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PORTRAITS

ILLUSTRIOUS PERSONAGES.

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AVENDBSM.

EIRST DUKE OP DEVONSHIRE
08,1707,

PORTRAITS

ILLUSTRIOUS PERSONAGES

BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL MEMOIRS OF THEIR
LIVES AND ACTIONS.

EDMUND LODGE, ESQ., F.S.A.

CABINET EDITION.

IN EIGHT VOLUMES.— VOL. VII.

LONDON :
WILLIAM SMITH, 113, FLEET STREET.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME VII.

1. WILLIAM CAVENDISH, FIRST DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE

Riley 1707

From the Colkction of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire,
at Ohatsworth.

2. SIDNEY GODOLPHIN, EARL OF GODOLPHIN Kneller 1710
From the Collection of his Grace the Duke of Marl-
borough, at Blenheim.

3. THOMAS OSBORNE, FIRST DUKE OF LEEDS V. Vaart 1712
From the Collection of his Grace the Duke of Leeds, at

Hornby Castle.

4. QUEEN ANNE Kneller 1714

From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl
of Egremont, at Petworth.

5. GILBERT BURNET, BISHOP OF SALISBURY Kneller 1714-15
From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl

of Hardwicke, at Wimpole.

6. JOHN, FIRST LORD SOMERS . . . Kneller 1716

From the Colkction of the Right Honourable the Earl
of Hardwicke, at Wimpole.

7. CHARLES TALBOT, DUKE OF SHREWSBURY . Kneller 1718
From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl

of Shrewsbury, at Heythrop.

CONTENTS.

8. JOHN CHURCHILL, DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH Kneller 1722
From the Collection of his Grace the Duke of Marl-
borough, at Blenheim.

9. RACHEL WRIOTHESLEY, LADY RUSSELL . Cooper 1723
From the Collection of his Grace the Duke of Bedford,

at Woburn Abbey.

10. ROBERT HARLEY, EARL OF OXFORD . . Kneller 1724
From the Collection in the British Museum.

11. SIR ISAAC NEWTON Kneller 1727

From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl

of Egremont, at Petworth.

12. FRANCIS ATTERBURY, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER Kneller 1732
From the Bodleian Gallery, Oxford.

13. CHARLES MORDAUNT, THIRD EARL OF PETERBOROUGH

Dahl 1735

From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl
of Liverpool, at Combe Wood.

14. JOHN CAMPBELL, SECOND DUKE OF ARGYLL, AND DUKE

OF GREENWICH Kneller 1743

From the Collection of the Honourable George Agar
Ellis.

15. SARAH JENNINGS, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH Lely 1744
From the Collection of his Grace the Duke of Marl-
borough, at Blenheim.

16. JAMES BUTLER, SECOND DUKE OF ORMOND Kneller 1745

From the Collection of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire,
at Chatsworth.

CONTENTS.

17. ROBERT WALPOLE, FIRST EARL OF ORFORD Jervas 1746
From the Collection, of Thomas Walpole, Esq. at Stagbury.

18. CHARLES SEYMOUR, SIXTH DUKE OF SOMERSET Kneller 1748

From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl
of Egremont, at Petworth.

19. JOHN MONTAGU, SECOND DUKE OF MONTAGU Kndkr 1749
From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl

of Egremont, at Petworth.

20. HENRY ST. JOHN, FIRST VISCOUNT BOLINBROKE Kneller 1751
From the Collection of tlte Right Honourable the Earl

of Egremont, at Petworth.

21. RICHARD BOYLE, EARL OF BURLINGTON Knapton 1753

From the Collection of his Gracet he Duke of Devonshire,
at Chatsworth.

22. HORATIO, FIRST LORD WALPOLE . . Vanloo 1757
From the Collection of Thomas Walpole, Esq. at Stagbwry.

23. WILLIAM PULTENEY, EARL OF BATH . Jervas 1764
From the Collection of the Right Honourable Lord

Northwiclc.

24. PHILIP YORKE, FIRST EARL OF HARDWICKE Ramsay 1764
From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl

of Hardwicke, at Wimpole.

25. THOMAS PELHAM HOLLES, DUKE OF NEWCASTLE Hoare 1768

From the Collection of his Grace the Duke of Newcastle,
at Clumber.

CONTENTS.

26. JOHN MANNERS, MARQUIS OF GRANBY . Reynolds 1770
From the Collection of the Right Honourable the Earl

of Egremont, at Petworth.

27. JOHN RUSSELL, DUKE OF BEDFORD . Reynolds 1771

From the Collection of his Grace the Duke of Bedford,
at Woburn Abbey.

28. HENRY Fox, FIRST LORD HOLLAND . Reynolds 1774
From the Collection of the Right Honourable Lord

Holland) at Holland House.

29. ROBERT, LORD CLIVE 1774

From the Original in the Government House? Calcutta.

30. WILLIAM PITT, FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM . Hoare 1778
From the Collection of the Right Honourable Lord

Bridport, at Cricket St. Thomas.

WILLIAM CAVENDISH,

FIRST DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE.

IT is strange that the all-accomplished writer of the
"Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors" should have
allotted but four lines to his commemoration of this distin-
guished person, whose character seemed to offer a theme
peculiarly suited to the inclination of his mind, and the taste
of his pen. It exhibited, with the highest polish of a cour-
tier's manners, and the most universal urbanity, a resentment
not less fierce than sudden, and a courage which bordered on
temerity ; the severest purity of public principles, with the
careless gaieties of a man of pleasure. Statesman, orator,
poet, musician, and architect, and, if not excellent, at least
falling little short of eminence, in each of those qualities, the
Duke of Devonshire may be fairly allowed a place in that
constellation of highly-gifted nobles who ornamented, as well
as enlightened, the period in which he flourished.

He was the eldest of the two sons of William, third Earl
of Devonshire, by Elizabeth, second daughter of William,
second Earl of Salisbury of the Cecils, and was born on the
twenty-fifth of January, 1640. He received his early educa-
tion at home, and there can be little doubt that his tutor was
Thomas Hobbes, who had served his father and grandfather
in that capacity, and was a constant inmate for upwards of
seventy years in their house, where he died in 1679. The
notorious scepticism, however, of that extraordinary old man
has perhaps induced the suppression of this fact, while some
circumstances in the future life of the pupil have tended to

VII. B

2 WILLIAM CAVENDISH,

favour its probability. Be this as it might, we are distinctly
told that, after a short residence, rather for the sake of form
than for the acquisition of learning and science, in the
University of Oxford, he was committed to the care of Dr.
Henry Killigrew, one of the three remarkable brothers of
that name, and afterwards Master of the Savoy, who accom-
panied him in the usual continental tour, and successfully
cultivated in his mind the taste for polite literature in which
that gentleman was himself an acknowledged master. On
his return, in 1661, he was chosen one of the representatives
for the county of Derby, for which he continued to serve
while he remained a commoner, and became at length a
distinguished ornament, when the character of the times
seemed to him to call for his earnest exertions, to the lower
House of Parliament.

In March, 1665, he was one of the brilliant train of noble
volunteers who attended the Duke of York in his expedition
against the Dutch, and braved the greatest hazards with a
carelessness of his person which at once fixed the reputation
of his courage. Another example of this ardent disposition
occurred soon after on an occasion very different. He had
accompanied his friend Mr., afterwards Duke of, Montagu in
his embassy to Paris in 1669, where, on some sudden offence
received at the opera from three officers of the royal guard,
and instantly resented by a blow, all at once drew on him,
and, in a most resolute defence of himself, he received from
them several severe wounds, and narrowly escaped with his
life; nor was his gallantry less remarkable in afterwards
interceding on their behalf with Louis the Fourteenth, who
had resolved to punish them severely for so scandalous an
outrage. That there was more to his credit in these anec-
dotes than has reached us is evident from the fact that we
find in the letters of Sir William Temple, then the English
minister at the Hague, one to this young Nobleman, expressly
for the purpose of complimenting and congratulating him
on the fame that he had acquired in these affairs, "which I

FIRST DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE.

do," says Sir William, "not only as a private person, and
servant of your Lordship's, who wishes you all increase of
honour that may not be bought too dear, but withal as
a public minister, who ought ever to consider above all
things the honour of our nation, and knows that the com-
plexion of it in times of peace is very much either mended or
spoiled in the eyes of strangers by the actions and carriage of
particular persons abroad. I can assure your Lordship all
that can be said to your advantage upon this occasion is the
common discourse here, and not disputed by the French
themselves, who say that you have been as generous in
excusing your enemies as brave in defending yourself," &c.

It was not till some time after this period that the Lord
Cavendish, which was the title then borne by him, seems
first to have taken any conspicuous part in public affairs.
In the fermentation of parties, which now rose to the most
extravagant height, it could not be reasonably expected that
a spirit so ardent should remain long inactive. He joined,
firmly but decorously, in all the measures of those who
opposed the court, and what was called the Popish party.
A feud which in the summer of 1677 occurred between the
King and the Commons, on their invasion of the Royal Pre-
rogative by addressing his Majesty to enter into an alliance
with the States-General, and which was met by Charles with
an equivalent breach of their privileges, in commanding their
Speaker to adjourn the House, gave occasion to Cavendish to
make his first important display there. He opposed the
adjournment with vehemence, and moved a resolution decla-
ratory of the independence of the Commons in such cases,
which would have been carried had not the Speaker pre-
vented it by adopting the coarse expedient of quitting the
chair. In the same session he gave a remarkable proof of
his spirit and perseverance in sifting to the utmost, and at
length successfully, a mistake made by one of the tellers on
a division very important to his party, in which the numbers,
though reported equal, had in fact given him a majority,

4 WILLIAM CAVENDISH,

This activity, and the address with which he employed it,
recommended him powerfully to his political friends, and
they presently filled his hands with business. In the first
session of a new Parliament, which met in October, 1678, he
was named to serve on no fewer than eight committees — for
privileges and elections — for framing an address to the
Throne for the removal of all Popish recusants beyond a
distance of ten miles from London — for examining into the
cause of the death of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey — for preparing
a bill to prohibit the sitting of Papists in Parliament — to
examine Mr. Coleman, then imprisoned in Newgate, respect-
ing what was called the Popish Plot — to confer with the
Lords on the same subject — to form a representation to the
King of " the danger likely to arise by the non-observance of
the laws made for the preservation of the peace and safety of
the kingdom" — and, finally, on the committee appointed to
manage the impeachment of the Earl of Danby. In the
course of these various engagements he became necessarily
a frequent, and very soon an eminent speaker. His addresses
to the House were distinguished not less by soundness of
argument, and purity and variety of expression, than by
a fluency of utterance which rivetted attention, and a dignified
boldness and firmness, which however never strayed beyond
the limits either of good manners or good humour. Thus
highly qualified for a popular leader, he became so formidable
an adversary that when Charles, in the spring of 1679, pro-
fessed to discontinue the use of a Cabinet, and to govern
solely by the advice of an open Privy Council of thirty-five,
of whom five were to be members of the House of Com-
mons, the Lord Cavendish, as a mark of peculiar grace and
confidence, was summoned as one of the latter number.

From a mixture of opposite partisans, which seems to have
been the main principle on which this Council was founded,
no union could have been reasonably expected but through a
preference of self-interest to honour and good faith, and the
event presently fell out accordingly. On the King's resolute

FIRST DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE. 5

determination in the following year to resist the bill for the
exclusion of the Duke of York from the succession, and his
consequent dissolution of the Parliament, several of the
Members, and among them the Lord Cavendish, requested the
King's leave to retire from their new charge, to which
Charles, in his characteristic way, answered " with all my
heart." Their secession seems to have been the signal for a
sudden access of fury to the leaders of the opposition, who
from that hour began to associate themselves with the known
enemies of the State, and plunged into the most desperate
designs. Cavendish was of this number, and attended their
secret meetings, with his dear friend the Lord Russell, with
whom he had quitted the Council, but he happily with-
drew himself from them in time. " In some one assignation,"
says Bishop Kennet, who has left us a few particulars of his
life, " he is said to have condemned a bold overture which
was then made, and to have declared with great earnestness
when he came back that he would never more go amongst
them." This resolution appears to have been dictated more
by principle than prudence, for, though he kept it rigidly, he
ceased not to acknowledge, and even cherish, them as private
friends, nor did he in any degree relax the activity nor the
severity of his public conduct. On the trial for high treason
of Lord Russell, which soon followed, Cavendish attended,
and gave the most favourable testimony in his power ; and,
after the condemnation of that unhappily misguided noble-
man, sent to him, by Sir James Forbes, a proposal to enable
him to escape, by coming to him in the Tower ; exchanging
habits ; and remaining there in his stead, a voluntary pri-
soner—an offer yet more grandly refused than tendered. He,
last of Russell's friends, took leave of the noble sufferer, who,
on approaching the block, returned a few steps to add to his
final farewell a word of exhortation to a religious life.

To recur to circumstances more immediately personal and
characteristic — on the horrible assassination about this time
of Mr. Thynne, who had been one of his most intimate

6 WILLIAM CAVENDISH,

friends, he used his utmost efforts to bring the murderers to
condign punishment ; and, on the scandalous acquittal of
Count Konigsmark, the instigator of the crime, he challenged
the Count to a decision of the question of his innocence or
guilt by the old chivalrous appeal to single combat, and a
noble Peer was the bearer of the message. Konigsmark had
avoided his vengeance by a timely flight. The same gene-
rous ardour which prompted him to that romantic proposal,
led him soon after into a very serious private difficulty. He
had received an insult within the verge of the Court from
a Colonel Colepeper, whom he had brought to submission,
and pardoned, on condition that he should never more
appear at Whitehall, The Colonel, however, after the acces-
sion of James, whose disfavour to Cavendish was now noto-
rious, ventured thither again, when that nobleman, who had
lately become, by the death of his father, Earl of Devonshire,
caned him, and led him out of the Presence Chamber by the
nose. It is needless to observe here on the severities with
which a personal assault in such a place were then legally
visited. The Earl was immediately prosecuted, on an in-
formation in the King's Bench, and in a spirit of revenge
which reflects infinitely more discredit on the memory of
James than most of the charges with which it is usually
loaded, was fined thirty thousand pounds, and, in default of
instant payment, was immediately committed, in defiance of
his privilege, to the prison of that Court. He took, however,
an early opportunity of escaping, but it was only to go to
his own seat of Chatsworth, where, says Kennet, " upon the
news of his arrival, the sheriff of Derbyshire had a precept to
apprehend him, and bring him, with his posse to London ;
but he invited the sheriff, and kept him a prisoner of honour,
till he had compounded for his own liberty, by giving bond
to pay the full sum ; which bond had this providential dis-
charge— that it was found among the papers of King James,
and given up by King William."

He continued at Chatsworth, in as much privacy as his

FIRST DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE. 7

rank could allow, for the rest of that reign, apparently solely
employed in forming that superb seat which remains there,
a monument not less of his taste and judgment than of the
grandeur of his mind, and his utter contempt of the usual
applications of great wealth. The most important occupa-
tion, however, of his retirement was in the concerting with
a few other great men of his party the measures which led
soon after to the introduction of a new Prince, and a new
form of government. Few persons had a larger share in
the accomplishment of that remarkable change than himself,
and no one acted in it with more consistency and firmness.
At length, on the landing of the Prince of Orange, this
nobleman was one of the first to make a public declaration
of his sentiments and determination, first at Derby, and then
at Nottingham, where he received the Princess, afterward
Queen, Anne, on her deserting her father, and escorted her,
with a military guard, to her husband, Prince George of
Denmark, then at Oxford. On the following day he hastened
privately to London, and, strenuously joining those Peers
who had assembled to move William to take on him the
administration of public affairs, was presently after a main
instrument in compassing that grand preliminary to the
revolution, the vote of the Convention Parliament which
declared the government to be abdicated, and the throne
vacant — the rest followed as of course.

This nobleman was now, very deservedly, one of the first
objects of the gratitude of the new rulers. On the fourteenth
of February, 1689, he was sworn of their Privy Council ; was
immediately after appointed Lord Steward of the Royal
Household ; and, on the third of April following, received the
Order of the Garter. The station of Lord Lieutenant of the
county of Derby, of which he had been deprived by Charles
the Second, was also restored to him ; the proceedings against
him on the affair of Colepeper were reversed by Parliament,
and voted a high breach of privilege ; and the judges who had
pronounced the sentence of fine and imprisonment were called

8 WILLIAM CAVENDISH, FIRST DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE.

to the Lords' Bar, and severely questioned and censured. At
the commencement of the year 1691, William, on attending
the Congress at the Hague, chose him as his chief attendant
thither, and he was afterwards present with that Prince at
the siege of Mons. On the twelfth of May, 1694, his honours
and distinctions were at length completed by his elevation
to the dignities of Marquis of Hartington and Duke of Devon-
shire. Anne, on her accession, confirmed him in the enjoy-
ment of his offices, and treated him with distinguished grace,
but employed him in no affair of state, with the exception of
appointing him a Commissioner for the Union with Scotland,
the completion of which he barely survived, for he died on
the eighteenth of August, 1 707, and was buried with his an-
cestors in the church of All-hallows, in Derby, leaving, by
his only lady, Mary, second daughter of James Butler, first
Duke of Ormond, two sons ; William, his successor ; James,
who married, and was seated at Staley Park, in Devonshire ;
and Elizabeth, wife of Sir John Wentworth, of Broadsworth,
in the county of York. He had also another son, the second
born, Henry, who also married, and left issue, but died before
his father.

Of his Grace's literary talents and remains little need be
said. His known works, with the addition of a very few of
his published speeches, are comprised in two poems : the
one, an ode on*the death of Queen Mary ; the other, bearing
the singular title of " an Allusion to the Bishop of Cambray's
Supplement to Homer." On the former, Dry den went so far
as to say that it was the best of the many effusions in verse
that the melancholy event had called forth ; and the " Allu-
sion," &c. were it better known, would probably be thought
to merit praise less qualified. He was, however, a better
critic than poet, and the aristocracy of wits who adorned his
time, particularly the Earl of Roscommon, are said to have
been in the almost constant habit of submitting their compo-
sitions to his taste and judgment.

Y OQDQLIPIHIIIN

EARL OF GODOLPHIK
OBJ7I2,

SIDNEY GODOLPHIN,

EARL OF GODOLPHIN.

BURNET calls him " the silentest and modestest man that
ever was bred in a Court ;" and he says besides, after sum-
ming up the faults and excellences of his character, that,
" all things being laid together, he was one of the worthiest
and wisest men that has been employed in our time." This
encomium, if it stood alone, might be suspected of partiality,
but its justice cannot be doubted, when it is recollected that
no man's public character was more severely scrutinized after
his fall from power than Lord Godolphin's ; that the accusa-
tions against him were completely refuted ; and that even
his enemies admitted his uprightness and integrity to be
beyond all suspicion.

Lord Godolphin was descended from an honourable Cornish
family, more remarkable for their loyalty than for the extent
of their possessions. He was the third son of Sir Francis
Godolphin, and at an early age, impelled by that devotedness
to the royal cause which was common to his house, and which
some of its older members had evinced in the field, he entered
as a page into the service of Charles the Second, when, as
Prince of Wales, or rather as Duke of Cornwall, he visited
that county. Having shared the ill fortunes of his royal
patron, he was, on the restoration to the throne, appointed one
of the Grooms of the King's Bedchamber, and by the assi-
duity and discretion which he displayed in that office, drew
from Charles, no common observer of men's characters, the
praise that he was never in nor out of the way. In all the

10 SIDNEY GODOLPHIN,

vicissitudes which the Stuart family afterwards endured, his
respect and affection for them remained undiminished and
unchanged ; and, although his own destiny and theirs com-
bined to cast him into a different sphere of action, he never
forgot the House to which his early services had been pledged,
and whose favours had placed him in the road to fortune. In
the first parliament after the Restoration he represented the
borough of Helston, in his native county, and soon took an
active part in public business, for which his talents were
admirably adapted. In 1678 he was intrusted with a diplo-
matic mission to Holland, and in the year following, when, on
the disgrace of the Earl of Danby, the Treasury was put into
commission, he was appointed one of the two commissioners.
He discharged the duties of this office creditably to himself,
and advantageously to the nation. His manners were so
reserved and taciturn, that at first he was little liked by the
people in office ; but the regularity and despatch which he
introduced into the public business of his department, and
the incorruptness with which he administered it soon inspired
general confidence, and Burnet says, " he was now considered
one of the ablest men that belonged to the Court." He was
soon after called to the Privy Council. His desire to avert
the evils which were even then foreseen, from the tendency
of the Duke of York's conduct, and probably a wish to spare
Charles some of the pain which that conduct caused him
during the latter part of his life, induced Godolphin to vote
for the Bill of Exclusion, and to advise the King to send his
brother back to Scotland. In April 1684, on the dismissal of
Sir Leoline Jenkins, he was appointed Secretary of State, a
post which he relinquished on being raised to that of First
Commissioner of the Treasury, in the business of which he
had now gained considerable experience. At the same time he
was raised to the Upper House of Parliament, by the title of
Baron Godolphin of Rialton, in Cornwall. That the part he
had taken in the affair of the exclusion had given no lasting
offence to James was evident, from that monarch having

EARL OF GODOLPHIN. 11

appointed him, on his accession to the Throne, Chamberlain to
the Queen. In this employment he conceived that passionate
attachment for his unfortunate mistress which he ever after
expressed, and which exposed him to the sneers of Swift.
The tone of his gallantry, which was perhaps some centuries
too late for the times in which he lived, seems to have been
of that chivalrous kind which invested the objects of its
devotion with a more than mortal perfection, and gave to
the fervour of love all the solemnity of idolatrous worship.
This foible was evident in the respectful consideration which
he displayed for the Queen's wishes, by transmitting her
from England such presents as he thought would please her
most, and by keeping up a constant correspondence with
her, after she had taken up her abode at St. Germain's.
When James had brought about the crisis of his fate, Lord
Godolphin was one of the few persons distinguished by his
favour, and enriched by his bounty, who adhered to him
in his adversity. He was commissioned by the King, with
Lords Halifax and Nottingham, to treat with the Prince of
Orange on his landing; and, although James's panic flight
sealed his own ruin, and frustrated the negociations of his
friends, Lord Godolphin is said to have discharged the diffi-
cult trust reposed in him with great prudence and discre-
tion. True to the same principles of loyalty to the Stuarts,
he opposed the propositions for declaring the throne abdicated
by James, and for interrupting the hereditary succession,
and voted in favour of a regency.

The decided part he had taken in these measures did not,
however, prevent his new master from placing in him the
confidence which his character and talents deserved. He
was named one of the Privy Council, and again appointed one
of the Commissioners of the Treasury. In 1695 he was one
of the seven Lords Justices, in whom the administration of
public affairs was vested during the King's absence, and in
1696, on the discovery of Sir John Fen wick's projected plot,
he resigned his place. Fenwick, as a last effort to preserve

12 SIDNEY GODOLPHIN,

his life, made some discoveries in which it was supposed he
had denounced Lord Godolphin, and others, as having
favoured, if they had not actually engaged in, his scheme.
The strong affection which Godolphin was known to enter-
tain, in common with a great many other persons of influence,
for the House of Stuart, renders it probable that there was
some ground for this accusation. It is notorious that he, as
well as the Duke of Marlborough, was, at a later period,
engaged in a correspondence with the exiled family ; and the
proposition for restoring them to the Throne, instead of con-
tinuing the regal dignity in the Hanoverian line, seemed
once at least to have been favoured by Queen Anne. Either
from a consciousness that he had laid himself open to the
charge of being disaffected to William, or, as has been
thought, at the insidious suggestion of Lord Sunderland, who
desired to have him removed, Lord Godolphin at this time
threw up his employment.

