attempt of the Whig Henry Howard*, 7th duke of Norfolk, to divorce his Tory wife, deliberately abstained at the third reading of the place bill on 3 Jan. 1693, and voted to acquit Charles Mohun*, 4th Baron Mohun, on 4 Feb. 1693. On 10 Mar. he was named as one of the reporters for the conference on the duchy of Cornwall bill. He held Carteret’s proxy from 14 Jan. 1693.

Shortly after the session ended in March 1693, Lansdown, who had been appointed jointly with his father as lord lieutenant of Devon and Cornwall in 1691, was removed from those offices after quarrelling with the king over his own unpaid arrears.¹⁴⁴ Sunderland instructed the lord keeper, John Somers*, later Baron Somers, to delay reissuing the necessary new commissions for Bath while exploring the possibility of replacing him with Radnor.¹⁴⁵ Sunderland was convinced that Bath was playing a double game and that he ‘would be very glad to be of one side and have his sons of the other, for men grow more politic every day’.¹⁴⁶

Sunderland’s attempts to discipline the Granvilles may also have included promises of reward. Contemporaneously with Lansdown’s quarrel with the king, there were renewed rumours of a dukedom for Bath, and in June Sunderland, in discussing the prospects for managing the Lords, referred to Bath as one of three peers who needed ‘something besides money’. Unfortunately for Bath his prospects of promotion in the peerage had to be weighed against the needs of others. John Sheffield*, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham), had made it clear that he wanted a marquessate – but not if others were to be offered dukedoms.¹⁴⁷ Bath held on to his lord lieutenancies, partly because of the support he received from Nottingham and partly because of his willingness to frighten Somers by telling him that without the commissions it would be impossible to convene the west country militias in case of emergency. Sunderland declared Bath’s reasoning to be frivolous but had to acknowledge that further delay was impossible.¹⁴⁸

Bath was present on 77 per cent of sitting days in the 1693–4 session, with well over half his absences being in March and April 1694. He was present almost every day in November and December 1693 but absent on 22 Dec., presumably because he was attending yet another hearing in the Albemarle case. On 3 and 15 Jan. 1694 he was named as one of the managers of the conference over the controversial issues surrounding the loss of the Turkey convoy the previous summer. Meanwhile, the Albemarle inheritance case now began to assume even greater prominence. On 8 Jan. the duchess of Albemarle and her new husband, Ralph Montagu*, earl (later duke) of Montagu, brought an appeal against the 22 Dec. verdict in Bath’s favour and on 26 Jan. Thomas Pride petitioned for a waiver of privilege by Bath and Montagu so that he could proceed with a claim as heir at law to his uncle, the 1st duke of Albemarle. On 29 Jan. Bath and Montagu both agreed to waive privilege. On 17 Feb., after a hearing that had lasted several days and which had even attracted the king to attend incognito, Bath won yet another round in the legal battle, although only by a small majority.¹⁴⁹ Bath, Lansdown, and Montagu were all present that day and there was no formal rule prohibiting them, as interested parties, from voting, but the surviving division list does not include their names. Carteret did vote, unsurprisingly in favour of his father-in-law. Montagu, backed by Nottingham, was not prepared to give up.¹⁵⁰ On 20 Feb. the House was confronted with a need to hunt for precedents when it received his request that exhibits used in the appeal be released for use in another legal action against Bath. The decision to dismiss his request passed by a majority of just two and was sufficiently controversial to provoke a formal dissent.

Despite his victory, Bath’s standing with the government was still precarious, probably because of his son’s activities in the Commons in favour of the triennial bill, and there were fresh reports that he was to be removed from his lord lieutenancies.¹⁵¹ In April 1694 he received what he undoubtedly interpreted as a fresh insult from the crown when, despite the promise of 1691, he remained an earl while Charles Talbot*, 12th earl of Shrewsbury, was promoted to a dukedom. To make matters worse in May Carmarthen was also elevated to a dukedom (as Leeds).

Bath’s attendance in the following (1694–5) session was just over 82 per cent but there is almost no information about his parliamentary activities. The Albemarle inheritance dispute dragged on with further lengthy hearings in the court of king’s bench (one of which was said to have lasted all day and all night) in November 1694 and February 1695.¹⁵² Bath triumphed once again but the case was far from over.¹⁵³ In March Montagu revived his request for an order by the House of Lords concerning exhibits in the appeal, causing something of a minor political crisis when the Commons found out and decided that this amounted to an attempt to extend the Lords’ judicature to original causes. A breach between the Houses was avoided when the Lords dismissed Montagu’s petition on 18 March. Just who had stirred matters up in the Commons remains a matter for speculation, but John Granville is an obvious candidate; his other activities certainly led him to be regarded by the administration as one of the Commons’ leading troublemakers.

Bath appears to have been relatively inactive during the 1695 elections but even so he still headed a significant parliamentary connection. During the 1695–6 session he was again present on some 82 per cent of sitting days but he left no trace of his activities until 24. Jan. 1696 when, together with his son and four other Tory peers, he signed the protest against the passage of the bill to prevent false and double returns at elections to the Commons. On 27 Feb. 1696 he signed the Association. Lansdown, who was absent on 27 Feb., signed the following day. In the Commons Sir Bevil Granville also signed the Association but John and Bernard Granville refused it.¹⁵⁴ Perhaps Bath was still suspected of playing a double game, for by April he had been removed from his lord lieutenancies and from the governorship of Plymouth. He also seems to have been annoying the king by his failure to keep good order in St James’s Park and in May it was reported that he had been ordered to sell his offices as ranger of St James’s and lord warden of the stannaries.¹⁵⁵ During the summer of 1696 there was yet another hearing in the Albemarle case, in which allegations of fraud and forgery by Bath were made openly. When Montagu won the case Bath promptly resumed privilege in order to obstruct further process and in the meantime he and Montagu both indicted each other’s witnesses for perjury. At this point the two men had allegedly spent some £20,000 between them on litigation.¹⁵⁶

When Parliament reassembled for the 1696–7 session Bath was present for nearly 73 per cent of sitting days. Almost half his absences were concentrated in the period between 25 Feb. and 13 Mar. inclusive and may well relate to the final illness of his daughter Jane, dowager Lady Leveson, who died on or about 27 Feb. 1697. During the early months of the session the House was confronted with a series of allegations and counter-allegations about the use and misuse of privilege in the Albemarle case by both parties. A decision to allow Bath privilege for a period of six months so that he could pursue his actions for perjury was allegedly undermined by Montagu’s determination to obstruct and delay the prosecutions.¹⁵⁷ Then, in December 1696, wrangles over the Albemarle inheritance were eclipsed by the controversies over the Fenwick attainder. John Granville led the opposition to the attainder in the Commons; his father was equally active in the Lords. On 15 and 18 Dec. he entered dissents to the decision to allow Goodman’s information to be read and to the resolution that the bill be read a second time. On 23 Dec. he not only voted against it but entered a protest at its passage. Since the king was determined that Parliament should pass the attainder and since Bath was one of many smeared by Fenwick as a Jacobite collaborator, such conduct was scarcely likely to win the confidence of the administration. His punishment was rapid. In January 1697 it became known that the king’s favourite, Arnold Joost van Keppel*, was to be created earl of Albemarle.