There had been a close and friendly intimacy of many years
between Lord Godolphin and Lord Marlborough, which was
strengthened in 1698 by the marriage of Francis, the son of
the former, with Lady Henrietta Churchill, who afterwards
succeeded to her father's title as Duchess of Marlborough.
Lord Godolphin's attachment to the celebrated Duchess,
Sarah, for whose talents and character he had a great respect,
although the impetuosity of her temper occasionally put his
complaisance to severe trials, was another bond of union be-
tween them. Marlborough, who knew his ability in the dis-
charge of the high post he had held, and who had the firmest
reliance on his friendship, prevailed upon him again to enter
the public service in 1700, on the formation of a new minis-
try ; and, on the accession of Queen Anne, made his friend's
acceptance of the office of Lord High Treasurer the condition
of his assuming the command of the troops abroad. Godolphin
would have declined this employment, but the entreaties of
Marlborough, who positively refused to engage in operations
the success of which must depend on the punctuality of

EARL OP GODOLPHIN. 13

supplies, unless the management of the Treasury were placed
in his hands, overcame his scruples. The manner in which
Lord Godolphin directed the finances of the country proved
the justice of Marlborough's estimate of his character, and
reflected the highest praise on himself, while it gained him
such entire confidence with the monied interest that the pub-
lic credit was raised to a high pitch, and he was enabled to
supply all the wants of the government with certainty, and
upon more advantageous terms than had ever been made
before. It was by his suggestion that the Queen was induced .
to subscribe one hundred thousand pounds out of her civil
list towards the expenses of the war, a measure which contri-
buted greatly to her popularity, and encouraged the people to
bear their burthens with less discontent : he is said, too, to
be entitled to the praise of having induced her to discontinue
the pernicious practice of selling places.

In 1706 he was advanced to the dignities of Earl of
Godolphin and Viscount Rialton. The part which he took
respecting the union with Scotland, exposed him to the
animadversions of the party who opposed that measure, but
the successes of Marlborough abroad, and his own credit at
home, raised their joint influence so high, that their enemies
saw that little was to be gained by attacking either. The
result of the general election in 1705 increased their power;
and the project which Godolphin had formed, in conjunction
with Marlborough, for reconciling the party differences of the
Whigs and Tories, would probably have succeeded but for
the treachery of one in whom they had both implicitly
confided. Mr. Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford, had
been brought into office by their influence, and while they
were endeavouring to prevail on the Queen, whose tory
partialities were at this time very violent, to conciliate the
Whigs by the distribution of church patronage among their
party, Harley was plotting, by means of private conferences
with the Queen, to which he was admitted through the
agency of her intriguing favourite, Mrs. Masham, to overthrow

14 SIDNEY GODOLPHIN,

their power, and to establish that of the Tories. For a long
time both leaders refused to listen to the reports which got
abroad on this subject ; Marlborough was the first to enter-
tain suspicions, but the earnest and solemn protestations
which Harley made of his own innocence, and of respect and
attachment to them, induced them to believe that the calum-
nies against him were the mere inventions of their common
enemies. When at length the proofs of his duplicity were
forced upon them, and it was impossible to doubt further,
Lord Godolphin sent Harley a reproachful message by the
Attorney-General ; this produced from him a most submissive
letter, in which, with matchless effrontery, he still endea-
voured to keep up the delusion, and deprecated the resent-
ment of the man he had attempted to betray. To this Lord
Godolphin replied by the following laconic note : " I have
received your letter, and am very sorry, for what has
happened, to lose the good opinion I had so much inclination
to have of you. I am very far from having deserved it from
you. God forgive you," &c. &c. He refused to appear at
the Privy Council while Harley held a seat there ; and
persisted with so much firmness, notwithstanding the entrea-
ties of the Queen, with whom Harley was a great favourite,
that he was at length dismissed. But the determination
which Harley had formed to establish the power of the Tory
party by the demolition of the existing ministry was increased
by his recent detection. Mrs. Masham's intrigues were
renewed, and the Queen was persuaded that by intrusting
the government to the Tories she should increase her popu-
larity, and relieve herself from the anxieties which the
continuance of the war and the state of the nation had
occasioned. The libellous sermon of Dr. Sacheverel, in which
he had attacked the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Sunderland,
and Lord Godolphin, particularly the latter, whom he desig-
nated under the character of Volpone, was now raised into
an undeserved importance by these lords insisting on his
impeachment. The consequence, by proving the power of

EARL OF GODOLPHIN. 15

the Tories, was destructive of the ministry ; and how far the
sentence fell short of what they expected is evident from a
passage in one of Lord Godolphin's letters, written just after
it was pronounced. " So all this bustle and fatigue ends in
no more but a suspension of three years from the pulpit, and
burning his sermon at the Old Exchange." This was not
the last of the mortifications Lord Godolphin was to expe-
rience, and which embittered the latter days of a life that
had been spent usefully and honourably in the service of his
country. On the thirteenth of April, 1710, the ascendancy
of his opponents was placed beyond doubt, by the Queen's
appointing the Duke of Shrewsbury to the office of Lord
Chamberlain, while the Duke of Marlborough was abroad,
and Lord Godolphin at Newmarket. When this news first
reached him, he wrote a firm and somewhat angry remon-
strance to the Queen ; but was induced to qualify the latter
part of his latter, and committed the still more culpable
weakness of remaining in office after so gross an affront had
been passed upon him. The determination of his enemies to
drive him from a post which he could not prevail on himself
to resign, at the time when he might have done so with a
good grace, became daily more apparent. Although he
retained the name of minister, the authority which should
accompany it was gone ; his suggestions were received with
coolness and neglect; insults were unsparingly heaped on
him ; and some persons known to be most attached to him were
unceremoniously dismissed from their offices. A pretext
was only wanting to complete his removal, and this he soon
furnished, by firmly opposing in council, and in the Queen's
presence, the proposition for dissolving the Parliament, when
he expressed his determination to retire before such a reso-
lution could be made public. Soon after this, on the seventh
of August, 1710, the Queen wrote to him a most unkind and
undeserved note of dismissal, in which she affected to complain
of a change that had taken place in his behaviour; and
reproached him especially for what he had said in the

16 SIDNEY GODOLPHIN,

council, and which made it impossible for her to continue
him longer in her service. Her letter concludes thus : " I
will give you a pension of four thousand pounds a year ; and
I desire that instead of bringing the staff to me, you will
break it, which, I believe, will be easier to us both."

The Treasury was again put into commission, and Mr.
Harley appointed the chief commissioner. The reputation of
the new ministry was to be raised at the expense of that which
had been displaced; the national debt was obviously the
most convenient subject for this purpose, and to the Lord
Treasurer was imputed the whole blame of having incurred
that debt. The celebrated Henry St. John attacked him
with great virulence, and he was ably defended by Mr.,
afterwards Sir Robert, Walpole. It was found impossible to
bring any specific accusation against him ; but, after a long
inquiry, the House of Commons passed an angry vote to the
effect that there "appeared a deficiency of thirty-five millions
in the public accounts. A motion was made for printing the
report, but negatived, because it would have made disclosures
which would have exculpated Lord Godolphin, and exposed
some of the persons whom the new ministry were inclined to
favour. Mr. Walpole afterwards published a pamphlet called
" The Thirty-five Millions accounted for," in which he
triumphantly exposed the fallacy of the charge that had been
been made against the Lord Treasurer. He proved some of
the accounts included in it to have belonged to the reigns of
Charles the Second, James the Second, and William ; and
that the real sum for which the late ministry ought to
account did not exceed seven millions and a half. Three
millions, part of this sum, had been disbursed for extra-
ordinaries during the war, and accounts were brought in for
the remainder after the report was made. These explanations
produced a re-action in public opinion ; the absurdity of the
charge was manifest, and that the integrity of the Lord
Treasurer's administration was generally admitted even by
his enemies, cannot be more forcibly evinced than by the

EARL OF GODOLPHIN. 17

fact that Swift felt it necessary to qualify his censure of
Lord Godolphin by saying, that what he complained of was
" possibly by neglect ; for I think he cannot be accused of
corruption." It was a sense of gratitude for Walpole's
effective vindication of his conduct that induced Lord Godol-
phin to recommend " that young man " to the Duchess of
Marlborough with his dying breath. He did not long survive
his disgrace, but died, after an excruciating illness, in the
hbuse of the Duke of Marlborough, at St. Albans, on the
fifteenth of September, 1710 ; leaving, after having been in
the Treasury, with few intervals, for more than thirty years,
a very moderate fortune. He is said to have been solemn in
deportment, and difficult of access ; but it is not denied that
he was the same to all men : that he was a man of honour ;
and that if he was slow to promise, he was sure, having
promised, to perform. He was much addicted to play, for
which he made the ingenious if not satisfactory excuse, that
he resorted to it " because it delivered him from the obliga-
tion to talk much." By his wife, Margaret, daughter of
Colonel Thomas Blague, he had issue one son, Francis,
married to Lady Henrietta Churchill, who succeeded to her
father's title. The last-mentioned nobleman (after the death
of his only son, William, Marquis of Blandford, in 1731,
without male issue) was created Baron Godolphin of Helston,
in 1735, with remainder to the issue male of his uncle Henry
Godolphin, provost of Eton college. He died in January,
1766, and was succeeded by Francis, son of that uncle, who
dying without issue in 1785, the title became extinct.

E,«

FIRST DUKE OF LEEDS
OB, 1712,

THOMAS OSBORNE,

FIRST DUKE OF LEEDS,

WAS the only surviving son of Sir Edward Osborne, Baro-
net, and Vice-president of the North under the Earl of
Stratford, by his second wife, Anne, daughter of Thomas
Walmysley, of Dunkinhalgh, in the county of Lancaster, and
widow of William Middleton, of Stockeld, in Yorkshire. The
fortunes of his family originated in commerce. Edward
Osborne, said to have been of Kentish extraction, was
placed, when a youth, in the trade of Sir William Hewet,
one of the most eminent and wealthy merchants of London,
who had an only daughter ; and there is a tradition, probably
correct, that when very young, playing in her nurse's arms,
in her father's house on London Bridge, she sprang out of a
window into the river, and was, with the greatest difficulty
and danger, saved by young Osborne, to whom, in gratitude,
her father afterwards gave her in marriage, together with the
whole of his great possessions. To this Edward, the nobleman
who will be the subject of this sketch, was great grandson.

He was born in 1631, and probably bred in his father's
family and neighbourhood in the country, since we do not
meet with his name in any of the usual sources of academical
intelligence. We are told that he was distinguished, even in
very early youth, for a warm devotion to the royal cause,
which indeed might be naturally expected, as Sir Edward,
on the breaking out of the grand rebellion, was appointed
Lieutenant-general of the King's forces in his Vice-presi-
dency, or became so in right of that office. We learn too
that the son was afterwards actively and usefully engaged,
' c 2

20 THOMAS OSBORNE,

but we are not informed how, in forwarding the restoration,
soon after which he was brought to Court by the Duke of
Buckingham, who was about his own age, and whose great
possessions in Yorkshire, as well as Sir Edward's official
character, had necessarily produced much intercourse, and at
length intimacy, with his father. The Duke, who was then
in the highest favour, presented and recommended him to the
King, by whom he was knighted, and became about the same
time a member of the House of Commons. In April, 1667,
Charles, whose faithful application of the sums intrusted to
him had been somewhat doubted, sought to remove such
jealousy by appointing a small number of members of each
House of Parliament commissioners for the examination of
the public accounts ; Sir Thomas Osborne, for he had now
succeeded his father, was one of them ; and it was his first
public employment.

Buckingham, the constancy of whose attachments was
almost proverbial, remained steady in his patronage of
Osborne, who on his part spared no pains in cultivating his
own prospects. He was one of the most determined sup-
porters of the measures of the Court in the House of Com-
mons, and this without any compromise of principle, for, as
we are told by Burnet, who was his implacable enemy, " he
had been always among the high Cavaliers," and the Bishop
adds "that he was a very plausible speaker," nor indeed was
it long before he became what has of more modern times
been called " manager of the House." These merits, and a
peculiar turn, the issue of a sanguine temper, for undervaluing
difficulties, recommended him powerfully to the indolent
Charles, and he became a personal favourite. His advance-
ment was now almost beyond example rapid. In 1671 he
was appointed Treasurer of the Navy ; on the third of May,
in the succeeding year, sworn of the Privy Council ; on the
nineteenth of June, 1673, still through Buckingham's earnest
recommendation, succeeded Lord Clifford in the great office
of High Treasurer ; and, on the fifteenth of August following,

FIRST DUKE OF LEEDS. 21

was created Baron Osborne, of Kiveton, in Yorkshire, and
Viscount Latimer.

This surprising elevation was not, however, obtained with-
out some just cause of reproach. Osborne purchased it of
Buckingham by giving his aid, which constant perseverance,
as well as talents, rendered very powerful, in working the
downfall of the virtuous Clarendon. To accomplish this end
he condescended to practise very unbecoming artifices. Lord
Clarendon himself tells us that, on the first rumour of his
own favour being on the decline, Sir Thomas Osborne, a
dependant and creature of the Duke of Buckingham, " had
told many persons in the country, before the Parliament "
(of 1667) "met, that the Chancellor would be accused of
high treason, and, if he were not hanged, he would be hanged
himself:" and also that he had contrived to make the King
not only falsify his word, solemnly passed to the Duke of
York, in the Chancellor's favour, but even deny that he had
ever so pledged it. Nor were the terms on which he accepted
the Treasurership very creditable to him, for he obtained it,
as we are informed by Sir John Reresby, in his Memoirs,
under a private agreement to pay to his predecessor a moiety
of the salary. Such bargains, however, were too common in
that reign to be esteemed very disgraceful.

His services proved highly acceptable to the King, who, on
the twenty-seventh of June, 1674, advanced him to the title
of Earl of Danby. The nature of them remained for some
time unknown, but he became unpopular before his principal
faults were disclosed. Even in the following year he was
attacked in the House of Commons, and charged, as Burnet
obscurely expresses it, with " inverting the usual methods of
the Exchequer," but his accusers were left in a minority.
In the same session he lost many friends by proposing a test
of loyalty and fidelity to the Crown and Church, which, after
long and warm debates, was voted by the Peers, and, though
intended to be taken but voluntarily and unconditionally,
gave little less offence to the Catholics than to the disaffected

22 THOMAS OSBORNE,

In the succeeding session he suffered a great mortifica-
tion by the refusal of the Commons to grant a supply to
the Crown for the specific purpose of replacing various sums
which the King had taken by anticipation from his ordinary
revenue. At length a violent suspicion arose that he had
become the chief manager of those secret pecuniary negocia-
tions with the King of France, through which it had for some
time been strongly suspected that Charles had rendered him-
self in a great measure independent of his Parliament, and
Danby strove to remove that opinion by openly inveighing
against the French, which he did so naturally as to provoke
a warm discussion with Rouvigny, their minister here, who
charged him with injuring the interests of both Princes. The
artifice, however, did not succeed with those for whom he
meant it, and the doubts remained unallayed. At length he
found that the only means by which he could avoid the utter
ruin of his credit, with all its fearful consequences, would be
to adopt sincerely the policy which he had of late pretended
to hold, and to detach the King from his connection with
France ; and this he had the address to accomplish, and
publish most effectually, by persuading Charles to join the
allies, and not only to invite their leader, the Prince of
Orange, to London at the end of the campaign of 1677, but
to give him the Princess Mary, eldest daughter of the Duke
of York, in marriage.

The effect, however, of these expedients was but transient.
Not many months had passed when a disagreement occurred
between the Lord Treasurer and Ralph (afterwards Duke of)
Montagu, who had been for some years Charles's ambassador
at Paris, and was therefore necessarily privy to Danby's
transactions with that court, and possessed of many of his
most confidential letters. Dreading an accusation from him,
Danby easily prevailed on the King, who was even more
interested than himself, to denounce Montagu to the House of
Commons as guilty of certain traitorous correspondence with
the Court of Rome, and, in order to repossess the Treasurer

FIRST DUKE OF LEEDS. 23

of those letters, to give sudden order for the seizure of his
papers, the most important of which Montagu had pre-
viously used the precaution to place in other hands. The
charge was accordingly made, and largely inquired into, when
Montagu produced in his defence, among other documents,
two of those letters, in which Danby had distinctly commis-
sioned him to pledge to the King of France Charles's most
strenuous endeavours to procure a peade, on condition that
Louis should pay to him annually three hundred thousand
pounds for three years, adding, with a gratuitous imprudence,
that this arrangement would save so long the King from the
inconvenience of meeting a Parliament, and a strict caution
to conceal the whole from the King's Secretary of State, who
was, in fact, the only proper medium for diplomatic corres-
pondence. After a long and violent debate, not on the fact,
of which there could be no doubt, but on the legal character
of his offence, Danby was, on the twenty-first of December,
1678, impeached of high treason. The articles of impeach-
ment, which were six, were immediately sent up to the
Lords, with a request that he might be committed to custody,
which they refused, and entered, with much heat, and variety
of opinion, into a long discussion of the nature of his offences,
and the proposed method of prosecution ; while the King,
enraged and mortified by the disclosure of his secret, and the
stain which it had cast on his credit, determined to protect
Danby, and stopped all proceedings for the present by pro-
roguing, and then dissolving, the Parliament. " On the
twentieth of January," (1678, 0. S.) says Sir John Reresby,
which was ten days before the prorogation, " I spoke both
with the King and the Duke, who both declared they would
adhere to my Lord Treasurer." The new Parliament met in
the following March, and, the Commons showing an inclina-
tion to revive the prosecution, Reresby tells us again that
"the King, coming to the House of Lords on the twenty-
third of that month, informed both Houses that it was by his
particular order the Lord Treasurer had written the two

24 THOMAS OSBORNE,

letters produced by Montagu ; that it was not the Lord Trea-
surer who had concealed the plot, but that it was himself
who told it his lordship from time to time, as he thought fit.
His Majesty then declared he had granted the said nobleman
a full pardon ; and that, if occasion required, he would give
it him again ten times over : that, however, he intended to
lay him aside from his employments, and to forbid him the
Court." The House of Commons now attacked him with
renewed fury, denying the validity of the King's pardon ;
while the Lords, as a middle course, proposed to vote his
committal ; to connive at his escape ; and then to pass an
act for his banishment. All this was done accordingly, but
the Commons, as soon as he had disappeared, proceeded to a
bill of attainder, and, on the seventeenth of April, 1679, he
surrendered himself, and was committed to the Tower. Great
confusion now arose. Danby demanded an immediate trial,
and determined to plead the King's pardon ; the Commons
insisted that the Bishops had no jurisdiction on charges of
treason, and must not be admitted to vote ; angry conferences
were held between the two Houses ; and at length Charles
cut short these, and some other proceedings which were just
at that time very irksome to him, by another prorogation and
dissolution of Parliament.

Danby, however, was suffered to continue a prisoner, for-
gotten, as it seemed, by the King, and disliked by the Duke,
both of whom were now occupied in avoiding the peril of
new plots, and in practising new plans of policy, nor was he
even mentioned in either of the two Parliaments which sat
during his restraint. He remained in the Tower for five
years, making frequent applications in vain to be admitted to
bail. Sir John Reresby tells us that he often visited him
there, and was surprised at the philosophic patience and
equanimity which he manifested during his persecution, for
such it certainly was, let his demerits have been what they
might. At length he prevailed on the Judges to hear his
case argued, and, on the twelfth of February, 1684, N. S.,

FIRST DUKE OF LEEDS. 25

they severally delivered their opinions, and concurred unani-
mously that he ought to be bailed, when he was bound in
twenty thousand pounds to appear in the House of Peers in
the succeeding session, and the Dukes of Somerset and
Albemarle, and the Earls of Oxford and Chesterfield, became
his sureties in five thousand each. "He came the same
day," says Reresby, "to kiss his Majesty's hand in the bed-
chamber, when I happened to be present. The King received
him very kindly, and when the Earl complained of his long
imprisonment, his Majesty told him he knew it was against
his consent, which his lordship thankfully acknowledged, but
they had no manner of private discourse together."

Charles survived this interview not many months, and in
the following short and unhappy reign Danby's name is
scarcely mentioned till its conclusion was at hand, when we
find him a party in those secret consultations of eminent
persons which were held at the Earl of Shrewsbury's, in
which the plan for the great change which was at hand was
conceived and matured. He entered into it with resolution
and sincerity ; framed the Prince of Orange's declaration ;
and, as soon as William had determined on the invasion of
England, took measures for raising troops in Yorkshire,
where his influence lay, to aid that enterprise should it be
necessary. The Prince came, and was successful, but the
Princess remained in Holland during the discussions of
different schemes for vacating and then filling the throne, in
which some persons were found bold and profligate enough
to propose that he should be placed on it independently, to
the exclusion of the daughters of King James. Danby, stung
perhaps with remorse for the part he had already taken, sent
privately to the Princess, " and gave her," says Burnet, " an
account of the present state of the debate, and desired to
know her own sense of the matter ; for, if she desired it, he
did not doubt that he should be able to carry it for setting
her alone on the Throne ; but she made him a very sharp
answer ; and, not content with this, she sent both Lord

26 THOMAS OSBORNE,

Danby's letter, and her answer, to the Prince. William bore
this," adds Burnet, " with his usual phlegm, for he did not
expostulate with the Earl of Danby on it, but continued still
to employ and to trust him." That nobleman indeed was
one of a very few whom he desired specially to attend him a
few days after, to hear from himself the terms on which
he would accept the Crown, together with the incredible
declaration of his indifference as to the possession of it upon
any.

Danby indeed received immediately further and greater
proofs of favour. He was appointed to the distinguished
station of President of the Council, and, on the twentieth of
April, 1689, advanced to the dignity of Marquis of Caermar-
then. He now, in spite of painful experience, plunged again
into the mazes of party and intrigue ; became envious of the
favour enjoyed by the Marquis of Halifax, whose disgrace he
sought and accomplished ; and presently after was attacked
in his turn by weapons the edge of which it was supposed
had been blunted by time — the old subjects of the impeach-
ment and pardon were revived in the House of Peers, but
the design of his enemies was warded off for the time by the
sudden discovery of a plot to restore King James, and the
capture of Lord Preston, one of the leaders in it, who had
embarked on his way to communicate personally with that
Prince, of both which services Lord Caermarthen happened
to have been the main instrument. On the fourth of May,
1694, he was created Duke of Leeds ; but in the following
year he became the object of a very serious charge — the
having accepted a sum of five thousand guineas from the
East India Company, as a price for his influence in procuring
for them a new charter. In the examination of this matter
by the House of Commons it was proved that such a sum had
been put into the hands of a third person, with instructions
to pay it for that purpose to Caermarthen, who, according to
the evidence of that person, refused to accept it, but advised
him to keep it for himself. Other mysterious and doubtful

FIRST DUKE OF LEEDS. 27

circumstances distinguished this inquiry, which ended in an
impeachment for a misdemeanor, and a demand on the part
of the Duke to be heard in justification of himself at the
Commons' bar, where he denied the accusation, and required
a speedy trial ; but the session soon after ended, and with it
the prosecution, for it was never after renewed. In 1701,
the Lords dismissed the impeachment.

Here nearly ended the political life of this nobleman, for
he had resigned the office of Lord President at the time he
was elevated to the Dukedom. It is true that he was called
to the Privy Council by Queen Anne, but he held no other
public situation. His affection however to party politics
remained with him even to the close of life, for he engaged
with ardour in the discussions on the affair of Dr. Sacheverel,
and is reported to have spoken on that occasion with little
respect of the revolution for which he had so signally striven.
He published in 1710 a volume of " Memoirs relating to the
Impeachment of Thomas, Earl of Danby, now Duke of Leeds,
in the year 1678 ;" and another, of his correspondence, in
several letters, with some statesmen, on matters connected
with the same subject. On the twenty-sixth of July, 1712,
he died at Easton in Northamptonshire, the seat of his grand-
son, the Earl of Pomfret, when on a journey to his own
mansion in Yorkshire; leaving a public character which
cannot, however briefly, be more justly summed up than in the
words of the late Lord Orford, who says " if the Earl of Danby
was far inferior in integrity to Clarendon and Southampton,
he was as much superior to Shaftesbury and Lauderdale."

The first Duke of Leeds married Bridget, second daughter
Montagu Bertie, second Earl of Lindsey, by whom he had
issue three sons, Edward, Thomas, and Peregrine, by whom,
the two elder dying before him, he was succeeded in his
titles and great estates ; and six daughters : Elizabeth, who
died unmarried ; Anne, wife, first to Robert Coke, of Hoik-
ham, in Norfolk, ancestor to the late Earl of Leicester, of
that surname, and eventually to Horatio Walpole, uncle to

28 THOMAS OSBORNE, FIRST DUKE OF LEEDS.

the first Earl of Orford, but had no issue by either ; Bridget,
married, first to Charles Fitzcharles, Earl of Plymouth, one
of the natural sons of King Charles the Second ; secondly to
Philip Bisse, Bishop of Hereford ; Catharine, to James
Herbert of Kingsey, in Bucks, son and heir of James, a
a younger son of Philip Herbert, first Earl of Pembroke arid
Montgomery ; Martha, first, to Edward Bayntun, secondly to
Charles Granville, second Earl of. Bath of his family : and
Sophia, first to Donatus, a grandson and heir to Henry
O'Brien, Earl of Thomond, and after, to William Fermor,
Lord Lempster, father to the first Earl of Pomfret.

Q HJ E E W A M

OB, 1714,

QUEEN ANNE.

THIS Princess, the last of the Stuart dynasty who occupied
the Throne of these realms, was the daughter of James the
Second, when Duke of York, by Anne Hyde, his first lady,
whose father was the eminent and virtuous Chancellor Cla-
rendon, the historian of the momentous times in which he
lived. She was born at Twickenham on the sixth of February,
1665, and as her father had not at that period abjured the
Protestant religion, a step which led to all the woes and
disasters which clouded and embittered his after life, she was
educated in the doctrines of the reformed Church. In 1683
she was married to Prince George, the presumptive heir to
the Crown of Denmark, a personage as it seems of such insig-
nificance, that little is to be inferred of his character but from
the silent neglect which it has historically experienced. On
the arrival of the Prince of Orange, if James's daughter had
been permitted to follow the inclination she manifested, she
would have adhered to the falling fortunes of her father.
Her husband continued about the King's person, and distin-
guished himself in those hours of anxiety and peril, when the
news of one misfortune crowded so fast upon the heels of
another that the Monarch had scarcely time to consider his
actual position, by only exclaiming with a listless vacuity,
" Est-il possible ? " a phrase so frequently used by him that
it had gained him a nick-name, and when, at a convenient
time he was found to have joined the multitude who had fled
the Court, the intelligence of his disaffection extorted from
the King no further expression of surprise than " Est-il

30 QUEEN ANNE.

possible gone too ! " When James learnt, as he did soon
afterwards, that his daughter had been persuaded or forced
by Lady Churchill, who had even then acquired a powerful
ascendancy over her, and by Compton, Bishop of London, to
repair to Northampton, the deserted father felt that the
measure of his afflictions was filled up, since his children had
combined with his enemies to effect his destruction.

The stern monarch who succeeded to James's abdicated
sceptre, showed little favour to the Princess or her adherents ;
and by the coldness with which he regarded her and Lord
Churchill, afterwards the great Duke of Marlborough, seemed
to consider that the child who had abandoned her parent in
his adversity, and the soldier who had betrayed his sovereign
when fortune frowned upon him, were equally objects of
suspicion. Towards the close of William's life, when the
infirmities of age were stealing upon him, and he thought
that no son of his could succeed to the power he wielded,
had begun to influence his mind, the King treated them with
more consideration, and restored them, if not to his confidence,
at least to his favour.

When the throne became again vacant in 1702, Anne,
before she ascended it, requested her father's approbation of
that step, holding out, as it is said, the prospect that her
temporary accession would pave the way to her family's
resuming their hereditary station. The indignant reply of
the monarch precluded all hope of his acquiescence. He
said that, although it might be his fate to suffer from injus-
tice, he would never authorise it by any act of his ; and
Anne is suspected to have taken upon herself the regal dig-
nity with the determination of atoning for her filial disobe-
dience by relinquishing, when a favourable opportunity should
occur, the power which she cannot be said to have willingly
usurped. Her public conduct and the legislative measures of
her reign were not, it is true, consistent with that determina-
tion ; but the bias of her secret inclinations was perfectly well
known, and while it encouraged the hopes of the adherents

QUEEN ANNE. 31

of the Stuart family, excited the strongest jealousy and
awakened the utmost vigilance of the party opposed to their
restoration. The latter had the skill or the good fortune to
turn every attempt which was made by their opponents into
the means of defeating the object of their enterprises; and it
was the painful destiny of the Queen to be forced to sanction
and confirm those laws which annihilated the expectations of
her family and crushed her own most favoured desires. The
conflict between natural affection and public duty to which
she was thus exposed was a source of constant disquiet and
mortification, and rendered her private life as full of sorrow
and suffering, as the public events of her reign were brilliant
and honourable to the national reputation.

In March, 1702, when the reign of Anne commenced, Eng-
land was divided into three principal parties ; the Jacobites,
whose hopes of the restoration of the Stuart family were yet
strong, the Tories, and the Whigs. The Queen's accession
was looked upon by each of these with satisfaction. The
two former believed that the principles to which they adhered
would receive countenance from the Queen ; the latter trusted
that their power was too well established by the events of
William's reign to suffer from the attempts of their oppo-
nents. The indolence and facility of temper which charac-
terised the new Queen laid her open to the influence of the
stronger minded Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and the
party with which she was connected, and to this influence
has been ascribed the readiness with which Anne adhered to
the principles of foreign policy which had actuated the con-
duct of the late Sovereign. The triple alliance between
England, Holland, and Germany, the object of which was to
check the ambitious designs of Louis XIV., was confirmed,
and in May, 1702, the declaration of hostilities by those
powers against France was published. Then commenced
that long contest known by the name of the war of the
succession, which had for its object to prevent the union of
the Crowns of Spain and France, and which the genius of

32 QUEEN ANNE,

Maryborough and Eugene rendered so brilliant and honourable
to the armies they directed. The battles of Hochstet, Ramil-
lies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, eclipsed the glories of Crecy
and Agincourt, and carried the renown of the British arms to
a pitch of glory which has never been surpassed.

In the year 1707, the union with Scotland, a measure
which all enlightened politicians had long advocated and
which preceding monarchs had in vain attempted to effect,
was happily accomplished. The prosperity and tranquillity
of both branches of the nation was secured, and the succes-
sion, contrary to the expectations, as well as the wishes, of
the Queen, settled in the house of Hanover. On the death
of her husband, Anne's predilection in favour of her family
began to be more openly manifested. The power which the
Duchess of Marlborough had acquired over her too easy mis-
tress, and which she had used with imprudent audacity, was
undermined by the intrigues of the Tory party. A more
obsequious favourite, in the person of Mrs. Masham, sup-
planted the imperious Duchess, and Godolphin, Sunderland,
Somers and Walpole, her Majesty's Whig Ministers, gave
way to the Tory leaders Harley and Bolingbroke, with their
nine illustrious but less eminent colleagues. Parliament was
dissolved, and in the general election which ensued, the com-
bined influence of the High Church party, which Dr. Sache-
verel's trial had roused, and of the Jacobites, returned a
large proportion of Tories to the House of Commons. The
creation at once of twelve new members of the House of
Lords ensured in that assembly a predominance of power in
favour of the new Government, and thus strengthened, a
peace was determined on, and carried into effect. The nego-
ciations for the treaty of Utrecht were prosecuted, and the
terms arranged by Bolingbroke and Prior ; but, as her reso-
lute entrance on the war at the commencement of her reign
had been induced by the authoritative counsels of the
Duchess of Marlborough, the peace by which that war was
terminated, and Europe for a time tranquillised, may be

QUEEN ANNE. 33

no less properly ascribed to the gentler insinuations of
Mrs. Masham.

The disgrace of Marlborough, and the sacrifice of Anne's
earlier friends, had not the effect of procuring for the Queen
that support which she had calculated upon from her new
adherents. Her supposed partiality for her family rendered
her an object of suspicion to a great portion of her people,
and, although she gave no more open .demonstration of that
partiality than might be fairly referred to the constitutional
moderation of her temper, and that disinclination to proceed
to extremities against those with whom nature and affection
had linked her, which was not only excusable but laudable,
her existence was embittered by the jealousies to which she
was exposed. The latter part of her life was disquieted, and?
as it should appear, her death accelerated by the disunion
which had sprung up between Harley, now Earl of Oxford,
and Bolingbroke, who, from being close allies, had become
irreconcileable foes. The ambitious and intractable spirit of
Bolingbroke alarmed the more timid and dissembling Lord
Treasurer, who complained to the Queen, and denounced his
rival as a dangerous person. The Secretary had, however,
gained an advantage which enabled him to triumph over his
former friend. That same Mrs. Masham, by whose assist-
ance Harley had in other times supplanted his opponents,
had been, or thought she had been neglected and ill used by
him. Bolingbroke courted her friendship with the utmost
assiduity, and excited her animosity against Itord Oxford,
whom she did not scruple to call "the most ungrateful
man to the Queen, and all his best friends, that ever was
born." The result of this intrigue soon became apparent.
Bolingbroke, aware of his strength, openly reproached Lord
Oxford ; accused him of betraying the Queen's honour ; of
intriguing with her apparent successor, of endeavouring to
restrict her just prerogative, and to thwart those who were
best inclined to serve her. The council board became a
scene of violent contention, in which the exasperated feelings

VII. D

34 QUEEN ANNE.

of the rival ministers led them beyond the bounds of common
decency. Scurrilous reproaches, and bitter recriminations,
which even the presence of her Majesty could not repress,
occupied the time which ought to have been spent in grave
debate. They produced, but did not end with, Lord Oxford's
dismissal ; for on the question of putting the office of Lord
Treasurer, from which he had been displaced, into commis-
sion, a discussion ensued among the Privy Councillors, at
which her Majesty assisted, and which was carried on with
great heat until two o'clock in the morning. The fatigue
and mental anxiety to which she was thus exposed threw her
into great agitation, which was immediately followed by a
serious illness. She ascribed the attack from which she was
suffering to this cause, and told the physicians attending her,
that she should not outlive it. This was on the twenty-
eighth of July, 1714. Two days afterwards she was seized
with a lethargy from which she never recovered, but remained
in a state of insensibility until the morning of the first of
August, when she expired, in the fiftieth year of her age, and
in the thirteenth of her reign.

The times in which she lived were so fertile in the pro-
duction of great men, and important events, that a brilliant
lustre was shed over them, to which, however, the Queen
personally contributed little. Before her time, at distant
intervals, Shakspeare, and Milton, and Dryden had diffused
the glorious lights emanating from the genius which inspired
them over the literature of England, but all around and be-
tween them was in comparative obscurity. In her reign,
Pope, Swift, Addison, Prior, Congreve, Steele, Gay, and a
crowd of other highly gifted men, poured out in abundant
profusion, and at nearly the same period, the treasures of
their intellect, and established for the nation a fame so great
and lasting, that posterity is justified in calling this the
Augustan age of English literature. The other arts of peace
proceeded with equal success ; commerce, manufactures, and
agriculture, felt the same favouring influence, and, joined

QUEEN ANNE. 35

to the brilliant triumphs which had attended the British
arms abroad, raised the glory of the country to a high pitch
of prosperity and renown.

The fitness of Anne for exercising the royal sway is
admitted on all hands to have been much more than ques-
tionable. Constitutionally mild, timid and indolent, she
was influenced by the insolence or the cunning of those who
surrounded her, and, until disappointment and treachery
had rendered her cautious, was the unsuspecting instrument
of their projects. When caution came at length, it brought
with it an unreasonable degree of suspicion, and she
acquired the conviction that she was exposed to impositions
without having the prudence and sagacity which were neces-
sary to distinguish between the true and the false. In private
she was a model of conjugal affection and fidelity. Neither
the cares nor the occupations of public business induced
her to omit the most assiduous attention to her husband in
the long and painful illness which ended in his death ; and
in her affection and regard for her children, of whom she
had nine, all of whom she had the misfortune to survive,
she set an example worthy of imitation by all, and most
honourable to her exalted station. Glorious and prosperous
as her reign was to the nation, her life was filled with pain
and sorrow. The early deaths of her children, and the
lamentable circumstances of her exiled family, poisoned her
existence, and presented a striking proof of the wide distinc-
tion between personal happiness and external grandeur.
Forced by circumstances into the occupation of the throne,
and bound by the dictates of conscience to the support of the
Protestant religion, she was reduced to the sad alternative of
disregarding the emotions of filial tenderness, or of violating
obligations not less solemn or imperative than those of natural
duty and affection, and perhaps of plunging a nation into
anarchy and ruin. That she attempted to reconcile these
conflicting duties, and that the attempt was in vain, formed
the heavy cloud which hung over her whole life, and has
exposed her memory to the reproaches of a party which upon

D2

36 QUEEN ANNE.

a fair consideration of the circumstances of her position she
can in no respect be said to have deserved.

Her administration of the executive power was remarkably
lenient ; and it is a fact worthy of remembrance that, not-
withstanding the troubles and violence in which the state of
politics involved her reign, no execution for high treason
occurred in its whole duration. She was punctual and exem-
plary in the discharge of her religious duties ; maintained
and encouraged the purity of the clerical profession ; and
with laudable generosity set the first example, and at her
own expense, of augmenting the livings of the poorer members
of the Church of England, to whom at this day " Queen
Anne's Bounty " is a phrase of consolation and encourage-
ment. Her income was managed with strict economy, and
so as to have sufficient funds at her disposal for indulging
that liberal benevolence in which she delighted. She pos-
sessed a good natural capacity, and very respectable accom-
plishments ; was skilled in painting and music, and had good
taste in all the fine arts. The delivery of her public speeches
was characterised by a dignified propriety, and so aided by
a remarkably pleasing voice, that they are said to have
charmed the ears of her audience. Her person was of the
middle size and well proportioned ; her hair of a dark brown
colour, her complexion ruddy, her features regular, her
countenance rather round than oval, and her general aspect
might more properly be called comely than majestic. A
generous and indulgent mistress, and a warm friend, she had
inspired all who surrounded her with feelings of sincere affec-
tion, while the paternal regard she had on all occasions mani-
fested for the welfare of her people had made her so universally
beloved that her death was more sincerely lamented than that
of perhaps any Monarch who ever sate on the throne of these
realms. Without any of those qualifications which consti-
tute what is called a great Sovereign, she was one of the best
and purest ; and was unquestionably entitled to the expres-
sive epithet of " the Good Queen Anne," by which she was
long remembered.

[B dm MET

BISHOP OF SALISBURY
OB, 1714-15,

GILBERT BURNET,

BISHOP OF SALISBURY.

THIS eminent person, with whose character and conduct
we should have been perhaps better acquainted had he spoken
less of them himself, was born in Edinburgh, on the eighteenth
of September, 1643. One of his sons, who subjoined to the
most important of his works a slight sketch of his life, which
has furnished the ground for all succeeding compilers, has
neglected to inform us even of the Christian names of his
parents, telling us only that his father was an eminent civil
lawyer, of an ancient family in the county of Aberdeen, and
his mother a sister of that furious covenanter, Archibald
Johnstone, better known by the title of Lord Warristoun,
who had sat as a Peer in Cromwell's Scottish Parliament,
and suffered death for treason in 1663. From that uncle,
and from his mother, who was also a stedfast zealot for the
same cause, Gilbert imbibed a presbyterian inclination which
certainly ever after tinged all his notions of government,
both in church and state ; while his father, from whom he
received his early education, and who had turned with disgust
from the frantic violence of the schismatics, and embraced
episcopacy, determined to place him at least in the profession
of the established church, instead of the law. to which he
had been originally destined. He had however studied for
some years in the college of Aberdeen before this resolution
was taken, where, at the age of eighteen, he passed his
examination as a probationer, or candidate for holy orders,
and, soon after, having refused a benefice which might

38 GILBERT BURNET,

probably have placed him in obscurity for life, came to
England, and visited Oxford and Cambridge, in which the
extent of his precocious talents and erudition presently gained
for him not only the intimacy but the esteem of the most
eminent persons there. Having spent six months in those
classical abodes, he embarked for Holland, and, after an
inquisitive tour through the United Provinces, and part of
France, where he spent some time in Paris, he came first to
London in the beginning of the year 1665. Here, chiefly
through the special recommendations which he had brought
from the two universities, he became known to the persons
at that time most remarkable in every branch of literature ;
enlarged and varied the scope of his studies ; and was elected
a member of the Royal Society, then a most choice fraternity,
under the presidency of his countryman, Sir Robert Murray.
Thus introduced to the world, and fortified by reputation
and connections, he returned to Scotland, and accepted from
Sir Robert Fletcher the living of Saltoun, of which he had
no sooner taken possession than he drew up, to use his own
words, a memorial of the grievances Scotland lay under by
the misconduct of its Bishops, charging them with utter
neglect of their pastoral duties, with avarice, tyranny, and
licentious lives. He sent transcripts of this singular piece,
signed with his name, to most of those prelates, and was
soon after cited before the whole body, with Sharp, Arch-
bishop of St. Andrews, at their head. Sharp proposed that
he should be deprived and excommunicated, to which the
rest, conscious of the tottering state of the Scottish hierarchy,
refused their assent ; and Burnet, who stedfastly refused to
make any apology, was at length dismissed without penalty.
This extraordinary boldness, and in a youth of the age of
two-and-twenty, procured him much fame and notoriety,
especially with the great presbyterian body, to which the
King's ministers in Scotland were at that time known to
lean, and certainly paved the way to his future advancement.
They began to consult him privately on the affairs of the

BISHOP OF SALISBURY. 39

church, and his advice, as might be expected, generally
agreed with their opinions. He had the good fortune, or the
address, to gain at once the favour of the Earl, soon after
Duke, of Lauderdale, who had the chief management of
Scottish affairs, and the Duke of Hamilton, of whose natural
power in that country it is needless to speak, though those
noblemen had been long at variance. Nay, such were the
kindness and confidence in which they mutually held him,
that he effected, as he tells us, a reconciliation between
them. Lauderdale is said to have advised with him at that
time on public affairs the most important and delicate, while
Hamilton entrusted to him the most private papers of his
family, and employed him to compose those memoirs of the
Dukes of that House, which were afterwards published under
his name. " I wrote those memoirs," says he, in his History
of his own Times, "with great sincerity;" yet he blindly
adds, even in the same breath for the sake of sullying the
memory of Charles the First with indifferent censures, "I
did indeed conceal several things that related to the King :
I left out some passages that were in his letters, in some of
which there was too much weakness, and in others too much
craft and anger." While he was occupied in that work, he
composed also, with the view of reconciling his vacillation
between the two churches, his " Modest and free Conference
between a Conformist and a Nonconformist," an apology
which left his conduct and his motives nearly where it found
them.

In 1669 he was chosen Professor of Divinity in the Univer-
sity of Glasgow, an office which he held for more than four
years, and the only one in which we at any time find him in
his own country. During that period he twice, as he tells
us, refused the offer of a Bishopric there. His activity and
his ambition prompted him to fly at higher game than Scot-
land could produce, and he secretly longed to figure in courts
and states. He made a journey therefore to London, under
the pretence, for a mere pretence it must have been, of

40 GILBERT BURNET,

seeking information from the Duke of Lauderdale wherewith to
enrich his Memoirs of the Hamiltons, and the Duke, who on
his part stood mainly in need of an able adviser and
apologist, received him cordially, in the hope of retaining
him in at least one of those characters. He returned how-
ever to Glasgow in 1671, but it was to take a wife, Margaret
Kennedy, daughter of the Earl of Cassilis, who was many
years older, as well as much richer, than himself. This
marriage, which seemed to connect him still more firmly
with the Presbyterian interest, as the lady and her family
were among its chief supporters, probably suggested to him
the prudence of making some new professions to counter-
balance the obloquy to which it might give occasion, and he
published an argument in defence of royalty and episcopacy,
with the title of " A vindication of the Authority, Con-
stitution, and Laws, of the Church and State of Scotland/'
which he dedicated to Lauderdale, a person utterly careless
of both.

He went again to London in 1673, giving out that the sole
object of his journey was to procure a licence for the pub-
lication of his biographical work, which might certainly have
been as easily obtained without his personal attendance.
His real design however was to make a vigorous effort for
preferment and distinction. Lauderdale now presented him
and his book to the King, who, as he tells us in his " History
of his own Times," immediately read some parts of it himself,
and expressed his approbation of it. If this relation be
somewhat marvellous, as it certainly is, his account, in the
next paragraph, of his second audience is absolutely incre-
dible. Take it therefore in his own words : — " He admitted
me to a long private audience that lasted above an hour, in
which I took all the freedom with him that I thought became
my profession. He. run me into a long discourse about the
authority of the church, which he thought we made much of
in our disputes with the dissenters, and then took it all away
when we dealt with the papists. I saw plainly what he

BISHOP OF SALISBURY. 41

aimed at in this ; and I quickly convinced him that there
was a great difference between an authority of government
in things indifferent, and a pretence to infallibility. — He
complained heavily of the Bishops for neglecting the true
concerns of the church, and following Courts so much, and
being so engaged in parties. I went through some other
things, in relation to his course of life, and entered into
many particulars with much freedom. He bore it all very
well, and thanked me for it. Some things he freely con-
demned, such as living with another man's wife ; other
things he excused, and thought God would not damn a man
for a little irregular pleasure. He seemed to take all I had
said very kindly, and, during my stay at court, he used me
in so particular a manner, that I was considered as a man
growing into a high degree of favour."

He was presently after introduced by the Earl of Ancram
to the Duke of York. " Lord Aucram," says he, " had a
mind to engage me to give his Royal Highness an account of
the affairs of Scotland ; but I avoided that, and very bluntly
entered into much discourse with him about matters of
religion. He said some of the common things of necessity
of having but one church, otherwise we saw what swarms of
sects did rise upon our revolt from Rome, and these had
raised many rebellions, and the shedding of much blood ;
and he named both his father's death, and his great grand-
mother's, Mary Queen of Scots. He also turned to some
passages in Heylin's History of the Reformation, which he
had lying by him, and the passages were marked, to show
upon what motives and principles men were led into the
changes that were then made. I enlarged upon all these
particulars, and showed him the progress that ignorance and
superstition had made in many dark ages, and how much
bloodshed was occasioned by the Papal pretensions, for all
which the opinion of infallibility was a source never to be
exhausted. I told him that it was a thing he could never
answer to God nor the world ; that being born and baptised

42 GILBERT BURNET,

in our church, and having his father's last orders to continue
stedfast in it, he had suffered himself to be seduced, and, as
it were, stolen out of it, hearing only one side, without
offering his scruples to our divines, or hearing what they had
to say in answer to them ; and that he was now so fixed in
his Popery, that he would not so much as examine the matter.
The Duke, upon this conversation," he adds, " expressed
such a liking to me, that he ordered me to come oft to him."

That Charles was one of the best tempered and most
courteous, and James one of the most phlegmatic and patient,
princes in the world, are facts historically proved ; nor has
Burnet given us any where reason to suppose that he ever
suffered himself to be put out of his way by scruples of
modesty or politeness ; but can it, I say, be believed that a
young clergyman, with nothing to plead in his favour but the
reputation of talents and erudition, together perhaps with
some slight party services in Scotland, should have thus
personally bearded and bullied his sovereign, and the pre-
sumptive heir to the Throne, and in the very hour of his first
admission to their presence ? No, it is utterly impossible ;
and it is the extravagance, to use a mild term, of these, and
many other passages in his History of his own Times,
that has rendered his fidelity generally and deservedly
questionable.