Bath was furious. He tried to prevent the use of the Albemarle title and petitioned for the dukedom.¹⁵⁸ He pointed out that his ‘just pretensions’ to the title had been recognized not only by the king but by others. The original warrant authorizing the ennoblement of the Dutch general, Frederick Schomberg*, for example, had indicated that he was to become duke of Albemarle but after learning of Bath’s claim to that title he had chosen Schomberg instead. Bath attributed his misfortune in being under royal displeasure to the ‘unparalleled ill practices by the agents of his powerful adversaries’.¹⁵⁹ Loath as Bath was (or so he claimed) ‘to be compelled to seek relief by a contest in a public manner’, he was nevertheless prepared to threaten a law suit to compel the performance of Queen Mary’s promises, which he claimed amounted to a contractual obligation. Referring to the assistance that he had rendered William at Plymouth in 1688 he insisted that barely a fortnight before William’s landing at Torbay, James II had offered to make Bath duke of Albemarle and to confer on him the Albemarle lands as well as the garter vacated by Albemarle’s death. He paraded this information as evidence that ‘I lost more then I now pretend unto for his service and the public which I preferred before any private interest’ and offered to prove it ‘by persons of honour’.¹⁶⁰

Bath’s only other known activity in the House that session took place on 15 Apr. 1697 when (again in company with his son Lansdown) he entered a protest against the failure of an amendment to the bill to restrain the number and ill practices of stock-jobbers, arguing that the amendment was necessary to prevent the retrospective application of the new regulations.

During the summer of 1697 there were lengthy hearings concerning the perjury allegations in the Albemarle case. There would have been more but the judges postponed them because they were too tired to cope with another all-night sitting.¹⁶¹ Bath, victorious yet again, was said to be so incensed by the perjury allegations that he was contemplating suing Montagu’s lawyer, James Sloan^‡, for scandalum magnatum; instead he prosecuted him, unsuccessfully, for subornation of perjury.¹⁶² Bath’s west country electoral interests were now clearly under attack from the government. Sir Francis Drake^‡, who was closely associated with Somers, had foiled a plot by senior local Tories to avoid taking the Association in 1696, and in the same year, assisted by Somers and Shrewsbury, obtained a new charter for Plymouth under which he became recorder for life. By Sept. 1697 he, rather than Bath, was effectively managing the parliamentary representation of Plymouth, Bere Alston, and Tavistock.¹⁶³

During the 1697–8 session Bath was present for just over 76 per cent of sitting days. His known activities in the House again centred on the Albemarle case. In the autumn he claimed privilege yet again, leading to yet another compromise brokered by the House in January 1698.¹⁶⁴ In the meantime the notoriety of the case (and the disgust that it inspired) sparked a debate on 17 Jan. 1698 on the evils of the ‘exorbitant fees’ charged by lawyers and led to the nomination of a committee to prepare a bill to regulate the expense of law suits and to prevent vexatious delays.¹⁶⁵ The case became increasingly convoluted. The House confirmed a verdict in the court of common pleas in favour of Montagu in February 1698 but a month later, to the dismay of the judges, allowed Bath to bring a writ of error in order to convict some of Montagu’s witnesses of perjury.¹⁶⁶ On 7 Mar. Bath was appointed as one of the managers of a conference to discuss amendments to the bill explaining poor relief. On 15 Mar., along with a number of leading Tories, he voted against the motion to commit the bill to punish the financier Charles Duncombe^‡ for a second reading and entered a dissent when the motion passed.

Bath’s longest absence during the 1697–8 session was concentrated towards the end of May and early June 1698. It is tempting to wonder whether this too was related to the Albemarle case, since on 12 May it was reported that ‘The great lawsuit … has met with an unexpected turn.’ Bath had bought off Christopher Monck, the residuary legatee under the 1687 will, in order to undermine Montagu’s case by means that were later alleged to be fraudulent.¹⁶⁷ Despite this apparent coup, hearings in related suits heard in king’s bench and common pleas at the end of May went against him, with the result that he was publicly labelled as a fraudster.¹⁶⁸ In July 1698, apparently undaunted by this turn of events, Bath again approached Somers for assistance in obtaining the dukedom of Albemarle. He wanted, so he said, ‘only what is already granted for the most part under his majesty’s great seal upon valuable considerations and confirmed under the sacred royal word of the late queen’, but he was clearly aware that he was in disfavour at court for he also referred to his inability to wait on the king in person ‘without his leave under my present unfortunate circumstances’.¹⁶⁹