During his visit, however, to London, the King heard him
preach, and appointed him one of his chaplains in ordinary,
but he soon lost that distinction ; for he had scarcely returned
to Scotland when his patron, Lauderdale, fell into a tem-
porary disgrace, in which he became involved, through the
treachery, as he says, of the Duke himself, who had falsely
laid to his charge the miscarriage of some affairs in Scot-
land. Rendered unpopular there by that imputation, which '
threatened also his best prospects in England, • he resigned
his professorship at Glasgow, and made another journey
hither in 1674, to endeavour to remove the effect of it; but
he was presently after his arrival struck out of the List of

BISHOP OF SALISBURY. 43

Chaplains, and forbade to appear at Court. Early in the
succeeding year an inquiry into the conduct of the Duke of
Lauderdale was instituted by the House of Commons, and
Burnet, after a little hesitation, declared at length to a
Committee, the whole of his most secret communications
with that nobleman, for which, according to the common fate
of those who make such disclosures, he was overwhelmed
with the praises of one faction, and the execrations of
another. He now resolved to pass the remainder of his life
in England, and to confine his views to his profession, and
his hopes of patronage in it to the puritan party, to which
he was now more than ever grateful. He was accordingly
recommended by the Lord Holies, better known as one of the
notorious five members of the Long Parliament, to the Master
of the Rolls, Sir Harbottle Grimstone, a worthy man, but a
votary not less strenuous to the good old cause, for the office
of Preacher at his Public Chapel, and was soon after chosen
lecturer of St. Clement's.

Why he delayed so long the publication of his Memoirs of
the Dukes of Hamilton is unknown, but they did not appear
till 1676. He printed, soon after, " An Account of a Con-
ference between Dr. Stillingfleet, Mr. Coleman, afterwards
sacrificed to the Popish Plot, and himself," which was held
at the request of a Lady Tyrwhit, whose mind was painfully
wavering between the Catholic and Protestant churches, and
which ended with the usual effect of such disputations. But
he began now to be busied in collecting the materials, and
forming the plan of that work, from which he chiefly, and
deservedly too, derived his literary fame, the History of the
Reformation ; for the publication of which, or rather of the
first volume, which did not appear till 1679, the thanks of
both Houses of Parliament were voted to him, together with
their request that he would continue and complete the task.
This distinction, which no author had ever before experienced,
would have been more estimable if party spirit had been
wholly absent from the motives which produced it : but the

44 GILBERT BURNET,

truth is, that the book appeared during the utmost heat of the
pretended Popish plot, at an hour when no compliment was
thought too high to be bestowed on the champion of the low
church, as Burnet about that time began to be considered.
The occurrence of that monstrous scene of perjury and blood-
shed drew him from a retirement which he had adopted for
the purposes of study, and he seems, from his own account,
to have been very busy among several of the actors in it,
probably with the view of gaining intelligence which might
make him again acceptable at Court, where, indeed, we pre-
sently after find him, in the same boasted familiar intercourse
with the King as formerly.

In 1681 he published an interesting account of the life and
death of the libertine Earl of Rochester, whom he had
sedulously attended in his last illness ; and about the same
time addressed a letter at great length to the King, arraigning
the whole of his public and private conduct, with a severity
of judgment, and coarseness of expression, which again lead
us to painful doubts of his veracity— to doubt whether such a
letter was ever written — yet more whether it was ever
delivered. Let the reader judge from a few extracts, which
are not selected for their sharpness so much as for their
brevity. "Most people grow sullen, and are highly dis-
satisfied with you, and distrustful of you : all the distrust
your people have of you ; all the necessities you are now
under ; all the indignation of Heaven that is upon you, and
appears in the defeating all your councils ; flow from this —
that you have not feared nor served God, but have given
yourself up to so many sinful pleasures. — If you will go on
in your sins, the judgments of God will probably pursue you
in this life, so that you may be a proverb to after-ages ; and,
after this life, you will be for ever miserable, and I, your poor
subject that now am, shall be a witness against you in the
great day, that I gave you this free and faithful warning."
The letter is dated on the twenty-ninth of January, and con-
cludes with declaring that the writer chose that day in hope

BISHOP OF SALISBURY. 45

that on the morrow (the anniversary of his father's murther)
the King might be in a disposition to weigh it the more care-
fully. Burnet alludes to this letter in his History of his own
Times ; and his son, by whom that work was published, with
a brief sketch, as we before observed, of his father's life sub-
joined, gives there a copy at length, which he says he found
among the bishop's papers after his death.

He printed also in 1681, a Life of Sir Matthew Hale, and
a treatise which he entitled " a History of the Rights of
Princes in disposing of ecclesiastical Benefices, and Church
Lands," as well as a defence of that work, in answer to an
anonymous attack. The return of the Duke of York from
Scotland, and the triumph of that Prince's party over the
presbyterian faction in the following year, seem materially to
have confused Burnet's political speculations. He had long
declined to accept offers of important promotion from each,
with the \iew of preserving that reputation for impartiality
and independence at which he had always aimed, and he
now suddenly found himself compelled to expose openly his
affection for the one, to the extinction for ever of all hope of
favour, or even forgiveness from the other. The treason
which took the name of the Rye-house Plot was discovered,
and it presently appeared that all the men of rank who were
concerned in it were his most intimate and confidential
friends, nor did himself escape suspicion. It is indeed
evident, from more than one passage in his history of this
year, that he was cognisant of the conspiracy, though proof
was wanting of his being actively engaged in it. Thus
situated, it would have been most scandalous in him to have
abandoned his friends, or even wholly to have withdrawn
himself from them, and Burnet, though cautious, was far
from deficient either in courage or warmth of heart. He
boldly, therefore, continued his intercourse with them as
long as he could, and obtained a special permission to attend
on Lord Russell in the interval between the trial of that
nobleman and the moment of his death, presently after

46 GILBERT BTJRNET,

which he was called before the Cabinet Council, and closely
questioned on the matter of Russell's last words to the people,
and the paper which he had delivered on the scaffold to the
sheriffs, both which Burnet was suspected to have written.
No further steps were then taken against him. He retired
for a short time to Paris, and, returning to his studies, pre-
pared for the press a " Translation and examination of a
letter written by the last general assembly of the clergy of
France to the Protestants, inviting them to return to their
communion," &c. and also a " Translation of Sir Thomas
More's Utopia," which were this year published, as was in
the following, his " Life of William Bedel, Bishop of Kil-
more." At length he was dismissed from his lectureship of
St. Clement's, and his office of preacher at the Rolls, by the
express command of the King, whose death occurring very
shortly after, he obtained leave, seemingly without difficulty,
to quit the kingdom, immediately after the accession of
James.

He now made at leisure the tour of the best part of France,
Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, of which he printed two
years after a lively and instructive narrative. At length he
settled at the Hague, where it is scarcely necessary to say
that he was most cordially received. He became immediately,
as might be expected, a most active and important party in
the consultations which were then daily held there prepa-
ratory to the execution of the Prince of Orange's design on
the English Crown ; and acquired so high a degree of favour
and confidence with the Princess as to draw from her unfor-
tunate father two very angry letters, together with a demand,
through his ambassador, that Burnet should be forbade their
court, which, as a mere matter of form, was complied with.
His influence, however, remained there ; and all the time
that he could spare from personal correspondence with them
and their friends was employed in writing pamphlets, which
were abundantly dispersed in England, and reprinted together
in 1689, with the title of " a Collection of eighteen Papers

BISHOP OF SALISBURY. 47

relating to the Affairs in Church and State during the Reign
of King James the Second." Prosecutions for high treason
were at length commenced against him both in England and
Scotland, but the States refused to deliver him up ; and plans,
as he tells us, were afterwards laid to seize his person, or
even to take his life. To secure himself against all endea-
vours to reclaim him by negotiation, or else as a measure of
defiance, he procured letters of naturalisation there, and so
became a Dutch subject, and having been now for some time
a widower, married a lady of that country, Mary Scott, said to
have been descended from the House of Buccleuch, whose
ancestors had for several generations held public employ-
ments of consideration in the provinces of Holland and
Zealand.

He attended William on his expedition to England in the
character of his chaplain, and drew the most important docu-
ments which were issued on that occasion by the Prince, who
appointed him to the see of Salisbury a very few days after
he took possession of the Throne. At full liberty now to
indulge publicly his favourite notions of church doctrine and
discipline, he became the strenuous advocate in Parliament
for the almost unlimited toleration of Protestant dissenters of
all sorts. His political whiggism, however, proved less for-
tunate ; for having, in 1689, in his aversion even to that
shadow of hereditary right which might seem to furnish a
pretence to Mary's accession to the Throne, asserted in a
" Pastoral Letter " to the clergy of his diocese on the oaths
of allegiance and supremacy, that the title of the King and
Queen were founded on conquest, the two Houses of Parlia-
ment ordered that the letter should be burned by the hang-
man, which was done accordingly. He lost, however, by
this folly no favour at Court, nor was he less esteemed at
Hanover by the electoral family, whose succession to the
Crown of England he was appointed to propose in the House
of Peers, and with whose illustrious heir, the Princess Sophia,
he had the honour to hold a pretty regular epistolary cor-
respondence till her death. In 1692, he printed a treatise

48 GILBERT BURNET,

entitled " The Pastoral Care :" in the following year " Four
Discourses to the Clergy of his Diocese," on the truth of the
Christian religion ; on the divinity and death of Christ— on
the infallibility and authority of the Church ; and on the
obligation to continue in its communion : and in 1695 an
Essay on the character of his great patroness, Queen Mary,
who died at the end of the preceding year. In 1698 he
became again a widower, but was re-married with uncommon
expedition. His third wife, whom he also survived, was a
daughter of Sir Richard Blake, a Hampshire knight, and
relict of Robert Berkley, of Spetchley, in Worcestershire.

In the same year William conferred on him the office of
preceptor to the Duke of Gloucester, the only survivor of the
numerous issue of the Princess of Denmark, and presumptive
heir to the Crown. This royal youth also, of whose qualifi-
cations the Bishop speaks with the greatest praise, died in
little more than a year after. From this period he took
scarcely any concern in public affairs, unless the great pains
taken by him in procuring that application of the first-fruits
and tenths to the augmentation of poor benefices, which is
commonly known by the denomination of " Queen Anne's
Bounty," may be so deemed. It is to his benevolent zeal
that the clergy are indebted for the first suggestion, and sub-
sequent prosecution and enactment, of that excellent measure.
He retired to his diocese, and, having passed the remainder of
his life there in the most exemplary performance of all the
duties of a Christian prelate, died on the seventeenth of March,
1714-15, and was buried in the parish church of St. James,
Clerkenwell, in London ; leaving issue three sons, William,
Gilbert, and Thomas, the first and third of whom were bred
to the law, and the second to the church. We are not
informed which of the Bishop's ladies was their mother,
nor whether he had any other children.

Burnet wrote some small unimportant tracts, chiefly con-
troversial, which it is unnecessary here to enumerate. His
two great works, the History of the Reformation, and the
History of his own Times, will, in spite of imperfections,

BISHOP OF SALISBURY. 49

ever stand high in the first order of English classics ; the
one for patient and diligent investigation, for clearness of
arrangement, and rigour of proof; the other for the astonish-
ing number and variety of the facts which it discloses ; and for
a vivacity so bewitching as to beguile us with an illusion of
the real presence of the persons and things described. That
disposition perhaps contributed to betray him occasionally
into the regions of invention, a fault which has already been
unwillingly ascribed to him in the foregoing pages, and which
is certainly, in a covert, but good-humoured strain, alluded
to by the witty Marquis of Halifax, in a character, written
in his lifetime, an extract from which ought, on all accounts,
to be here inserted — " Dr. Burnet," says the Marquis, " is
like all men who are above the ordinary level, seldom spoken
of in a mean — he must either be railed at or admired. He has
a swiftness of imagination that no other comes up to ; and, as
our nature hardly allows us to have enough of anything with-
out having too much, he cannot at all times so hold in his
thoughts but that at some time they may run away with him,
as it is hard for a vessel that is brimful when in motion not to
run over ; and therefore, the variety of matter that he ever
carries about him may throw out more than an unkind critic
would allow of. His first thoughts may sometimes require
more digestion, not from a defect in his judgment, but from
the abundance of his fancy, which furnishes too fast for him.
His friends love him too well to see small faults, or, if they
do, think that his greater talents give him a privilege of stray-
ing from the strict rules of caution, and exempt him from the
ordinary rules of censure. He produces so fast, that what is
well in his writings calls for admiration, and what is incorrect
deserves an excuse. He may in some things require grains
of allowance which those only can deny him who are un-
known or unjust to him. He is not quicker in discerning
other men's faults than he is in forgiving them ; so ready, or
rather glad, to acknowledge his own, that from blemishes
they become ornaments."

VII. E

OB, 1716,

JOHN, LORD SOMERS.

THE professional career of a lawyer, however eminent, is
scarcely ever productive of many incidents likely to excite
general interest, and the life of a statesman, subsequently to
a certain period of our annals, is almost always shrouded in
obscurity ; while the incessant application of both to circum-
stances nearly infinite in variety as well as in number, in
which their passions, their sentiments, and their tempers,
are in a great measure either unconcerned or concealed,
removes them almost wholly from the sphere of ordinary
life, and leaves them, in the strict and simple sense of the
phrase, without characters. It was in those two stations, and
in them only, that this eminent person became highly distin-
guished ; but the extent of his reading, the power of his
eloquence, and the wisdom of his decrees, are forgotten, even
by the heirs of those who profited or suffered by them, and it
is remarkable that his biographers, and they were many, have
given us very few particulars of them. As a statesman, we
are but little better acquainted with him ; for he was placed
in that character by the revolution of 1688, an event which,
amidst the stupendous benefits commonly ascribed to it, was
peculiarly unfavourable to the future interests of history and
biography, by substituting for the splendid merits, and the
bold faults, of ministers of other days, the small dexterity of
financial contrivance, and the innumerable frauds and mean-
nesses which hide themselves in secrecy, and, when by chance
detected, are seldom worth recording. Amidst those disad-
vantages, which have narrowed our view of his story, Lord

£2

52 JOHN, LORD SOMERS.

Somers lived, and, in spite of their evil influence, seems to
have lived and died an honest man.

He was born on the fourth of March, 1652, and was the
eldest, or perhaps only, son of John Somers, an attorney of
reputation and large practice in the city of Worcester, by
Catherine, daughter of a person of the name of Ceaverne, of
the county of Salop. His father had been engaged in the
rebellion, and actually commanded a troop in Cromwell's
army, and doubtless from his early lessons his child imbibed
that political bias which tinged, without soiling, the whole of
his public conduct. He was sent early to what is called the
College school, in his native town, and completed his educa-
tion at Trinity College in Oxford, of which he was entered
a gentleman commoner, and which he left with the highest
reputation for polite, as well as for erudite, literature. Des-
tined always by his father for the bar, he was now removed
to the tuition of Sir Francis Winnington, soon after Solicitor
General, and became a Student of the Middle Temple. Here
genius seems to have superseded the necessity of labour. He
wrote and published poems and pamphlets, and appeared to
ordinary observers to have devoted himself to the varied
occupation of a general author, while he was acquiring a
degree of knowledge in his profession more extensive than is
generally found to reward even the severest study. At this
time too he lived much in the society of the most lively per-
sons among the opponents of the Court, and was at length
introduced to their graver leaders, the Lords Essex and
Russell, and Algernon Sidney, who, finding in him a dispo-
sition to assist in the furtherance of their plans, joined to
talents which could not but render him a most important
acquisition to any party, flattered him by a close intimacy,
and indeed by no small share of their confidence. Happily
for him, however, a cool prudence for which he was always
remarkable, restrained him from engaging too far with them ;
and those connections, which utterly ruined so many, were
among the first steps towards his future great elevation.

JOHN, LORD SOMERS. 53

The immediate effect of them was to invigorate his poli-
tical pen. He is said (for it is almost needless to observe
that such works were published anonymously) to have
written about this time " a brief History of the Succession
of the Crown of England, collected out of Records," &c.,
intended as a collection of grounds of argument for the exclu-
sion of James Duke of York ; and, " a just and modest Vin-
dication of the two last Parliaments ;" in fact, an answer to
the published declaration of Charles the Second of his reasons
for dissolving them. We hear little of him at the bar till
1683, when he appeared in the court of King's Bench as
advocate for the seditious sheriffs Pilkington and Shute, with
many others, and gained a reputation which rose gradually
till it was finally confirmed, and universally acknowledged,
on the occasion of the trial, five years after, of the seven
Bishops, in which, though the junior counsel, he is said to
have far surpassed, not only in argument and eloquence but
in legal learning, the whole host of long experienced lawyers
to whom he was then joined. He was now admitted into
the most secret councils of those who were at that time
busily employed in forming the plan for that revolution
which, six months after, they brought to maturity.

On the arrival of the Prince of Orange, he was elected by
his native city of Worcester to represent it in what was
called the Convention Parliament, which appointed him one
of its managers for the great conference between the two
Houses on the means to be used for filling the vacant Throne.
It is well known that this deliberation on the disposal of
three kingdoms was almost wholly confined to a philological
discussion of the meaning of two words. It was an apt
theme for a display of the subtleties of legal, and the refine-
ments of general erudition, and Somers's treatment of it in
each view has always been extolled as a model of perfection
in its kind. He was now on the high road to certain exalta-
tion, and with advantages of which few, if any, of his com-
peers in effecting the great change could fairly boast. He

54 JOHN, LORD SOMERS.

had abandoned no principles : he had sacrificed no friends :
he had deserted no party : nor had he incurred even a suspi-
cion of ingratitude, meanness, fraud, or falsehood, in the
whole of his political career. Thus recommended, not less
than by his particular services, to a patron of cold and rigid
integrity, as well as of solid judgment, he became, on the
ninth of May, 1689, Solicitor General ; Attorney General on
the second of the same month, in the year 1692 ; and, on the
twenty-third of the succeeding March, Lord Keeper of the
Great Seal.

From this date we may consider him as William's most
confidential adviser, a character which he seems never in a
single instance to have abused. His fidelity was rewarded
accordingly. On the twenty-second of April, 1697, he was
appointed Lord High Chancellor, and on the second of the
following December, was created Lord Somers, Baron of
Evesham, in the county of Worcester. He remained not
long in the lofty station to which he had been thus raised.
The High Church party, as the friends to Monarchy and the
enemies of the dissenting interest were then called, had long
since recovered from the shock which they had received by
the revolution ; had availed themselves of the licence afforded
to them by the doctrines on which it was founded, to make
ample arrangements to the prejudice of the closely limited
King, and his new government ; and had at length established
an opposition to them in Parliament of sufficient strength to
enable them to institute the most vigorous attacks. Of these
Somers, because not only the ablest but the most honest of
William's advisers, and the Earl of Portland, because he was
his personal favourite, were the chosen objects. In the Par-
liament which met in the end of the year 1698, and which
was distinguished otherwise by a peculiar malevolence towards
William, it was resolved in the Commons to make a stre-
nuous effort for the dismissal of the Chancellor, and, on the
tenth of April, 1700, on grounds so futile that no correct
statement of them seems to have been preserved, an address

JOHN, LORD SOMERS. 55

to the King was proposed in that House, and negatived by a
small majority, " to remove John, Lord Somers, from his
presence and councils for ever." William, not less timid as
a politician than bold in the field, prorogued the Parliament
the next day, and, retiring immediately to Hampton Court,
under great anxiety, sent for the Chancellor, and desired him
to resign ; but Somers declined, alleging reasons wholly void
of selfishness, and entreating the King to dissolve the Parlia-
ment, who, we are told, " shook his head, as a sign of his
diffidence, and only said ' it must be so,' " and a few days
after sent for the seals.

Not satisfied with this degree of triumph, and having found
means to increase their party, the opposition in the Commons
resolved in the succeeding session to hazard the question of
an impeachment, during the agitation of which Somers
requested to be heard there, and justified himself with equal
candour and firmness. The impeachment however was voted,
consisting of fourteen articles, seven of which referred to the
negociation with France in 1698, respecting the succession to
the Crown of Spain, and known by the name of " the first
Partition Treaty," in which it seems that the King had con-
sulted no one but the Chancellor. The rest were wholly
insignificant. Somers answered them seriatim, and they
were sent up to the Lords, who, after repeated angry confer-
ences on them with the lower House, wholly dismissed them.
The King died in the same year, and Lord Somers retired
in some measure to private life. We find him however
voting, and sometimes speaking, in Parliament, particularly
in 1702, and the following year, when he took a very active
part in the discussion of the bill to prevent occasional con-
formity ; in 1706 he proposed a project for the union of
England and Scotland to Queen Anne, who appointed him
one of the managers of that great measure ; and on the change
of the administration in 1708, he returned to the Cabinet,
accepting the high office of President of the Council, which
he held till the dismissal of the Whigs two years after.

56 JOHN, LORD SOMERS.

From that period his health gradually declined, and with it
the powers of his mind. Some of his latter years were
passed in an almost total, but quiescent, absence of intellect,
and on the twenty-sixth of April, 1716, he expired in a fit of
apoplexy.

Lord Somers was a liberal and a judicious patron and
encourager of literature and literary men. Of the produc-
tions of his own pen a long list may be found in Lord
Orford's Royal and Noble Authors, which is not inserted
here, because though it is pretty clear that some of those
pieces were written by others, it is by no means easy to fix
on those which were really his. It has been reported, but
apparently on grounds wholly untenable, that he, and not
Swift, was the author of "the Tale of a Tub." He was never
married, but left two sisters, his coheirs, the eldest of whom,
Mary, became the wife of Charles Cocks, and in a grandson
of that marriage, Sir Charles Cocks, Bart., the Barony of
Somers (since erected into an Earldom) was revived in the
year 1784.

DUKE OF SHREWSBURY
0 B . 1718,

CHARLES TALBOT,

DUKE OF SHREWSBURY.

THIS very eminent nobleman, the only person who ever
held this exalted title, seems to have been an object of the
peculiar neglect, and it may be said injustice, both of his
contemporaries and of their posterity. With fine talents, the
strictest honour and public principle, and a sweet temper,
constantly evinced in the most winning courtesy, he passed
many years in the exercise of the highest offices in the State
and the Court without popular applause, and without the
declared approbation of those whose station and habits of
life qualified them to form a just judgment of his merits.
Not less careless of his posthumous fame have been the
pietists and moralists. The youth whose time and attention
from the age of nineteen to twenty-one was occupied in
reconciling his conscience to one or the other of the two
great rival modes of faith, and who afterwards, through the
whole of his manhood, lived constantly in the practice of
every domestic virtue, could establish no claim to celebration
at their hands. How are we to account for this indifference ?
By what means can we discover the cause of this silence ?
Simply by referring to the facts that, though an English
nobleman, always in high public station, he never conde-
scended to become a political partisan, or a religious
controversialist.

He was the eldest of the two surviving sons of Francis
Talbot, eleventh Earl of Shrewsbury of that truly noble
house, by his second Countess, Anna Maria, daughter of
Robert Brudenel, second Earl of Cardigan. He was pecu-

58 CHARLES TALBOT,

liarly unfortunate in both his parents, for his father was
killed in a duel by the paramour of his mother, George Vil-
liers, second Duke of Buckingham of that family. The
wretched woman is said to have held the Duke's horse, in
the disguise of a page, while he shed her husband's life-
blood, and other circumstances are related of her conduct,
immediately after the combat, too horrible and disgusting to
be here repeated. The orphan Earl, who was born on the
twenty- fourth of July, 1660, and received his Christian name
from King Charles the Second, his sponsor, had not reached
the age of seven years when the untimely death of his father
occurred, and he was taken under the protection of his grand-
father, the Earl of Cardigan, through whose fostering care he
is said to have received a " learned education," and by whom
he was brought up with strictness in the Catholic persuasion.
It was doubtless by the advice, and with the countenance, of
that nobleman, that in his early minority, he presented, in
concert with his brother, a petition to the King, imploring
justice on Buckingham, and " touching smartly " (to use the
words of some almost contemporary meagre notices of the
Talbots) "upon the Duke's scandalous behaviour, and bit-
terly complaining how, after having basely murdered their
father, he continued to load the family with reproach, by an
infamous detaining of their mother by violence, the successors
to the honour and family of the Shrewsburys being yet
infants, and not able to do themselves justice on the person
who had so notoriously injured them."

Whether this remonstrance produced any effect, the author
leaves us uninformed, and it is probable that, through the
indolence of Charles, and the fascination in which he was for
several years of his reign held by the bewitching liveliness of
Buckingham's talents, it was wholly fruitless. Be this as it
might, the frightful events which we have slightly recited,
operating on feelings of delicate texture, and a natural incli-
nation to seriousness, seem to have impelled the young Earl
to seek consolation in the bosom of religious truth. He had

DUKE OF SHREWSBURY. 69

scarcely passed the nineteenth year of his age when, without
the smallest cloud of fanaticism on his mind, he calmly col-
lected, with the aid of his grandfather, all the arguments
that had been used by the most celebrated Catholic divines
in defence of the doctrines and discipline of their church,
and carried them to Tillotson, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury, with whom he had lately become acquainted,
requesting his answers to them. Tillotson, doubtless grati-
fied by the prospect of such a proselyte, readily undertook
the task, and furnished the Earl with the result, who, after
long deliberation on all points of the Doctor's reasonings,
and a thorough reconciliation of them to his own conscience,
at the end of two years embraced the Protestant religion, and
made a public profession of it in Lincoln's Inn chapel. Those
eminent treatises against Popery which are to be found in
Tillotson's printed works are said to comprise the matter of
his communications to Lord Shrewsbury, even in the form
in which he made them.

The period at which this recantation occurred affords in
itself an ample proof of its sincerity. It was made in the
very teeth of the Court, and of Royalty itself, for the King
was supposed to be Catholic, and the heir presumptive was
publicly professed ; the Earl therefore could in no way more
effectually have opposed his own interest, and this presently
became evident, for he found himself slighted and avoided
by those of his own rank, and openly vilified by the ordinary
multitude of the Romish party. He retired therefore into
privacy during the remainder of that reign, but was, singu-
larly enough, invited to the Court, immediately on his acces-
sion, by James, who gave him one of the state swords to
carry at the Coronation, and placed him soon after, contrary
to the inclination both of the Court and ministry, in the dig-
nified office of Lord Chamberlain of the Household, which he
presently resigned, giving him about the same time the com-
mand of the sixth regiment of Horse. It could not however
be expected that the violent measures used in that short

60 CHARLES TALBOT,

reign towards the re-establishment of the ancient church,
should be endured with patience by one so peculiarly distin-
guished as a cherisher of the opposite persuasion. The Earl
was one of the first to offer his services to the Prince of
Orange, and one of the first whom his Highness took into his
especial confidence, and by whose advice he submitted to be
chiefly guided. The meetings of the great leaders of the
revolution were mostly held at his house ; the Prince's
declaration is said to have been drawn by him ; and he was
one of the first of the English nobility who presented himself
personally to the Prince in Holland, with serious and digested
proposals, having before his departure mortgaged his estate
for forty thousand pounds, which he carried to William.

It is just at this period that Bishop Burnet gives us the
following short character of him, contrasting it to that of the
Lord Mordaunt, afterwards the celebrated Earl of Peterbo-
rough, one of his compeers in the great enterprise. — " Next
year," says Burnet, " a man of a far different temper came
over to the Prince, the Earl of Shrewsbury. He had been
bred a Papist, but had quitted that religion upon a very cri-
tical and anxious inquiry into matters of controversy. He
seemed to be a man of great probity, and to have a high
sense of honour. He had no ordinary measure of learning ;
a correct judgment ; and a sweetness of temper that charmed
all who knew him. He had at that time just notions of
government, and so great a command of himself that I never
heard any one complain of him, but for his silent and reserved
answers, with which his friends were not always well pleased.
His modest deportment gave him such an interest in the
Prince that he never seemed so fond of any of his ministers
as he was of him. He had only in general laid the state of
affairs before the Prince, without pressing him too much."
In this visit, however, all the most material arrangements for
William's coming were settled, and Shrewsbury arrived in
England in September, 1688, with full powers from him to
conclude with his friends on all inferior particulars. Within

DUKE OF SHREWSBURY. 61

a few days after his landing, he commissioned the Earl, with
two others, to treat with some noblemen, sent for that pur-
pose by the forlorn James ; after whose abdication, and final
departure, William also chose him, and a very few others, to
learn from the leaders of the revolution, the terms on which
it was intended to offer to him the vacant throne, and to
declare to them those on which he would accept it.

On the day following the accession of William and Mary
he was sworn of their Privy Council, and appointed one of
the two principal Secretaries of State. " He had," says Bur-
net again, " the greatest share of the King's confidence, and
no exception could be made to the choice, except on account
of his youth ; but he applied himself to business with great
diligence, and maintained his candour and temper with more
reservedness than was expected from one of his age." In spite,
however, of these, and other advantages, disputes presently
arose between him and his brother Secretary, the Earl of
Nottingham, particularly regarding the bills of indemnity for
the late King's friends and servants, and for an abjuration of
James himself, both which were the subjects of much debate
in the first session of the second Parliament of the reign. Not-
tingham opposed the last with earnestness, and even prevailed
on the King to use his personal influence against it in the
House of Commons, and Shrewsbury tendered his resignation
to William, who refused to accept it, but the Earl, though
usually compliant and indecisive, was determined to quit the
post. The curious correspondence between them on this
point has been of late years published, and shows us that
Shrewsbury, in stating his motives, makes no complaints but
of himself. " Diligence and industry," says he in a letter of
the sixth of September, 1689, pressing the King to allow him
to retire, " are talents that naturally I never had, and I have
now more reason than ever to despair of attaining, since ill
health, as well as a lazy temper, join to oppose it." William
wrote to him on the following day, still refusing to part with
him, and the rest of the year passed in a large interchange of

CHARLES TALBOT,

such letters, the Earl reiterating his request to resign, and the
King denying. They are singularly remarkable for a freedom
and familiarity of expression, of which perhaps no parallel
instance can be found in epistles between prince and subject.
At length, in the following June, the agitation of Shrewsbury's
mind upon this point threw him into a violent fever, and he
sent the seals by the Earl of Portland to the King, who most
unwillingly retained them.

William was careful to give a public proof that this retire-
ment from office of his favoured servant arose not from any
feeling of royal displeasure, for, in the hour, as it were, of his
resignation, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of the counties
of Hertford, Worcester, and Hereford. He now retreated for
a time to private life, and it seems to have been in this
interval that he received grievous injuries by a fall from
his horse, which deprived him of the sight of an eye, and
produced an asthmatic affection that gradually increased for
many years, and finally undermined his constitution, which,
however, was in some measure restored from time to time by
medicine and good management. In 1693, the King dismissed
the Earl of Nottingham, and immediately sent for Shrews-
bury, and pressed him, but again in vain, to accept his former
station. The Earl peremptorily refused, and returned into
the country, when William condescended to endeavour to
regain him by artifice, and employed two ladies, Mrs. Villiers,
afterwards Countess of Orkney, who was reputed to be a
favourite of his own, and a Mrs. Lundee, who was said to
possess influence over the Earl. These powerful negociators
were successful ; Shrewsbury was again sworn a principal
Secretary of State, on the fourth of March, 1693-4, and, in
reward of his tardy compliance, was on the twenty-fifth of
April elected a Knight of the Garter, and, on the thirtieth,
advanced to the dignities of Marquis of Alton, and Duke of
Shrewsbury. About the same time, the Lieutenancies of the
counties of Anglesea, Flint, and Merioneth, were added to the
local jursdictions before intrusted to his charge.

DUKE OF SHREWSBURY. 63

The singularities of which we have here spoken, as well in
the conduct of William as in that of Shrewsbury, are not to
be attributed to any of the motives by which the intercourse
of kings and statesmen are usually actuated. Here all was
frankness and sincerity, the result of private friendship, and
of the purest public principles, equally mutual. Numerous
attempts were now made to alienate the King's attachment
from him, but it was invincible. The meanest stratagems,
and artifices not less absurd than wicked, were used. A
creature of Sir John Fenwick, then a prisoner, charged with
high treason, who had affected to make discoveries at the
Duke's office, on being slighted there, turned upon him, and
in 1696 insinuated to some noblemen that he was a party to
the conspiracy ; and Fenwick himself, in the hope of saving
his own life, conveyed to the Duke of Devonshire that
Shrewsbury was in correspondence with the exiled King,
through Lord Middleton, and had been allowed by James to
re-accept the post of Secretary, as he would be of more service
to that Prince's affairs in that station. The first intelligence
which Shrewsbury had of these machinations was by a letter
from William himself, in which, with expressions of equal
kindness and magnanimity, he declared his utter disbelief of
the whole, nor would he for a moment listen to the Duke's
request, renewed on this occasion, to be allowed to quit the
ministry. In May, 1699, however, upon some disgust con-
ceived against the Earl of Portland, who was his only rival
in the King's personal favour, and the Earl of Halifax, for the
large share taken by that nobleman in the invention and
establishment of the public funds, a scheme which the Duke
had, from its earliest infancy, most earnestly deprecated and
opposed, he did resign his office of Secretary, his physician
having assured the King that the state of his health neces-
sarily required the relaxations of leisure, and foreign travel.
William, to prove that his esteem for him was yet wholly
unimpaired, and that Shrewsbury left the Cabinet solely by
his own choice, now appointed him Lord Chamberlain, which

64 CHARLES TALBOT,

he relinquished in the succeeding year, and, leaving England,
after a long tour, settled at Rome, where he married Ade-
laide, a widow, daughter of the Marquis Paliotii, a Bolognese
nobleman.

He remained abroad for six years. William died during
his absence, but he was received by Queen Anne on his
return with scarcely diminished grace, sworn of her Privy
Council, and, on the fifteenth of April, 1710, restored to his
post of Lord Chamberlain. The more violent whigs ascribed
this mark of favour to his secret abandonment of their party,
to which indeed he had always moderately inclined, and
were confirmed in that opinion by his votes on Sacheverell's
trial, which were uniformly opposed to them. Marlborough
and Godolphin, however, who knew, and could not but respect,
his independence, thought otherwise ; strove to remove those
jealousies ; and lived in friendship with him, as they did after
their disgrace, when, with the same unblemished reputation, he
generally supported the administration of Harley. In Decem-
ber, 1712, upon the violent death of the Duke of Hamilton,
he was appointed Ambassador to the court of France, to con-
clude the negociation for a peace, and had scarcely returned
when he was nominated Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. There,
as almost always in his public life, his strict impartiality
excited at once respect and disgust, and no party could deny
that he rendered important service to that country, while he
performed his duty to the Queen irreproachably. When he
returned he found Anne in the arms of death, accelerated
by the furious feuds between the leaders of her ministry,
Oxford and Bolingbroke. She sent hastily for him; put
into his hands the staff of Lord High Treasurer ; and soon
after expired.

On the accession then of George the First, he was at once
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord High Treasurer of Great
Britain, and Lord Chamberlain of the Royal Household, three
great appointments never, before nor since, held by one person
at the same time. He was now nominated one of the Lords

DUKE OF SHREWSBURY. 65

to govern the kingdom till his Majesty's arrival ; after which,
on the twentieth of September, 1714, he was made Groom of
the Stole, and Keeper of the Privy Purse, and was, on the
seventeenth of the succeeding October, once more placed in
the office of Lord Chamberlain, which shortly before his death
he resigned.

This great nobleman expired on the first of February,
1717-18, without issue ; his titles, therefore, of Duke and
Marquis became extinct, and the Earldom of Shrewsbury
devolved on a distant branch of the family.

vir.

RCMDLIL

DUKE 0 F MARL B OROVO i I
OB, 1 722,

JOHN CHURCHILL,

FIRST DUKE OF MARYBOROUGH.

THE history of this eminent person was for more than fifty
years after his death almost wholly confined to the splendid
details of a career of military glory, not more distinguished
by sagacity and bravery than by the most surprising good
fortune. The curious industry however of later days has
discovered facts, and disclosed secrets, which it might be
almost wished had still slept silently in the obscure recesses
from which they were drawn. It is the duty of the bio-
grapher to state the whole with candour, impartiality and
freedom. It is at least his privilege to search for causes and
motives ; to argue on them, and on their results ; and to
declare his conclusions and opinions fearlessly and honestly.
It is on these principles that he means to conduct the following
memoir, as well as to found its pretensions to credit.

John, Duke of Marlborough, was the second-born son, but
by the death of his elder brother Winston in infancy, heir,
of Sir Winston Churchill, a gentleman descended from an
ancient Norman stock settled in the West of England, by
Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Drake, of Ash, in the parish
of Musbury, in Devonshire. He was born there on the
twenty-fourth of June, 1650. His father, who was a zealous
loyalist, and had fought gallantly, and suffered severely, for
the royal cause, removed with his family to London soon
after the Restoration, to seek some reward. Here John is
said to have been placed at St. Paul's school, where he could
have remained but a short time, since it is certain that the

F2

68 JOHN CHURCHILL,

Duke of York appointed him at a very tender age one of his
pages, and procured for him soon after an ensign's commis-
sion in one of the regiments of foot guards. His sister, Ara-
bella, was received also into the same royal household in the
character of a maid of honour to the Duchess, and appeared
soon after in that of mistress to the Duke. In what degree
the partiality already manifested towards him by James was
increased by that circumstance may be easily conceived.

Passing over his appearance as a volunteer, for such it
seems he was at Tangier, which the Moors then held in con-
tinual siege, it may be said that his first military service was
in 1672, when England, then leagued with France against
the Dutch, sent a force of six thousand men to Holland under
the Duke of Monmouth. Here, in the rank of a captain of
grenadiers, he displayed, particularly in the sieges of Nime-
guen and Maestricht, the most signal bravery ; acquired the
personal regard of the great Turenne ; and received the
thanks of Louis the Fourteenth, together with that monarch's
peculiar recommendation of him to his own sovereign. The
second campaign in Holland having ended, the English regi-
ments which were still left at the disposal of the King of
France marched with the French army against the Imperial-
ists, and Louis, in the spring of 1674, nominated Churchill
colonel of one of them. During this period of foreign service
the Duke of York appointed him a gentleman of his bed-
chamber, and master of the robes. He corresponded con-
stantly with that prince ; frequently visited England, for the
sole purpose of attending to his affairs ; and had insensibly
acquired, together with no small share of personal regard, his
entire confidence.

In 1678 he married Sarah, second daughter and coheir of
Richard Jennings, of Sandbridge, in Hertfordshire. This
lady is mentioned thus early in the present sketch because
so much of her husband's political conduct may be referred
to the peculiarities of her understanding and temper, that we
must necessarily take her with us as an occasional guide to

FIRST DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. 69

the truth. He now obtained a regiment of infantry, and was
sent, on a temporary breach between Charles and Louis, to
negotiate a treaty of alliance with the Prince of Orange
against the French, which was soon after rendered abortive
by a general peace. He returned to his domestic and confi-
dential attendance on James, whom he constantly accompa-
nied in the various wanderings to which that prince was
compelled by the rage of faction towards the conclusion of
his brother's reign. He became the medium of their most
secret and important correspondence, not only with each
other, but with the King of France, to whom he was occa-
sionally despatched on missions of the utmost privacy and
delicacy. These services were rewarded by a grant, in 1683,
of the title of Lord Churchill of Aymouth, in Scotland, to
which was added the commission of colonel of a regiment of
horse guards, then newly raised. His wife, who had been
selected in her childhood as the familiar companion of the
Princess Anne, and was beloved by her with a tenderness
even extravagant, was about the same time, when that prin-
cess's establishment was settled, on her marriage with the
Prince of Denmark, appointed a lady of her bedchamber.

In the following year, his royal patron mounted the throne ;
sent him ambassador to Paris to notify that event ; and on
his return elevated him to an English peerage, with the style
of Baron Churchill of Sandridge. Monmouth's feeble rebel-
lion, which immediately followed, produced new proofs of
his military merit. By the rapid and judicious movements
of a squadron intrusted to his command he prevented thou-
sands from joining the standard of the Duke, whom he then
forced prematurely to the general action at Sedgemoor, in
which he highly distinguished himself, as he had on the pre-
ceding day by disconcerting a plan of the enemy to throw the
King's army into disorder. It is strange that he should have
received no higher reward for these services than the rank of
major-general, and the complimentary transfer of his colo-
nelcy to an older corps of horse guards; and yet more

70 JOHN CHURCHILL,

remarkable that he should have been placed in no distin-
guished office, either in the state or court, during the reign,
short as it was, of a master whose partiality towards him
seemed to extend almost to favouritism. James probably
considered his talents applicable merely to military service,
in which no future opportunity offered of employing them ;
Churchill doubtless thought otherwise; and hence perhaps
imbibed sentiments of disgust and anger, to which in some
measure may be reasonably referred that heavy charge on his
conduct to which we shall next advert.

On the landing of the Prince of Orange, he was among the
first who abandoned James ; nor was this the half unwilling
step of one at length driven by necessity to determine which
of two parties contending for a crown was the most justly
entitled to his allegiance. He had been long engaged in a
secret intercourse with William. Eighteen months before, a
period at which James's confidence in him was at its height,
he had written to the Prince to offer, in indirect terms, the
meaning however of which was evident, not only his own
services, but those of the Princess Anne of Denmark, under
whose authority he professes to make the communication.
The avowed motive, on his own part as well as on hers, was
an earnest devotion to the protestant church. Of Anne's
sincerity in this respect there is perhaps no reason to doubt,
but that Churchill, bred a courtier and a soldier of fortune?
should have been decided on the greatest of all political
questions, not by any fear of interruption to his own practice
of that mode of faith which he might prefer, for of that he
knew there could be no danger, but by his dread that the
nation might relapse into popery, is indeed somewhat difficult
of belief. The simple truth, it can scarcely be doubted, how-
ever reluctantly we may believe it, is that he foresaw the
ruin which overhung his sovereign, and determined not to
share in the peril of its fall, but to triple his views of
preferment by adding the good graces of William and Mary
to those of Anne, which he already possessed in the utmost

.

FIRST DUKE OF MARLBOROTJGH. 7 1

plenitude. The flight also of that Princess from her father
is ascribed to the persuasions of himself and his lady, and
the charge of ingratitude and treachery too justly founded on
the whole, has been of late years aggravated by reports
which, as they seem too horrible to deserve credit, I will not
here repeat. They may be found in the first volume of
Macpherson's " Original Papers."

One of the last acts of James's royal authority in England
was to raise him to the rank of lieutenant-general, and to give
him the command of a brigade in the army which was hastily
marched into the west to oppose the invaders ; and ChurchilFs
first act after his arrival at the royal quarters was to join the
Prince of Orange, with as many of the officers of that brigade
as he could persuade to accompany him. His activity in the
service of his new master was remarkable. He flew to Lon-
don, to secure his own troop of horse-guards, and other mili-
tary that remained in that quarter ; returned with the news
of his success to William ; and attended his triumphant entry
into the metropolis. Here, however, he paused ; and when
the question was agitated in the Convention Parliament
whether the throne had become vacant by the flight of the
King, absented himself with all due decorum from the dis-
cussion, as though, in the simplicity of his heart, he had
never till then dreamed of that Prince's expulsion, or of
William's design to succeed him. That point being settled,
he again became busy, and, in concert with his wife, per-
suaded their patroness, Anne, to relinquish her presumptive
right, and content herself with the chance of obtaining the
crown by outliving the Prince of Orange. Immediately
on the accession of William and Mary he was sworn of the
Privy Council; appointed a lord of the bedchamber; and
created Earl of Marlborough.

The new reign had scarcely commenced when the King and
Queen disagreed with the Princess Anne on the amount of the-
ted to her, and the usual artifices of party
as in the end they did, an irreparable

a

LIBRARY

72 JOHN CHURCHILL,

breach. Marlborough appeared openly at the head of those
who supported the Princess's claim, and William was more
displeased than his phlegmatic temper usually allowed. That
disposition, however, enabled him to dissemble. He wanted
English generals, and had too high an opinion of Marl-
borough's military talents to break with him at that time.
He was sent, therefore, to command the English forces then
serving against the French in the Netherlands, where he
acquitted himself with great credit in the campaign of 1689,
and soon after his return, embarked for Ireland, at the head
of five thousand men, and achieved, with equal bravery and
discretion, the most of that which William had left undone
towards the final discomfiture of James's adherents in that
island, after the battle of the Boyne. While these matters
were passing, and during his absence in Holland, whither he
attended the King in May, 1691, the discord between the
royal sisters arose to the most extravagant height. It was
imputed in a great measure to Marlborough and his lady ;
and this suspicion, aided by the resentment of the Dutch
favourite, Portland, whom it was their custom to abuse and
ridicule without mercy, so aggravated William's former dis-
pleasure, that on the tenth of January, 1692, he suddenly
required from the Earl the surrender of all his employments,
civil and military, and forbade his appearance at court.
Such is the account given by the memoir writers of that
time of the motives to Marborough's dismissal, but it has
been rendered doubtful by certain late disclosures. Prodi-
gious as it may seem, he was at that time in close and con-
fidential correspondence with the court of St. Germain ; and
had professed to the exiled King the deepest penitence for
the part which he had acted, and the most determined
resolution (to use the words of the late publication of
James's memoirs of his own latter years,) " to redeem his
apostacy with the hazard of his utter ruin," by using his
most strenuous efforts to replace that Prince on the throne.
How much more reasonable then to suppose, that Marl-

FIRST DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. 73

borough's sudden disgrace arose from William's discovery
of this intercourse, than to ascribe it to the quarrels of
women, and the malicious gossip of tea-tables ? nor indeed
can the fact be doubted when we find that on the fifth of
the following May he was arrested on a charge of high-
treason ; that, though the instant discovery of the infamous
character of his accusers screened him from a public prose-
cution, yet that he was detained a prisoner in the Tower for
many weeks after some other persons of quality who had
been involved in the accusation were released ; and that imme-
diately on his being admitted to bail, his name was struck out
of the list of the Privy Council.

He remained for the next five years unemployed, except
in cultivating to his utmost the favour at once of the Princess
Anne, and of her royal father. Efforts, however, were not
wanting to replace him in the public service, though his friends
seem to have entertained little hope of restoring him to Wil-
liam's confidence. That they were fully conscious of that
Prince's knowledge of his tergiversations, is evident. The
Duke of Shrewsbury, then Secretary of State, in a letter of
the twenty-second of May, 1694, recommends him strongly
to William—" He has been with me," says the Duke, " to
offer his services, with all the expressions of duty and fidelity
imaginable. What I can say by way of persuasion on this
subject will signify but little, since I very well remember,
when your Majesty discoursed with me upon it in the spring*
you were sufficiently convinced of his usefulness ; but some
points remained of a delicate nature, too tender for me to pre-
tend to advise upon, and of which your Majesty is the only
judge. If these could be accommodated to your Majesty's
satisfaction, I cannot but think he is capable of being very
serviceable. It is so unquestionably his interest," adds the
Duke, with a severity certainly unintended, <l to be faithful,
that that single argument makes me not doubt it." William,
in answer to this part of Shrewsbury's letter, says — " in regard
to what you wrote in your last concerning Lord Marlborough,

74 JOHN CHURCHILL,

I can say no more than that I do not think it for the good of
my service to intrust the command of my troops to him." It
is most singular that the only observation which Marl-
borough's late voluminous and acute biographer makes on
these letters is, that " they throw no light on the causes of
the King's displeasure."