Although he reached his seventieth birthday shortly after the commencement of the 1698–9 session, Bath’s attendance remained high: he was present on some 73 per cent of sitting days. In September he and Montagu had finally agreed to settle their long dispute, though Bath had still not given up hopes for the Albemarle title.¹⁷⁰ Although the Whig Junto were opposing his son’s election as Speaker of the Commons, he appears to have remained on good terms with Somers – so much so that during the rest of the autumn Bath went out of his way to heap fulsome thanks on Somers for his various services (both as counsel and as lord keeper) in connection with the Albemarle case, for his ‘many good offices’ in presenting Bath’s various petitions to the king and for his ‘favourable promise to be my advocate to the king’.¹⁷¹

Whether he obtained the personal interview for which he was angling is unclear. He continued to be unwilling to adopt a political line that would secure him in the court’s favour. On 8 Feb. 1699, perhaps again in alliance with opposition members in the Commons, he voted against the resolution to assist the king to retain the Dutch guards and entered a dissent on the same subject. He was also involved in less controversial matters: on 20 and 21 Apr. he was named as one of the managers for conferences on the acts for Blackwell Hall and Billingsgate markets. His presence in the House on those days (after an absence of a week) may well have been related to another issue: the writ of error brought by Christopher Dighton against Bath’s brother Bernard Granville. Although not included in the presence list, on 3 May 1699 he was named as one of the managers of the conference to discuss the supply clauses that had been tacked by the Commons to the bill for duty on paper. This was an issue that overrode party politics since the interest of the peers in preserving their privileges and the interests of the king coincided.¹⁷²

Over the next (1699–1700) session, Bath’s attendance fell slightly to some 68 per cent but there is little information about his activities other than that he was believed to be opposed to the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation. Although still in office as ranger of St James’s Park his inability to suppress alehouses and encroachments there continued to irk the king and he was faced with demands to return the plate that had been issued to him as groom of the stole during the reign of Charles II.¹⁷³ Bath seems to have felt himself under increasing financial pressure, and by November 1700 he had again complained of the stop on payment of his pension. Presumably he did not appreciate (as the lords of the treasury apparently did) the fine difference between a ‘stop’ and a failure to pay caused by a shortage of liquidity in the nation’s accounts, since the result was in either case the same. He had not been paid since Michaelmas 1692.¹⁷⁴

The first session of the 1701 Parliament was the last that Bath was able to attend before his death in August 1701. His attendance over this session fell to 44 per cent, which was largely attributable to long spells of absence in February and March and again in June. On 20 Mar. he entered a protest at the failure of the Tory attempt to send the address relating to the partition treaty to the Commons. On 23 May he (and other proprietors of Carolina and the Bahamas) petitioned the House against the bill for uniting the government of several colonies and plantations in America to the crown. Although the House ordered him to be heard, the bill appears to have been lost, possibly because of the disruption to business caused by the attempted impeachments of the Junto lords. Bath’s last attendance was on 17 June 1701 when he voted to acquit Lord Somers.

Bath died on 22 Aug. 1701, leaving a will in which he claimed to be owed some £25,000 by the crown. Somewhat ironically, in view of the long-running and still unresolved disputes over the Albemarle inheritance, his own disposition of his estate also gave rise to litigation.¹⁷⁵ It was perhaps even more ironic that the hereditary pension that was paid so irregularly during his lifetime was continued after his death. A moiety was still being paid in 1883 when it was bought out under the Consolidated Fund Act of 1872 for £32,334.¹⁷⁶ He was succeeded by his son Charles, whose suicide two weeks later was popularly ascribed to the horror that he experienced when he began to realize the full extent of the tangled web of debt, deceit, and litigation left behind by his father.