On the fourth of May, 1694, in the very hour when, as we
have just now seen, he was laying at William's feet his ex-
pressions of the utmost " duty and fidelity," he wrote to
James to apprise him of the sailing from Portsmouth of a force
designed to destroy the French fleet in the harbour of Brest.
His intercourse with that Prince and his ministers was now
unremitted. At length, in the summer of 1696, the appre-
hension of Sir John Fen wick, a party in the plot to assassinate
William, which had been discovered a few months before,
produced a direct charge against him. Fen wick, in the hope
of saving his own life, accused Marlborough of various trans-
actions, all tending to forward the restoration of James, and
particularly of having engaged to secure to that end the army,
of which Shrewsbury, who was also then impeached by Fen-
wick, had solicited the command for him even while the plot
was approaching to maturity. Fen wick, however, was ruined
by the plan which he had formed for his defence. The per-
sons whom he had associated with Marlborough in these
charges of treason were so numerous, and so eminent, that
William durst not proceed against any. Both Houses of Par-
liament voted the allegations contained in the documents
which Fenwick bad produced to be false and scandalous, and
the Peers, after hearing the exculpatory speeches of Marl-
borough, and some of the nobles implicated with him, declared
themselves satisfied with the justification which had been
offered to them. It will seem strange that the King should
have chosen this moment to receive his long rejected services.
William, however, without a single friend among the eminent
men of the country ; uncertain of the sincere allegiance of
any ; pressed by the little party headed by Anne, to whom

FIRST DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. 75

since the late death of his Queen he had, at least in appear-
ance, become reconciled ; named Marlborough, even before
the tumult raised by the late inquiry had fully subsided, to
the important appointment of governor to the young Duke of
Gloucester, presumptive heir to the crown. Nor was this all :
he was restored also to his seat in the Privy Council, and to
his former military rank and command.

He had, however, acquired William's countenance without
gaining his favour. His loyalty was at least strongly sus-
pected, and he balanced his political conduct in public with
so much caution between the interests and inclinations of the
King and those of the Princess of Denmark as to render him-
self nearly useless in Council or Parliament to either. Mean-
while he could not conceal his bias towards Anne, whom
William regarded with more than the usual dislike bestowed
on a successor. It was perhaps as much for the sake of
detaching him from her service as with the view of employ-
ing his talents in the way which best suited them, that the
King took Marlborough with him to Holland in the summer
of 1701 ; appointed him to command the forces in the Nether-
lands ; and invested him with the most extensive powers for
the management of the various negotiations preparatory to the
grand confederacy then organizing against France. He con-
ducted these treaties through all the mazes of peculiarly jar-
ring interests with a sagacity and address which at once con-
ferred on him the character of a profound diplomatist, and
was returning to apply those talents to domestic politics,
when William, taking advantage of his absence, dismissed the
Tory Administration headed by Lord Godolphin, his bosom
friend, and partner in his most secret Jacobite intrigues. The
mortification which he felt from this step was severe but tran-
sient. It was terminated four months after by the death of
the King, on the eighth of March, 1702, and the accession of
Anne opened to Marlborough a career of glory abroad, and of
power at home, seldom paralleled in the history of any subject
in any age.

76 JOHN CHURCHILL,

Her first care was to distinguish him. On the third day
after she mounted the throne she gave him the Garter, and
on the fourth appointed him Commander in Chief of her
Armies, and presently after Master General of the Ordnance.
The government of affairs at home was again committed to
his friends, under Godolphin, who, rather from deficiency of
spirit than of wisdom, appears to have been held by him in
utter subservience. The warlike policy of William was
adopted, and Marlborough went in the character of Ambas-
sador Extraordinary to the Hague, to encourage the Allies,
whom the King's death had somewhat dispirited, and indeed
to propose an instant declaration of war, which speedily
followed. The Prince of Denmark, building on his natural
rank, and yet more on the importance derived from his
matrimonial alliance with Anne, the head of the confe-
deration, aspired to the command in chief of the great body
of troops now put into motion by so many states, and Marl-
borough, after having with a pardonable affectation of zeal
contended for a while for the Prince's pretensions, received
himself the splendid appointment of Generalissimo.

It is needless to offer any apology for the slightness with
which the numerous and glorious events of the succeeding
war must be here traced. The successes of the first year
consisted in the reduction of the important fortresses of
Venlo, Ruremonde, and Stevenswaert, with their dependen-
cies, on the Meuse, and, finally, of the city of Liege ; but,
above all, in the constant vigilance, the alternate boldness
and caution, rest and action, promptness and delay, of the
commander, each always rightly placed, through which the
enemy were baffled in every feature of the campaign, without
the hazard to the Allies of a single action in the field. The
Queen and the nation justly appreciated his conduct, and on
his return he received the dignities of Duke of Marlborough,
and Marquis of Blandford, by a patent, of the 14th of
December, 1702.

Early in the following spring he returned to the Continent,

FIRST DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. 77

where Louis, smarting under his late disappointments, had
augmented his armies ; changed his commanders ; and
resolved to prosecute a vigorous offensive war on every side.
Portugal had now joined the Allies, and Bavaria had declared
for France. Marlborough began by reducing Bonn, the resi-
dence of the Elector of Cologne, and, after having been twice
prevented by the obstinacy and folly of the Dutch generals
from executing an important attack on Antwerp and Ostend,
returned to the Meuse, and made himself master of Huy,
Limburg, and Guelder. It was now that his intimacy com-
menced with Prince Eugene of Savoy, a consummate Impe-
rialist general, with whom he laid the plan for the ensuing
glorious campaign, and determined to penetrate into the heart
of Germany, where the Emperor's affairs were on the point
of ruin. He marched accordingly to the Danube with
astonishing celerity, and having defeated in a single action at
Donawerth the Bavarian forces, to which a large division of
the French troops was united, and desolated the Elector's
country even to the walls of his capital, crossed the river,
and with great difficulty and peril effected a junction with
Eugene. His victory over the main army of the enemy at
Blenheim, the most splendid, with one exception, of all
modern conquests, almost immediately followed. The
remains of the French and Bavarian armies were now forced
to take refuge within the frontiers of France, and Germany
was left open to the march of the Allies from the Danube to
the Rhine, which they crossed, and occupied Alsace. The
surrender of the important fortresses of Landau and Trierbach
concluded this memorable campaign, and the Emperor tes-
tified his gratitude to the victor by creating him a Prince of
the Empire, to which dignity was annexed in the succeeding
year the grant of an extensive domain.

The next was little less glorious. The remarkable enter-
prise in which Marlborough forced the French lines at
Tirlemont was followed soon after by his victory at Ramillies,
second only to the triumph of Blenheim ; and by the con-

78 JOHN CHURCHILL,

sequent surrender of Louvain, Brussels, Mechlin, Ghent,
Bruges, and indeed the whole of Brabant. Even the strong
fortresses of Antwerp, Ostend, Menin, Dendermonde, and
others, fell almost without resistance. The Emperor now
-earnestly pressed him to accept a commission for the govern-
ment of the Netherlands, thus subdued by him, which the
jealousy of the Dutch obliged him to refuse. He retired for
& while from these glorious labours, not to repose, but to
improve by his counsel the plans, and to aid by his influence
the prosecution, of the less fortunate war in Italy and Spain.
He passed the year 1707 in negociations for a treaty with
France, or rather in avoiding the latent dangers of certain
propositions for a peace insidiously offered by that power ;
in endeavouring to gain Charles the Twelfth of Sweden to
the interests of the Allies ; and in forming plans to dis-
concert the measures which the French were secretly taking
to redeem their late losses in Brabant and Flanders. Among
the features of the latter design one of the most important
was the defence of Oudenarde, a strong fortress on the
Scheldt. The enemy, on their way towards it, had surprised
Ghent and Bruges, and were threatening Brussels, when
JVfarlborough, in an attack wholly unexpected, after one of
the most rapid marches recorded in military annals, won the
battle that took its name from the important post which was
the object of their meditated attack. The Elector of Bavaria
however still lay before Brussels with a formidable force, and
the Duke, determined at all hazards to save that city, forced
the passage of the river with a noble gallantry, and put to
flight the French and Bavarian army which was encamped
on the opposite bank. In the meantime he besieged Lille,
which held out with an obstinacy of which the whole war
had presented no other instance, and at length entered it in
the sight of that army, which had again come down purposely
to relieve it, and to which he had in vain offered battle even
during the siege. This exploit was followed by the surrender
of the strong posts taken by the enemy on the Scheldt, which

FIRST DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. 79

the Duke now repassed, relieved Brussels, and retook Ghent
after the beginning of a severe winter.

He commenced the campaign of 1709 with the reduction of
Tournay, and then sat down before Mons, in the neighbour-
hood of which city the enemy lay encamped behind works of
uncommon extent and strength. These he forced ; won the
battle of Malplaquet ; and Mons, dearly purchased by that
furious and sanguinary victory, presently after surrendered.
The severe loss sustained on both sides arrested for the small
remainder of the season all further active operations. The
French army, separated into several divisions, retired to pro-
tect the few posts which they still held in Flanders ; and
Marlborough having disposed his forces for the ensuing
winter, met Eugene at the Hague to consult on the whole
system of the widely extended war. Among the results of
their deliberations was a plan for the simultaneous invasion
of France in several quarters, which was rendered abortive
by the selfishness and jealousy of some of the allied powers :
in the meantime conferences were again held for settling the
preliminaries of a treaty of peace, and broken up by the
refusal of Louis to submit to the conditions suggested as to
Spain. Marlborough 's campaign of 1710 was confined to the
French frontier, where, having passed the enemy's lines with
exquisite skill, he invested Douay, which surrendered after a
siege of six weeks. This acquisition was followed by the
reduction of Bethune, Aire, and St. Tenant. The operations
of the year, rather successful than glorious, were influenced
perhaps by those political disorders at home which will be
presently mentioned, and which so powerfully affected
Marlborough's mind that he now solicited of the Emperor
the government, which he had formerly declined, of the
Netherlands, as an asylum to which it might be convenient
to him to retire from the possible effects of party rage. His
request was evaded in terms that amounted to a refusal.
The following year closed his services, and though distin-
guished by no individual acquisition but the capture of

80 JOHN CHURCHILL,

Bouchain, produced perhaps the most remarkable proofs of his
refined military skill, in a series of manoeuvres by which he
completely deceived the most celebrated French commander of
his time, and accomplished his purpose of besieging that
important fortress.

The Duke of Marlborough's political history, the outlines
of which, for the sake of perspicuity I have divided from the
foregoing sketch of his military life, may be said to have
commenced with his appointment to the supreme command
of the allied army. Nature had formed him for a soldier,
and circumstances made him a statesman. Impelled by the
masculine spirit and restless ambition of the Duchess, and
tempted by the visions of unlimited power and wealth
which the Queen's implicit submission to her will, and his
consciousness of his own influence over the chief minister
Godolphin, had opened to his view, he who displayed in the
field the most undaunted courage, and the firmest decision,
condescended to become at home a timid politician and a
doubting counsellor. It may be questioned whether he was
in his heart attached to any party, and, though his early
habits inclined him to the Tories, yet he might be said rather
to countenance than to act with them ; but this seeming
lukewarmth may perhaps be ascribed to the Duchess's
affection to the Whigs, for he seldom directly opposed her
inclinations, at least seldom with her knowledge.

Thus situated, he was entrusted by Anne on her accession
to form, in concert with Godolphin, a Tory administration,
and, having completed that arrangement, immediately sailed
to Holland on his first campaign in the character of General-
issimo. To the Dukedom which was conferred on him at his
return was annexed the grant of a pension from the revenue
of the post-office of five thousand pounds, and it was proposed
that it should be continued to his descendants, bearing the
title, but this was strongly opposed in the Commons ; and
the Queen, at Marlborough's request, withdrew the message
by which she had recommended it to the House, and softened

FIRST DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. 81

the disappointment by the gift of an additional annuity of two
thousand, out of her privy purse. He returned this kindness
by the most strenuous efforts to procure a superb establish-
ment for the Prince of Denmark, and Anne attributed the
success of the bill to that effect, which passed the House of
Peers by a majority of a single vote, to the exertions of
himself and the Duchess ; nor was he less active in favour
of the bill for Occasional Conformity, a measure which she
had entirely at heart. The experience of parties in this first
session after his appearance on the theatre of the state cost
him more solicitude, if we may judge by his subsequent
letters from the Continent, than the affairs of a campaign :
the next produced embarrassments more vexatious. The
Tories, even the ministers themselves, divided into two
rancorous factions, one of which, headed by the Earls of
Rochester and Nottingham, incessantly inveighed against
the war; the continental connections which Maryborough
had formed to support it ; and, by an easy transition, against
the conduct of the General, whom they accused of prolonging
it for his private advantage. Meanwhile the Duchess, taking
advantage of these disorders in a party which she detested,
vainly assailed him with incessant importunities to coalesce
with the Whigs — a union which the Queen as earnestly depre-
cated. Amidst this various contention the Duke returned for
a few weeks from the army, and, at his request, Robert
Harley, whom he had long patronised, was appointed to
succeed Nottingham as Secretary of State, and Henry St.
John, then introduced by Harley, was made Secretary at
War. The Duchess, even in the hour of their promotion,
described the characters of these men to her husband, and
prognosticated the return which they would make for his
distinction of them with a sagacious correctness.

The unparalleled success of his military services, even the
stupendous victory of Blenheim, worked no change in the
disposition of parties towards him. He became miserable in
the midst of his glories. " I will endeavour," says he, in a

VII. G

82 JOHN CHURCHILL,

letter from Germany to the Duchess, of the twentieth of
October, 1704, " to leave a good name behind me in countries
that have hardly any blessing but that of not knowing the
detested names of Whig and Tory ;" and in another, about
the same time — " I shall serve the Queen with all my soul,
even to the hazard of a thousand lives, if I had them ; but
while I live I will meddle with no business but what belongs
to the army ;" yet immediately after, in compliance with
the Duchess's importunities, he procured the dismissal of the
Duke of Buckingham from the custody of the Privy Seal, and
the appointment of the Duke of Newcastle as his successor.
He soon after returned from his splendid campaign, with the
Commander in Chief of the French army a prisoner in his
train, and the clamours of faction were for a while unheard
amidst the honest acclamations of a people who always judge
rightly when they are left to themselves. This interval
however was short, and the ministry was soon after so
furiously attacked by the most discontented and rapacious
of both parties, that Godolphin became alarmed ; joined his
arguments and entreaties to those of the Duchess ; and
Maryborough at length consented that some of the Whig
leaders should be admitted into the government ; confident
at least of their support in the vigorous prosecution of the
war. The Queen, to whom this change was odious, struggled
hard to retain Sir Nathan Wright in the office of Lord Keeper,
but was at length compelled to place the great seal in the
hands of Cowper, and in the intemperance, not to say inso-
lence, with which the Duchess of Marlborough urged her
mistress on this point, and to obtain, as at length she did, the
office of Secretary of State for her son-in-law, Sunderland,
we discern the first symptoms of the decrease of that implicit
compliance with her imperious will to which Anne had for
so many years submitted. Her husband, in a blind obedience
to his affection for her, seldom failed to second her views and
entreaties, and sunk with her, though less rapidly, in the
Queen's esteem ; while Harley and St. John availed them-

FIRST DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. 83

selves of the influence of another female, whose favour with
Anne secretly advanced in proportion to the decline of that
of the Duchess, to work their way to power by indirectly
thwarting the measures of their great patron, and his friend
the Treasurer.

Marlborough, however, on his return from the Continent in
the autumn of 1706, received not only the cordial thanks of
both Houses, but, having lost his only son, an enlarged
settlement by the crown of his titles on his four daughters,
in succession, and their male issue, and a grant by act of
parliament annexing to the title of Duke of Marlborough in
all his descendants the manor of Woodstock, and House of
Blenheim, built for him at the public charge, together with
the pension of five thousand pounds, the entail of which, as
has been already observed, was formerly denied to him.
Anxious to impress on the Whigs a confidence in his zeal
for the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover, he
espoused with apparent warmth the great and successful
project for the Union with Scotland, and returned to his
command with vain hopes that he had left a government
somewhat settled. He had scarcely however departed when
a feud arose between the Queen and her Whig ministers on
the disposal of church preferments, and the tenacity with
which she asserted her prerogative was ascribed by them to
the advice of Marlborough and Godolphin, who had in fact
exerted themselves to the utmost to induce her to concede.
To this vexation was soon after added the clearest proofs
that Mrs. Masham, the female lately alluded to, had not only
supplanted the Duchess, by whom she had been rescued from
poverty, and provided for in the Court, but that she had
become the instrument of communication between the Queen
and Mr. Harley, who now evidently aspired to the chief
direction of affairs. Marlborough, shortly after his arrival in
England in November 1708, and the Treasurer, having used
every other instance to persuade Anne to dismiss him, wrote
to her to declare plainly that they would no longer serve

84 JOHN CHURCHILL,

with him, and accordingly declined to attend at the next
meeting of the Cabinet Council. They had prepared, though
most unwillingly, to resign, when Harley, finding his interest
in Parliament not yet sufficiently ripe to support his preten-
sions, as unwillingly retired together with St. John, and a few
other dependants.

Marlborough and the Treasurer gained little by these
changes. The advantage which they obtained by supplying
from the Whigs the offices thus vacated was at least counter-
balanced by the increased mortification and resentment of the
Queen, arising as much from the admission of new members
of that party which was so hateful to her, as from having
seen her confidential minister removed in a manner by force.
The Whigs, on their part, were still dissatisfied, and she was
obliged further to sacrifice her prejudices by committing the
Privy Seal to Somers, and the Admiralty to Oxford. She
ascribed these repeated vexations chiefly to the Duchess,
and their intercourse was now invariably marked by bold
reproaches on the one side, and a sullen reserve on the other,
equally unbecoming to the station of each. It was soon after
closed for ever, but not till Marlborough had submitted to
make personally the most humiliating efforts to restore her to
favour, or what was worse, to persuade the Queen to let her
retain her appointments without it. His entreaties were
unsuccessful. Resolved, or rather compelled by the Duchess,
to retire with her from all political concerns, but anxious, as
his enemies alleged, to retain the profits of his military
station, he now compromised his dignity by earnestly soli-
citing of Anne a grant of his appointments of Captain General,
and Master of the Ordnance, for his life, and was refused.
Enraged by these denials, and little less by the Queen's
disposal of certain military promotions against his express
advice, he retired suddenly into the country, and formed
there a resolution to insist on the dismissal of Mrs. Masham
as the only condition on which he could continue to command
the army ; but the pusillanimity of Godolphin, and the con-

FIRST DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. 85

flicting opinions of the Whig leaders in the ministry, whose
advice he had requested, induced him to relinquish this
spirited determination.

During this interval, Harley, deriving advantage from the
leisure afforded by his disengagement from office, planned,
with the concurrence of the Queen, a new administration.
As their arrangements proceeded, some distinguished Tories
were appointed one by one to places in the court and state,
without consulting the Treasurer, and sometimes even without
his previous expectation. Various insults were vainly offered
to provoke him to resign, and the Queen was at last obliged
to send peremptorily to him for his staff. To dispose of
Marlborough, shielded as he was by the glory which he had
acquired, by the hope of his future services, and by solicita-
tions, not only at home but by foreign powers, to retain his
command, was more difficult. He, like Godolphin, was
assailed by the most bitter affronts. On his return from the
campaign of 1710, Anne, at his first audience, warned him to
prevent his friends from moving the parliamentary vote of
thanks which he had so long been accustomed to receive,
for, said she, " my ministers will certainly oppose it." Three
general officers were cashiered merely for toasting " his health,
and confusion to his enemies." A host of political writers,
from Swift, and St. John, and Prior, down to the vilest libel-
lers, were employed to load him with every sort of obloquy-
His popularity suddenly sunk under these latter attacks,
while the Parliament, particularly the Peers, betrayed an
inclination to censure, if not his conduct in the field, at least
his military counsels ; and we find in a confidential letter,
written at this precise period by Harley, the creature of his
hands, this menacing passage — "you must know that the
moment he leaves the service, and loses the protection of the
Court, such scenes will open as no victories can varnish over."
If Marlborough 's early years were stained by ingratitude he
was now amply repaid in kind.
, It is scarcely credible, but even in the following year

86 JOHN CHURCHILL,

Harley, now Earl of Oxford and Lord Treasurer, already
under the pressure of political necessities, courted Marlborough
with the affected confidence of a friend, and the respect of an
inferior, and his advances were received with all the sem-
blance of cordiality. The hero at the sound of whose name
France trembled now sued from his camp to a puny enemy
for protection against nameless slanderers at home, and was
insulted by his hypocritical condolence, While every despatch
from Harley professed an earnest zeal, and offered the most
ample supplies, for the vigorous prosecution of the war, a
secret negociation for peace proceeded in London, and
Marlborough had to learn from a newspaper that the preli-
minaries were signed. He returned, and was apprised on
his road that charges of fraud and peculation had been
preferred against him to the commissioners of public accounts
by one of his army contractors. As he had on his arrival
joined the Whigs against the ministry it was resolved to
strike a decisive blow ; the report of the Commissioners was
published by authority, and two days after, on the thirty-first
of December, 1711, under the pretence, as it is stated in the
Council book, " that the matter might undergo an impartial
investigation," the Queen dismissed him from all his employ-
ments. The Commons presently after resolved that his con-
duct in some of the matters alleged against him had been
"unwarrantable and illegal," and an order was issued to the
Attorney General to prosecute, but no process was ever
instituted. His enemies were satisfied by his removal, and
preferred the leaving a suspicion on his character to the
hazard of a prosecution which it could scarcely be doubted
would have terminated favourably to him. Marlborough,
with his Duchess, now retired to Germany ; devoted his
counsels to the service of the Elector of Hanover ; and when
that Prince left his dominions to take possession of the English
throne on the death of Anne, followed him to London.

Little remains to be told. The first acts of the new King
were to restore to Marlborough his offices of Captain General,

FIRST DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. 87

and Master of the Ordnance, and to lavish favours on his
family. The invasion of Scotland in 1715 offered the final
opportunity for his taking any concern in active military
service, and his arrangements for the resistance of that
extravagant attempt are said to have been admirably judi-
cious and beneficial. In the course of the succeeding year
he had two attacks of palsy, which in a great measure inca-
pacitated him from attending to any but his own private
affairs. He survived, however, till 1722, when nature gave
way to a third stroke on the sixteenth of June. His remains
were deposited, with the greatest funeral pomp, but, strange
to say, not at the public charge, in Westminster Abbey, from
whence they were afterwards removed to the chapel at
Blenheim House.

The Duke of Marlborough's issue was an only son, John,
Marquis of Blandford, who died, as has been already stated,
a minor ; and four daughters ; Henrietta, wife of Francis,
second Earl of Godolphin, who succeeded under a settlement
above quoted, to her father's dignities, and died without
issue ; Anne, married to Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland,
to whose issue they then passed, and from whom the present
Duke is lineally descended; Elizabeth, wife of Scrope Egerton,
first Duke of Bridgewater ; and Mary, of John, Duke of
Montagu.

Coo-par Bar.

K1

LADY RUSSET /I.,
OB , 1723,

RACHAEL WRIOTHESLEY,

LADY RUSSELL.

THE story of Lady Russell, with the exception of one
lamentable particular, is confined to private life, and yet, so
transcendent were her merits in every relation of existence,
and in every point of view, that almost all circumstances
which could be gathered concerning her have been carefully
preserved, and few persons, especially of her lovely sex, have
been more largely celebrated. Her character indeed excelled
not only that of woman, but that of man also, for it seems to
have involved all the virtues, and all the talents, of both
sexes. To a lofty courage and magnanimity it united the
most feminine tenderness and mildness, and sweetened and
relieved a sagacity, which sometimes amounted almost to
wisdom, with the simplicity and candour of an amiable child.
To these, in her happier days, was added a cheerfulness,
constant because it was always innocent, and, throughout the
whole of her life, a patience and resignation which never
for a moment left her, because they flowed from the purest
piety. A series of her letters, which was printed in 1773,
and republished in the following year, and a further col-
lection, which appeared in 1819, with a biographical essay
prefixed, from the pen of an accomplished female, will amply
justify the tribute which we have thus paid to Lady Russell's
excellence.

She was the second daughter and coheir of that minister
of spotless honesty, Thomas Wriothesley, fourth and last
Earl of Southampton of his family, and Lord Treasurer, by

90 RACHAEL WRIOTHESLEY,

his first lady, Rachel, daughter of Henry de Massey, Baron
de Rouvigni, a French Protestant nobleman, to whose care
the professors of that faith in France intrusted the interests
of their church both there and in England. She was born
about the year 1636, and, her mother having died in her
infancy, her education is said to have been neglected ; a
report the correctness of which is rendered at least very
doubtful, by the language and method of expression used
in her epistles. In 1653 she was married to Francis Lord
Vaughan, heir-apparent of Richard, Earl of Carbery, a Peer
of Ireland. Of this young nobleman, or of the circumstances
which led to their union, we have no intelligence whatever,
except a trifling notice in one of her letters, from which
it may be inferred that he was of a slow and indolent dis-
position. She had by him an only child, born in 1665, which
not long survived its birth, and he, about two years after,
leaving her a widow, she went to live with her elder sister,
Elizabeth, Lady Noel, afterwards Countess of Gainsborough,
in her mansion at Titchfield in Hants. Here she first
attracted the notice, and then the affection, of the Honourable
William Russell, at that time second son of William, fifth
Earl, and afterwards first Duke, of Bedford, and became his
wife in the end of the year 1669.

Certainly never was matrimonial union blessed for several
years with more perfect felicity. Russell, who was about
the age of twenty-five at the time of their marriage, and who
had indulged in a freedom of life which bordered upon liber-
tinism, became a pattern for domestic conduct, and they
appear to have lived together as much, and in as much
privacy, as the forms of society could permit to persons of
their rank. When separated, letters were continually pass-
ing between them, filled, not with extravagant professions of
affection, but with those lively and elegant trifles which love
so readily coins into a rich interchange, and which were
afterwards diversified, not superseded, by the never-failing
topic of all that was done and said by the three children with

LADY RUSSELL. 91

which Providence soon blessed them. Thus, in greater bliss
perhaps than mortals can merit, passed their days, till Russell
weakly condescended to lend his countenance and great name
to a desperate faction, bent on the reproduction of that
anarchy which had been but so lately subdued, and to become
the tool of the sour republican Sidney, the wholly unprin-
cipled Shaftesbury, and the senseless Monmouth. Of the
part which he, who had now, by the death of his elder
brother, become heir to the titles and estates of his exalted
house, unhappily took in the desperate machinations of these
men, our histories of the time teem with reports and misrepre-
sentations ; and, as a sketch of his life has already appeared
in this work, nothing need be further said of it in this place
than that he was arrested and imprisoned in the beginning of
July, 1683, on a charge of high treason.

It is but reasonable to suppose that Lady Russell, amply
as she enjoyed his confidence, was ignorant of the share that
he had actually taken in the plot on which this accusation
was grounded : of the general character however of the poli-
tical inclinations which had recommended him to the con-
spirators, and rendered him an easy prey to those artifices by
which he had been misled to join them, it is impossible that
she could have been unconscious ; yet such was her prudence,
that not the slightest allusion to that disposition appears in
any of her letters, either to himself or others, except in a
single instance, and even that is wholly unexplained by any
context — in one, of the twenty-second of November, 1681,
she says, " be wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove." The
time had now nearly arrived in which she was called on to
display all the energies of her nature ; to bring into action a
courage which had hitherto lain dormant for want of neces-
sary occasions ; to disguise a tenderness, the show of which
would have broken his heart ; and to conceal a sorrow which
was breaking her own.

On the thirteenth of July, 1683, he was brought to trial at
the Old Bailey. To the astonishment of all present, Lady

92 RACHAEL WRIOTHESLEY,

Russell accompanied him, and, with a gravity suited to the
place and the occasion, seated herself beside him, amidst the
tears and sighs of the spectators, she herself alone appearing
unmoved; while her husband, desirous of heightening the effect
of the scene to the utmost, and knowing how well her part
in it would be performed, requested the Chief Justice Pem-
berton, who presided, that he might have a person to take
notes for him. Pemberton replied, " Any of your servants
shall assist you in writing any thing you please ;" on which
Russell said, " My wife is here to do it ;" when she rose in
the face of the Court, and, advancing with the modest dignity
of an angel to the place appointed for her, prepared to com-
mence her task. She heard his conviction and sentence of
death pronounced, and accompanied him to his prison, with
the same apparent composure. Arrived there, she canvassed
coolly with him the possibilities of obtaining a mitigation of
punishment, or, in order to it, at least a postponement of
execution. Lord Russell said, as we are informed by Burnet,
who attended him constantly, from his trial to his death,
" that he wished she would give over beating every bush, and
running so about for his preservation ; but, when he con-
sidered that it would be some mitigation of her sorrow that
she left nothing undone that could have given any probable
hopes, he acquiesced."

All however was in vain, and he had notice to prepare to
die on the twenty-first of July. " At eleven o'clock the night
before," says Burnet again, "my lady left him. He kissed
her four or five times, and she kept her sorrows so within
herself that she gave him no disturbance at their parting.
After she was gone, he said now the bitterness of death was
passed, and ran out into a long discourse concerning her —
how great a blessing she had been to him; and said what
a misery it would have been if she had not had that mag-
nanimity of spirit, joined to her tenderness, as never to have
desired him to do a base thing for the saving of his life :
' whereas otherwise/ said he, ' what a week I should have

LADY RUSSELL. 93

passed if she had been crying out on me to turn informer.'
He said there was a signal providence of God in giving him
such a wife, where there was birth, fortune, great understand-
ing, great religion, and a great kindness to him; but her
carriage in this extremity went beyond all. He said he was
glad that she, and her children, were to lose nothing by his
death, and it was a great comfort to him that he left his
children in such a mother's hands ; and that she had pro-
mised him to take care of herself for their sakes, which,"
says the Bishop, "I heard her do."

The King caused to be repeated to her, immediately after
the death of her Lord, the intimation here alluded to, that
he did not mean to profit by Russell's attainder, and her
passionate love for her children put on her the painful task
of offering some show of thanks. She wrote in consequence to
er uncle, John Russell, Colonel of the first regiment of
Horse Guards — " I esteem it fit to make some compliment
of acknowledgment to his Majesty. To do this for me is the
favour I beg of you ; but I have written the inclosed paper
in such a manner that, if you judge it fit, you may, as you
see cause, show it to the King, to let him see what thanks I
desire may be made him, but this is left to do as you approve."
Lord Halifax, writing to her immediately after, says, " I have
not seen Colonel f Russell, to speak to him concerning the
letter your Ladyship mentioned ; but, according to my present
thoughts, if he delivereth a compliment from you to his
Majesty, by your order, it may be less liable to inconvenience
or exception than anything that is put on paper." Charles's
omission to interdict any acknowledgment on her part is a
proof of his unfeeling heart.

She retired into the country, and now gave way in solitude
to her sorrows. On the thirteenth of September, two months
after her great calamity, she wrote to Doctor Fitzwilliam, the
chaplain and dear friend for many years to her late father,
and his family, and we find in her letter these exquisite
effusions of genuine nature, and holy philosophy — "You,

94; RACHAEL WRIOTHESLEY,

that knew us both, and how we lived, must allow I have
just cause to bewail my loss. I know it is common to others
to lose a friend ; but to have lived with such a one it may be
questioned how few can glory in the like happiness, so con-
sequently lament the like loss. Who can but shrink from
such a blow! " And, a little after — " Lord, let me understand
the reason of these dark and wounding providences, that I
sink not under the discouragement of my own thoughts. I
know I have deserved my punishment, and will be silent
under it ; but yet secretly my heart mourns, too sadly I fear,
and cannot be comforted, because I have not the dear com-
panion and sharer of all my joys and sorrows. I want him
to talk with, to eat and sleep with. All these things are
irksome to me : the day unwelcome, and the night so too.
AH company and meals I would avoid, if it might be. Yet
all this is that I enjoy not the world in my own way, and
this sure hinders my comfort. When I see my children
before me, I remember the pleasure he took in them : this
makes my heart shrink. Can I regret his quitting a lesser
good for a greater ? Oh, if I did but believe, I could not be
dejected ; for I will not injure myself to say I offer my mind
any inferior consolation to supply this loss. No, I most will-
ingly forsake this world, this vexatious troublesome world, in
which I have no other business but to rid my soul of sin ;
secure by faith and a good conscience my eternal interests ;
with patience and courage bear my eminent misfortune ; and
ever hereafter be above the smiles and frowns of fortune."

Her patience indeed was equal to her courage, and the
sweetness of her temper perhaps superior to both. We meet
not in her letters with any invective, or expression of com-
plaint, even against those to whom the life of her Lord had
been sacrificed, and she seems to have studiously avoided any
intercourse with those of the faction which he had unhappily
embraced. Her countenance and favour were however
thought worth courting by the Prince of Orange, even in the
commencement of his designs on the Crown of England.

LADY RUSSELL. 95

Dykevelt, his Plenipotentiary at the Court of London, had
special orders upon his coming, in 1686, to wait on her, to
condole with her on the death of her Lord ; and to assure
her that he offered these greetings, not in his private capacity,
but as William's accredited minister. Soon after the Revo-
lution, as might have been with certainty expected, the
highest favours were showered on her husband's family.
The Earl, his father, was raised to the dignities of Marquis
of Tavistock, and Duke of Bedford ; her only son, then in his
fifteenth year, to that of Baron Rowland, of Streatham, in
Surrey ; and no pains were spared in attempting to atone for
an injury which was interpreted to have arisen in a great
measure from the affection of the sufferer to the cause of the
new King.

Lady Russell had yet to encounter severe trials. Her only
son, Wriothesley, who had succeeded his grandfather in the
Dukedom, and was happily married, and generally beloved
and respected, fell a sacrifice to a virulent small-pox in 1711,
having barely passed his thirtieth year : the second of her
two daughters, Catherine, Duchess of Rutland, died shortly
after, in child-birth of her tenth child ; and here we have
another remarkable proof at once of the tenderness and the
firmness of Lady Russell's character. Her eldest daughter,
Rachael, Duchess of Devonshire, being at the same time con-
fined on a similar occasion, and making anxious and impor-
tunate inquiries of her, after the state of her sister's health,
the incomparable parent replied, without a moment's hesita-
tion— " Your sister is very well ; I have this morning seen
her out of bed ;" arid it was true, for she had seen her in her
coffin.

Lady Russell died on the twenty- ninth of September, 1723,
at the great age of eighty-seven, and was buried, with her
Lord, in the family vault, at Chenies, in Bucks.

(Q) © 1, ^ T

i Or OXFORD
OB, 1724,

ROBERT HARLEY,

EARL OF OXFORD AND MORTIMER.

THIS eminent statesman was descended from an ancient and
honourable family, whose line, notwithstanding Bolingbroke's
ill-natured assertion, that he " had never met with any illus-
tration of it but in the vain discourses which Lord Oxford
used to hold over claret," may be satisfactorily traced to a
period anterior to the Norman conquest. Sir Edward Harley,
of Brampton Bryan, in Herefordshire, the father of the subject
of this memoir, a stanch Presbyterian, distinguished himself
at an early period of the civil wars, and gained a high reputa-
tion for ability and gallantry. The same unbending prin-
ciples that had led him to take up arms in support of a cause
which, as he believed, involved the interest and freedom of
his country, induced him to defy the power of Cromwell when
the usurper's sway was established. In 1656, when serving
as member for Hertfordshire, his opposition provoked Crom-
well's displeasure, who excluded him with other members ;
whereupon he signed a remonstrance, in which he announced
himself as one of those who " would not be frighted or
flattered to betray their country, and give up their religion,
lives, and estates, to be at the will or to serve the ambition
of the Protector." On the restoration of Charles the Second,
he was appointed governor of Dunkirk and Mardyck, then in
danger of falling into the hands of the French ; the subse-
quent disgraceful alienation of which possessions he earnestly
strove to prevent.

Robert Harley, the eldest son of Sir Edward Harley, by his

VII. H

98 ROBERT HARLEY,

second wife, Abigail, daughter of Nathaniel Stephens, of
Essington, in the county of Gloucester, was bora in Bow
Street, Covent-Garden, on the fifth of December, 1661. He
was educated at a private school at Shilton, near Burford, in
Oxfordshire, kept by the Rev. Mr. Birch, who had the singu-
lar merit or good fortune to reckon also among his pupils,
Harcourt, afterwards Lord Chancellor, Trevor, who became
Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and ten future members
of the House of Commons, who had all been at the same
time inmates of his house. On the arrival of the Prince of
Orange, in 1688, Sir Edward Harley, and his son, Robert,
raised a cavalry troop, with which the latter marched to
tender his services to the Prince, and to assure him of the ad-
herence of that part of the country which they influenced. His
early destination appears to have been to the profession of
the law, and we have it on the authority of Bolingbroke, that
he was " bred in the inns of court." In the first Parliament
after the accession of William and Mary to the throne, he was
returned member for Tregony, in Cornwall, and in 1690 for
Radnor, which seat he retained until he was raised to the
peerage. That inordinate ambition which is said by his friends
as well as by his foes to have been a distinguishing feature of
his character did not permit him to rest satisfied with a pri-
vate station. He had discovered considerable aptness for pub-
lic business on several occasions ; and it may be true that, not
meeting with the preferment to which he thought his services
and his talents entitled him, he determined to extort that dis-
tinction which the King did not appear disposed to confer upon
him voluntarily. Burnet says, " he was a man of great in-
dustry and application, and knew forms and the records of
Parliament so well, that he was capable both of lengthening
out and perplexing debates." His labours in the House of
Commons sufficiently show that this reluctant praise was as
little as he was entitled to ; and the reputation which he
acquired in that assembly proves the sense which was there
entertained of his merit and talents. In 1693, he distinguished

EARL OF OXFORD AND MORTIMER. 99

himself by exposing the corruptions which prevailed in the
administration of the revenue, and proposed and carried a bill
for abolishing some notorious abuses in the mode of paying
the army, and for regulating the sums expended by the actual
musters of effective men. He was appointed one of the arbi-
trators for uniting the two India Companies ; and, in 1694,
prepared a bill for triennial Parliaments, which was readily
carried. While his services thus recommended him in the
strongest manner to the House of Commons, his dexterity
and sagacity enabled him to conciliate the good opinion and
to gain the confidence of opposite parties in politics. His
family connexions and the habits of his early life had ensured
him the support of the Presbyterians, many of whom were
Whigs ; the High party, as the Tories were called in the lan-
guage of that day, also confided in him, and the vigorous op-
position he had displayed to the court confirmed their reliance
upon him. In 1700, he was chosen Speaker of the House of
Commons, Sir Thomas Lyttleton, his competitor, having with-
drawn at the request of the King, who had intimated that it
would be for his Majesty's service that Harley should be
elected. In the following year, although he was opposed by
Sir Thomas Lyttleton, whom the King then openly favoured,
he was elected to the same office, and again, in the first Par-
liament held in the reign of Queen Anne ; thus occupying
that distinguished post in three successive Parliaments.

In April, 1704, he first became a member of the adminis-
tration, being sworn of the Queen's Privy Council ; and in
the May following, on a partial change in the administration,
occasioned by the resignation of the Earl of Nottingham, he
was appointed one of the principal Secretaries of State, retain-
ing still his office of Speaker of the House of Commons. The
ability which enabled him to discharge with credit and suc-
cess the duties of such apparently discordant employments is
alluded to in very flattering terms in the preamble to his
patent of nobility, said to have proceeded from the pen of
Swift, which recites, that these difficulties " were easily

H2

100 ROBERT HARLEY,

reconciled by one who knew how, with equal weight and
address, to temper and turn the minds of men ; so wisely to
defend the rights of the people, without derogating from the
prerogative of the crown ; and who was thoroughly acquainted
how well monarchy could consist with liberty." The state
of politics at this period afforded him an opportunity for car-
rying into effect those aspiring projects which he had long
been suspected of forming. The tyranny of the Whigs, the
party then in power, had disgusted and subdued the Queen
without terrifying her. Harley's attempts to gain their con-
fidence had failed ; and although they were compelled to act
with him, they did not affect to conceal the doubts they enter-
tained of his sincerity. One instance among others, of the
light in which he was viewed, and the manner in which he
was treated by his colleagues, may be taken from the unpub-
lished diary of Lord Cowper, then Lord Chancellor. " Sun-
day, January 6, 1705-6. — I dined next day, on an invitation,
with Secretary Harley ; present, the Duke of Marlborough,
the Lord Treasurer (Lord Godolphin), Lord Halifax, Mr.
Boyle, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. St. John, Lord
Sunderland ; and Lord Somers, I understood, had been invited,
but did not come, being gone to his house in the country ;
but Secretary Harley said he had sent him a kind letter to
excuse his absence. I believed, when I saw the company,
this to be a meeting to reconcile Somers and Halifax with
Harley, which was confirmed to me when, after the Lord
Treasurer was gone (who first went), Secretary Harley took
a glass, and drank ' to love and friendship, and everlasting
union,' and wished he had more Tokay to drink it in, (we
had drunk two bottles, good, but thick). I replied, his white
Lisbon was best to drink it in, being very clear. I suppose he
apprehended it (as I observed most of the company did) to
relate to that humour of his which was never to deal clearly
or openly, but always with reserve, if not dissimulation
or simulation, and to love tricks, even where not necessary,
but from an inward satisfaction he took in applauding his own

EARL OF OXFORD AND MORTIMER. 101

cunning. If any man was ever born under the necessity of
being a knave, he was." It must, however, be remembered,
that this is the painting of a determined enemy.

It cannot be doubted that Harley, so keen an observer of
mankind, was aware of the dispositions and intentions of the
men with whom he was associated ; nor is it surprising that
a person of his character should endeavour to supplant those
who had so scorned his friendship. He was sure of the co-
operation of at least a great portion of the Tories, and confi-
dent, even to daring, in his own powers. His Parliamentary
reputation ; the Queen's countenance, which he had gained,
partly by his own exertions, and perhaps more by having
secured the co-operation of Mrs. Masham, who had begun to
rival the overbearing Duchess of Marlborough in the royal
favour, ensured the success of his scheme ; and the hopes of
the Tories, which had hitherto been crushed under the supe-
rior influence of their opponents, began to revive. This gleam
of prosperity was, however, but of short duration. The power
of the Whig faction, though diminished, was not extinguished.
Harley, who was justly deemed by them the main cause of
the defeat they had sustained, was the object of their most
bitter animosity, and an event soon happened which seemed
to place within their reach the means of his destruction.

A needy Scotchman, one William Gregg, had been employed
in an inferior situation in Harley's office. The negligence
with which the state papers, and particularly the foreign
correspondence, belonging to this department, were kept, had
afforded this man the means of communicating intelligence to
Monsieur Chamillard, the French King's minister, with whom
his intercourse was discovered before he had received the
promised reward of his treachery. He was tried and executed ;
but although endeavours were, it is said? made to induce him
to accuse the Secretary, he was proof against this temptation,
and, for once at least, evinced some honesty by delivering a
written paper to the sheriffs, immediately before his execu-
tion, wherein he declared that Harley was wholly unac-

102 ROBERT HARLEY,

quainted with the treasonable practices in which he had
been engaged. Thus baffled in their attempts to involve him
in the punishment which this traitor had so well deserved,
his opponents endeavoured to traduce his character and to
destroy his reputation ; and finding not only that these prac-
tices did not produce the intended effect, but that the
Secretary's influence with the Queen was unshaken, the
Duke of Marlborough and Lord Godolphin threatened to
resign unless he should be displaced. The Queen, desirous
to avoid a rupture with ministers, who did not scruple to
assert that they had set her on the throne and kept the
crown on her head, endeavoured in vain to pacify them ; and
at length, finding herself in danger of being deserted, com-
plied with their demands. Harley was compelled to resign
in February, 1707-8 ; his friends chose to share in his unde-
served disgrace, and once more the administration fell into
the hands of the Whigs.

Harley's parliamentary credit was, however, unimpaired
by this triumph of his enemies ; and the Queen, although
she was deprived of his services as a minister, continued to
bestow upon him, in private, marks of her regard and confi-
dence ; frequently consulting him upon political measures,
and never, as it is said, undertaking any matter of importance
without his advice. It was in this false position, to which
the malice of his enemies had reduced him, that Harley,
instigated at once by his ambition and his thirst for retalia-
tion, resorted with indefatigable energy to those practices
which have cast a deep stain on his moral character. It is
obviously impossible for any man to engage in such secret
intrigues as were then carried on, with safety either to his
honour or his happiness. At length, however, he triumphed.
The domination of the Whigs reached a point beyond the
Queen's power of endurance. The refusal of the Duke of
Marlborough to promote Mrs. Masham's brother at the
Queen's request led to a quarrel, which was so much
inflamed by the instigations of the Duchess on the one side,

EARL OF OXFORD AND MORTIMER, 103

and the intrigues of the new favourite, aided by the secret
but powerful influence of Harley on the other, that it led to
the dismissal of the Duke, the dispersion of the administration
of which he was the head, and the establishment of Harley
as the principal member of a high Tory cabinet. Lord
Godolphin resigned his post of Lord Treasurer; the office
was put into commission under Barley's direction, who
undertook at the same time the arduous duties of Chancellor
of the Exchequer.

The finances of the country, then in a state of ruinous
depression, engaged his first attention. Either unable to
comprehend the subject which the mal-administration of
former governments had made one of uncommon difficulty,
or resolving to pacify for a time, at whatever cost or hazard,
the clamorous demands of the public creditors, he resorted to
expedients which, however well calculated to produce present
relief, were not of a nature to cure the evils that had been
engendered by the existing system. He brought into opera-
tion that measure for securing a trade to the South Seas
which, although it enjoyed a short-lived popularity, ended
by impairing the national credit, and bringing irretrievable
ruin upon the individuals who were induced to engage in the
captivating pursuits which it encouraged. He copied, too,
from the French the pernicious scheme of state lotteries, and
persisted in establishing them, notwithstanding the remon-
strances of men who were sufficiently enlightened and virtuous
to perceive and denounce the mischiefs to which they must
necessarily give rise.

The moderation he had displayed from the time of his
accession to the greatest power with which any subject can
be invested in this country, had not satisfied the more violent
of those political partisans with whom he was the most
intimately connected. The high Tories began to mutter
reproaches against what they called his lukewarmness, when
an accident, which put his life in imminent peril, at once
restored him to their favour. A French adventurer, named

104 ROBERT HARLEY,

Guiscard, who, having failed in his attempts to excite insur-
rections in France, had become a spy in this country, and
was in the receipt of a pension of four hundred pounds a
year from the English government, was dissatisfied with this
reward of his nefarious services, and pestered the Queen with
applications for an increase of his stipend. His endeavours
being unsuccessful, he attributed his disappointment to St.
John, of whose riotous pleasures he had formerly been the
associate, and to Harley, who distrusted and who did not
attempt to conceal his aversion for him. In the anger which
these disappointments excited, he attempted to reconcile
himself with the court of France, and in pursuit of this
project addressed a letter to a French banker, in which he
offered his services to the country he had already betrayed.
This letter, which was intercepted, contained the most con-
vincing proofs of his treachery. He was consequently appre-
hended, upon a warrant from the Secretary of State, and
carried before the Privy Council for examination. While he
was waiting in an outer chamber, he contrived to secrete a
knife lying on a table there. On being introduced to the
council, he behaved with great effrontery, and strenuously
denied the charges which were brought against him. Harley
then produced the intercepted letter, at the sight of which
Guiscard's confidence forsook him, and, declining to answer
the questions put to him, he begged leave to communicate
with St. John, a request which gave rise to the suspicion
that the Secretary at War was the object of his vengeance.
This being refused, and St. John being out of his reach, he
approached Harley, and before his design could be perceived
stabbed him twice in the breast with the knife which he had
kept concealed. At the second blow the minister fell. The
council rose in alarm and confusion. St. John and some
others drew their swords and attacked the assassin, who
made a desperate defence and was severely wounded. He
was taken to Newgate, where he died a few days afterwards,
having first expressed his contrition for the crime he had

EARL OF OXFORD AND MORTIMER. 105

committed, and insinuated that his design had been against
the life of some other person than Harley, whom he said he
had always found a man of honour. Little importance can,
however, be attached to the statements of such a person
under any circumstances, and still less at the period referred
to, when he was suffering extreme anguish, and almost in the
agony of death.

The danger in which this attempt had placed his life dis-
pelled all the suspicions which Barley's half-friends had
begun to entertain, and to which his enemies took care to
give all possible weight. Both Houses of Parliament con-
curred in an address to Her Majesty, ascribing the attack
which had been made upon the Premier to the hatred con-
ceived by the abettors of popery and faction against one who
had displayed so much fidelity and zeal in her service. His
wounds confined him to his house for seven weeks. On his
re-appearance in the House of Commons he was congratulated
by the Speaker, in obedience to a resolution of the House,
upon his recovery, in highly complimentary terms ; and it
was this incident which gave occasion to the passing a statute
which declared any attempt upon the life of a Privy Counsellor
to be felony without benefit of clergy. The Earl of Rochester
dying at about this time, Mr. Harley became the head of the
ministry, and was raised to the peerage on the twenty-fourth
of May, 1711, by the title of Baron Harley, of Wigmore, in
the county of Hereford, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer. On
the twenty-ninth of the same month he was appointed Lord
High Treasurer of the realm.

He had now achieved the grand object of his ambition.
For some few years all went prosperously with him, and
as smoothly as is consistent with the condition of greatness.
The machinations of the Whigs were as active and incessant
as their hatred was implacable, but their power was now so
effectually lessened, that they had ceased to be formidable.
He solaced his leisure with the pursuits of literature, the
encouragement of learning, and the society of men of wit and

106 ROBERT HARLEY,

talent, reckoning among his intimate friends some of those
whose names form the proudest boasts of British genius, —
Pope, Swift, Gay, and Prior.

The peace of Utrecht, a measure of profound though ques-
tionable policy, engaged his most earnest attention, and he
accomplished it by dint of an energetic determination,
which, if not the first, is one of the most indispensable
qualities for a statesman. No sooner were the foreign
relations of the country tranquillised, than dissensions arose
between the minister and his colleagues which demolished
the power that had braved the wildest storms of faction.
Bolingbroke, who believed that his brilliant talents were
overshadowed by the loftier station of his compeer, engaged
in an intrigue for the purpose of displacing him. Lord
Oxford had incurred the enmity of Mrs. Masham by attempt-
ing to check her cupidity. Bolingbroke contrived to render
the disgust which the favourite had conceived, instrumental
to his own plans, and to insinuate himself into the confidence
of the Queen, who, never a strong-minded woman, was now
beginning to sink under bodily infirmities. She endeavoured
to accommodate the dissensions which had broken out between
her ministers, but her authority was not enough to compel
them to observe even an appearance of cordiality. Constant
disputes, which sometimes descended to bitter altercation,
between the Treasurer and the Secretary, disgraced the council-
board, and insulted the Queen's presence; and it was
immediately after one of these painful scenes that, on the
twenty-seventh of July, 1714, Lord Oxford was deprived of
all his employments. The anxiety and embarrassment which
this sudden change in her councils occasioned to the Queen
is said to have hastened her death, which happened on the
first of August following.

The accession of George the First brought discomfiture to
the party which still recognised Oxford as its leader. On
going to pay his respects to the new monarch, he was
received with marked indifference. But his enemies were

EARL OF OXFORD AND MORTIMER. 107

not satisfied with having extinguished his power. On the
tenth of June, in the following year, after Bolingbroke had
been impeached in the House of Lords, Lord Coningsby,
declaring that Bolingbroke's offences, whatever they were,
fell short of those of which Lord Oxford had been guilty,
charged him with high treason, and other crimes and
misdemeanors. Articles t of impeachment were afterwards
exhibited against him in the House of Lords, to which the
Commons added other charges. A debate ensued upon the
reading them in the Lords, and some of the most eminent
lawyers declared that, if substantiated, they did not amount
to high treason. Party spirit, however, ran so high, that it
was in vain to avow, and even dangerous to maintain this
opinion. Lord Oxford defended himself with great spirit
and good sense ; but the majority being against him, he was
committed to his own house in the custody of the Black Rod.
So mild a proceeding, to which they had been induced
solely upon the suggestion that he was suffering from an
agonising and dangerous malady, was, however, soon recalled
by the House of Peers ; and in spite of the remonstrances of
his physician, he was committed to the Tower, on the six-
teenth of July. His popularity, however, was so great, that
extraordinary measures were resorted to for the purpose of
checking the public discontent to which this prosecution gave
rise. He remained in confinement from the sixteenth of
July, 1715, to the first of July, 1717, when he was brought
to trial. A frivolous quarrel, however, ensued between the
two Houses of Parliament upon the point whether the charge
of high treason should be first proceeded in, or whether the
articles should be discussed seriatim. The Lords inclined
to the former opinion ; the Commons insisted on pursuing
the latter course ; and neither party choosing to yield, this
dispute was made a pretext for suffering the whole charge to
drop, and the Earl was consequently acquitted.

After this event, he retired wholly from public business,
and devoted the few remaining years of his life to pursuits

108 ROBERT HARLEY,

which, though less exciting than those which had occupied
the greater portion of his days, were better suited to one who
like him had become experimentally acquainted with the
utter hollowness and vanity of " the great world."

A fondness for books was a feeling which had distinguished
several of his ancestors. As early as the year 1705, his
collection had become very considerable. The vigour which
he threw into every pursuit that engaged his attention,
together with the means afforded by his ample fortune and
his station, enabled him to engage the assistance of a great
number of distinguished men at home and abroad who were
best qualified to perfect the design he had conceived of
forming that magnificent library of rare and valuable manu-
scripts in every department of literature now known by the
name of the Harleian collection, and acknowledged to be one
of our richest national treasures. It was arranged under the
care of the capable and zealous Humphrey Wanley, who has
chronicled the death of the subject of this memoir by a note,
written in a spare leaf of one of the manuscripts, in these
terms :— " 21st May, 1724. To-day, about ten of the clock,
it pleased Almighty God to call to his mercy, out of this
troublesome world, the Right Honourable Robert, Earl of
Oxford, the founder of this library, who had long been to me
a munificent patron, and my most kind and gracious lord
and master."

Lord Oxford was twice married ; first to Elizabeth,
daughter of Thomas Foley, of Witley Court, Worcestershire,
by whom he had one son, Edward, who succeeded him ; and
two daughters, Abigail, who married George Hay, Earl of
Kinnoul, and Elizabeth, who married the Marquis of Car-
marthen, afterwards Duke of Leeds. By his second wife,
Sarah, daughter of Thomas Myddleton, Esq., he had no issue.

The spirit of party, which cast so strong a colour over the
times in which he lived, has so tinged the opinions expressed
of this nobleman by his contemporaries, as to render the
testimony of men, otherwise best calculated to estimate his

EARL OF OXFORD AND MORTIMER. 109

character, almost wholly inadmissible. It would be equally
incorrect to adopt the too partial encomiums of Pope, or the
acrimonious invectives of Bolingbroke. Steele, who was his
avowed enemy, but who was actuated in all he did by a love
of truth, and the feelings of a gentleman, has the following
passage in a letter addressed to Lord Oxford in 1719, where
after alluding to his former attacks on the minister, he says,
" I transgressed, my Lord, against you when you could make
twelve peers in a day — I ask your pardon when you are a
private nobleman : and as I told you when I resigned the
Stamp Office, I wished you all prosperity consistent with
the public good, so now I congratulate you on the pleasure
you must needs have in looking back upon the true fortitude
with which you have passed through the dangers arising
from the rage of the people and the envy of the rest of the
world. If to have judged rightly of men's passions and
prejudices, vices and virtues, interests and inclinations,
and to have waited with skill and courage for proper seasons
and incidents to make use of them, can administer pleasure
to a man of sense and spirit, your lordship has abundant
cause of satisfaction." The main character of his policy
may be said to have been moderation. He was a faithful
servant to the Crown, a friend to rational liberty, an enemy
to persecution in all its forms ; but his best renown is to be
derived from that source which during his life constituted
his greatest happiness, his love of letters, and the liberal
encouragement he extended to human genius.

€

OB , 1 72 7,

SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

To treat of the Lives of Commanders without speaking of
their battles, of Statesmen without referring to their political
plans, or of Authors without enumerating their works, would
be not less absurd than unjust. The advantages derived from
their labours are usually reaped in selfish silence by their
contemporaries ; the sphere of their action is more or less
circumscribed ; and their fame would generally expire with
themselves, but for the records of history and biography. The
wonderful man of whom we are here very briefly to treat, was
not one of these. He lived, and thought, and wrote, for
the whole world, and entailed the glorious results of his
studies on all mankind for ever. So familiar are they to us,
that to proclaim them once more would be as ridiculous as to
insist seriously that we owe daylight to the sun. Nothing,
therefore, that can be avoided will be said of them in the
ensuing sketch : but, as in the boundless celebration of the
philosopher the man has been nearly overlooked, it shall be
confined to the ordinary circumstances of his private life.

He was the only child of Isaac Newton, of Woolstrope, in
Lincolnshire, a small manor estate, which had been possessed
by his ancestors for nearly two centuries, by Hannah, daughter
of James Ayscough, a respectable private gentleman, of Mar-
ket Overton, in the county of Rutland. His father died three
months before his birth, which was on Christmas-day, 1642 ;
and his mother re-married in his infancy to the Rev. Barna-
bas Smith, rector of Northwitham, a neighbouring parish to
Woolstrope, She seems, however, to have fulfilled her

112 SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

parental duties to him, at least without cause of reproach,
for, previously to her second marriage, she settled some small
landed property on him, though she appears to have enter-
tained no further views for him than to qualify him for the
prudent management of that, and the rest of his father's
moderate estate, when it might come into his possession. He
was kept at little day-schools near her residence till the age
of twelve, when he was placed, apparently but for a short
time, in a school of good reputation at Grantham, for we find
him soon after that period busied in the superintendence of
her farming concerns, and in buying and selling corn in the
market of that town. He discovered then, however, a sur-
prising fondness for mechanical invention, with a proportion-
ate ingenuity in the exercise of it, and read desultorily, but
indefatigably, and with intense attention. Thus he lived till
he had passed the age of seventeen, when his mother, who
could not but have reflected that a proper cultivation of such
dispositions would probably lead to far more important advan-
tages than could be expected to attend the life of what is
now called a gentleman farmer, sent him again, for nearly a
year, to Grantham school, and then to Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, where he was admitted on the fifth of June, 1660.

The study of Mathematics had not then been long received
into the general system of education in our Universities, and
had not yet become popular among the students. Newton is
said to have first turned seriously to it in the view of ascer-
taining whether the science, or rather theory, of judicial
astrology, had any foundation in truth. He was immediately
enraptured by it, and felt like one who had discovered a new
world. His progress presently became astonishing, and he
was courted by all the first mathematicians of the University,
with the celebrated Isaac Barrow, who was a fellow of his
college, and soon after became mathematical professor, at their
head, and who immediately formed an intimacy with him that
soon improved into a strict friendship. As he proceeded, he
gradually discovered the errors of the hypothetical philosophy

SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 113

of Des Cartes, which was at that time in high esteem at Cam-
bridge, and had, even in his youth, the acknowledged merit
of having refuted many of them.

In 1664 he took his degree of Bachelor, and in 1668 that
of Master of Arts, having in the preceding year been chosen .
a fellow of his college, as he was in the following professor of
mathematics, on the resignation of Dr. Barrow, and in 1671
he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. More than
fifteen years were now passed in the prosecution of the most
profound philosophical speculations, particularly in estab-
lishing his celebrated system of the nature and properties of
light and colours, his gradual discoveries in which he unfolded
in his lectures for the first three years of his occupation of the
professor's chair, confining them almost exclusively to that
delightful subject. These, after having spent five years more
chiefly in the critical completion of his design, he meditated
to commit to the press, when he was prevented for the time
by the prospect of opposition from some who seemed deter-
mined to cherish their errors, and to draw him into a contro-
versy for which he had neither time nor inclination. So far
did his modesty and love of peace exceed his desire of fame,
that he seems even to have regretted his having ever engaged
in a pursuit which had experienced such signal success, if it
were to be followed by contest. " I blamed my own impru-
dence," said he, adverting to this subject in a letter written
some time after, " for parting with so substantial a blessing
as my quiet, to run after a shadow." And in another, of
later date, he says, " Philosophy is such a litigious lady, that
a man had as good be engaged in law-suits as to have to do
with her."

Immersed as he was in study, he could readily divert his
attention to affairs sufficiently important to claim it. In 1687,
the University of Cambridge, in which he was as much
admired and respected for his moral qualities as for his talents,
chose him one of the delegates then appointed to state to
James's High Commission Court the reasons for its refusal to

VII. I

114 SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

admit Father Francis master of arts upon the King's manda-
mus, without taking the oaths ordained by the statutes : and
is said not only to have been mainly instrumental in persuad-
ing his colleagues to persist in the maintenance of their privi-
leges on that occasion, but to have induced James, by the
firmness and ingenuity of his own particular arguments, to
abandon his absurd and unjust purpose. He received from
the University, in the succeeding year, a testimony yet
stronger of its esteem, for he was elected to represent it in
the Convention Parliament, as he was again in that of 1701.
This material change of station, joined perhaps to that incli-
nation in government to patronise science and literature
which was not yet extinct, procured for him the unsought
favour of ministers, even in the reign of William. He
received in 1696 a letter from Mr. Montagu, Chancellor of
the Exchequer, and afterwards Earl of Halifax, to say that
the King had been prevailed on to give him the place of
Warden of the Mint, an appointment the emoluments of
which were five or six hundred pounds annually, and to this
intimation was added a civil remark that " its duties would
not require more attendance than he could spare." He
accepted it, and was eminently useful in the great affair of
the re-coinage which just at that time took place. Three years
after, he was placed at the head of that establishment, in the
station of Master and Worker, an office of much larger profit,
as well as trust ; and now, finding it difficult to fulfil the
duties of his professorship at Cambridge, he appointed Mr.
Whiston his deputy, relinquishing to him the whole salary,
and so nominally retained it till the year 1703, in which
he was elected President of the Royal Society, whose chair
he continued to occupy for the rest of his life. On the
sixteenth of April, 1705, Queen Anne knighted him, at Trinity
College.

His public engagements by no means diverted his attention
materially from his philosophical pursuits. He had, in the
preceding year, perfected and at length published the

SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 115

admirable series of his optical discoveries, in " a Treatise of
the reflections, refractions, inflections, and colours, of Light ; "
which is more especially mentioned here because it seems to
have been of all the surprising fruits of his invention his chief
favourite. Indeed, it was after this date that he revised and
printed most of his works. He became engaged too, in spite
of his utmost care to avoid them, in several controversies,
particularly in one with the celebrated Leibnitz, which as
Leibnitz was a Hanoverian, and a public officer of the Elec-
torate, in the reign of George the First, somewhat excited the
attention of that Prince and his family. The Princess of
Wales, who always professed a great regard for learning, and
learned men, sent for Newton to talk with him on the matter
of their dispute, and, for the remainder of his life, frequently
commanded his attendance ; and was fond of declaring to
her courtiers that " she thought herself happy in coming into
the world at a juncture of time which put it into her power
to converse with him." The Prince, afterwards George the
Second, was frequently present at these interviews, and
treated him with much distinction. Newton became as
familiar with Royalty as a due decorum could permit.

Such, separated from the results of that power of intellect
which distinguished him from all the rest of mankind, and so
few and simple, were the circumstances of Sir Isaac Newton's
life, which was protracted in health and vigour, unimpaired
by the severity of his studies, to his eighty-fifth year. He
died, unmarried, at his house in St. Martin's Street, on the
twentieth of March, 1727, and had a public funeral in West-
minster Abbey. He never made a will, and it was a favourite
maxim with him that " they who gave nothing till they died
never gave." He bestowed accordingly considerable sums on
his relations during his life, and his charities to others were
nobly extensive ; yet he is said to have left thirty-two
thousand pounds, which fell to the issue of his mother's
second marriage.

The beauties of his moral character were, if possible, more
i2

116 SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

admirable than the powers of his mind, and his piety was not
less genuine than his philosophy. Fontenelle has portrayed
him with truth and justice, decorated, but not disguised, by
the usual fervour of an academician ; and at home, it is
difficult to select from the number and the variety of eulogies
which embalm his memory. They have been thus summed
up by a modern writer, with a modesty and simplicity well
applied to a subject in whom those qualities were eminently
conspicuous — " His whole life was one continued series of
labour, patience, charity, generosity, temperance, piety, good-
ness, and every other virtue, without a mixture of any known
vice whatsoever. To these testimonies of his private worth
let us add the miniature of the whole man, as it is depicted
in his epitaph.

H. S. E.
Isaacus Newton, Eques Auratus,

Qui animi vi prope divina
Cometarum semitas, Oceanique aestus,

Planetarum motus, figuras,
Sua mathesi facem prseferente,

Primus demonstravit.

Radiorum lucis dissimilitudines,

Colorumque inde nascentium proprietates,

Quas nemo antea vel suspicatus erat, pervestigavit.

Naturae, Antiquitatis, S. Scripturse,

Sedulus, sagax, fidus interpres,
Dei Opt. Max. majestatem philosophia asseruit,

Evangelii simplicitatem moribus expressit.

Sibi gratulentur mortales, tale tantumque extitisse

Human! generis decus.

Eo-en.ec Pier.

BISHOP. OF ROCHESTER
OB , 1732,

FRANCIS ATTERBURY,

BISHOP OP ROCHESTER.

IT is strange that the life of Atterbury, a highly erudite and
polite scholar; a powerful controversialist; a deeply read
divine, and most distinguished preacher ; a wit himself, and
the intimate companion of the wittiest of his time. ; a bold
and busy political partisan, and a man of warm passions, and
abundant ambition, should afford but scanty materials to the
biographer. With the exception of one historical fact, it
produces little beyond the common-place circumstances of an
ordinary career. His pen has left us scarcely any thing very
valuable, save his admirable sermons, nor was his tongue
more active in parliamentary debate. It is then to be sus-
pected that the hours of his leisure, or perhaps we should
rather say of his business, were passed in reveries of splendid
selfishness ; in devising schemes of future aggrandisement ;
and in the practice of the innumerable and minute, generally
secret, means, by the aid of which the accomplishment of
such views is generally sought.

The printed accounts of his progenitors which have hitherto
been delivered to us are very imperfect, and the little infor-
mation that they afford cannot be relied upon. He sprang
from a clerical stock. His grandfather was Lewis Atterbury,
Doctor in Divinity, Rector of Middleton Keynes, in Bucks ;
and his father, of the same Christian name, and ecclesiastical
degree, held the same benefice, and also the rectory of Great
Risington, in Gloucestershire ; was a chaplain to Queen Anne
and George the First; and somewhat distinguished in "his

118 FRANCIS ATTERBURY,

time by some polemical writings. This gentleman married
Elizabeth, daughter of Francis Giffard, of North Crawley, in
the county of Buckingham, and the subject of the present
sketch was their second son, who was born on the sixth of
March, 1661-2.

He was admitted, in 1676, a King's scholar, at Westminster
school, and elected, in 1680, a student of Christ Church, in
Oxford, where he studied under the eminent Doctor, after-
wards Bishop, Fell. He soon became distinguished there,
not less by his wit than by his learning, and in 1682 gave
a promising proof of both, in the publication of a Latin version
of Dry den's "Absalom and Achitophel," in which his taste was
distinguished by the happiest junction of freedom and fidelity.
Two years afterwards he was the editor of the " Anthologia,
seu selecta quaedam poematum Italorum qui Latine scrip-
serunt," his preface to which has always secured the esteem
of the best judges, and now took his degree of Bachelor of
Arts, as he did in 1687 that of Master. In that year his
reputation dawned as a controversial writer, in the publication
of " An Answer to some considerations on the spirit of Martin
Luther, and the original of the Reformation," printed, under
a feigned name, by Obadiah Walker, in which answer he
defended the Protestant faith with such learning, force, and
vivacity, as to call forth the recorded praise of Bishop Burnet,
afterwards his bitter enemy. He laboured at this period
with almost incredible application, not less in the study of
mathematics and polite literature than of divinity, and yet
found time, not only for the enjoyment of frequent social inter-
course with the most eminent ornaments at that time of the
University, but for the composition of many desultory poems,
and poetical translations, of which such as remain are preg-
nant with evidence, as well of his refined taste as of his
sparkling wit.

His haughty and aspiring spirit became however, about
1690, impatient of the uniformity and simplicity of a college
life, and he complained heavily to his father, as we collect

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 119

from a late publication of many of his letters, of the servility
of seeking for pupils, and the irksomeness of being " pinned
down," as he says it is " his hard luck to be, to a nauseous
circle of small affairs." The father's answer is extremely
amusing : after having reproved his son for the arrogance of
his pretensions, he advises him to marry into some family of
wealth and interest — " a Bishop's, or Archbishop's, or some
courtier's, which may be done, with accomplishments, and a
portion too." Atterbury lost no time in profiting by this
prudent advice, and, shortly after, married a young lady of
the name of Catherine Osborne, very beautiful, with a fortune,
considerable in those days, of seven thousand pounds, and
always, most erroneously, stated to have been a niece, or
other very near relation, to the first Duke of Leeds. He now
shook off the shackles of a college life, took holy orders, and
transferred his residence to the metropolis, and, at the par-
ticular recommendation of Compton, Bishop of London, was,
in 1691, elected lecturer of St. Bride's, and soon after, minister
of Bridewell chapel. His fame as a preacher, for which duty
he possessed every qualification, even those of a most com-
manding and graceful person and countenance, now spread
with a rapidity that presently carried it to the Court. He
was appointed a chaplain to William and Mary, probably
early in 1692, for the first of his published sermons was
preached before the Queen, at Whitehall, on the 29th of May
in that year.

The reputation which had thus rendered him conspicuous,
and the emulation which it excited in his professional
brethren, of course laid him open to occasional critical
attacks. In a sermon which he preached in August, 1694,
before the governors of Bridewell and Bethlehem hospitals,
" On the power of Charity to cover Sins," the warmth and
force with which he asserted the merit of good works were
thought by some to trench rudely on the orthodox confidence
in that of sincere faith. Hoadley, then a rising candidate
for the fame and promotion which he afterwards acquired,

120 FRANCIS ATTERBURY,

entered the lists with him, and a short skirmish ensued,
which, however, was the signal for a desultory warfare
between these divines on different matters for some years.
In the October following, he was briskly attacked also, by an
anonymous writer, on certain passages in a sermon, before
the queen, — " The Scorner incapable of true Wisdom."
Nothing could have been more welcome to him than these
opportunities of controversy, his appetite to which was equal
to his skill in the management of it, and his general anxiety
to signalise himself superior to either. He now engaged in
the contest between Mr. Boyle, who had been his pupil at
Christ Church, and Dr. Bentley, on the subject of the Epistles
of Phalaris, altogether unworthy in themselves, but of value
for having been the means of provoking the wit and satire
which, on the part of Boyle, ornamented the dispute, and for
which he is now known to have been chiefly indebted to the
pen of Atterbury. It was just about this time that he was
appointed by Sir John Trevor, Master of the Rolls, preacher
at the chapel attached to that office.

A topic of immediate practical interest now called him
into debate. Among the important novelties introduced by
the Revolution, arose a fashion of questioning the ecclesias-
tical powers of the Crown, and of asserting an almost inde-
pendent authority in convocations. This, of course, divided
the great body of the clergy into two parties, which, about
that time, received the appellations of High and Low Church-
men. Atterbury was the chief champion for the former class ;
and, in the year 1700, entered into a contest with Dr. Wake,
afterwards Primate, which lasted, with few intermissions, for
four years, and in reference to which Bishop Burnet tells us,
in his memoirs of that year, that some books were written
" with great acrimony of style, and a strain of insolence that
was peculiar to one Atterbury, who had indeed veiy good
parts, great learning, and was an excellent preacher, and had
many extraordinary things in him, but was both ambitious
and virulent out of measure ; and had a singular talent of

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 121

asserting paradoxes, with a great air of assurance, showing
no shame when he was detected in them, though this was
done in many instances : but he let all these pass, without
either confessing his errors, or pretending to justify himself.
He went on, still venting new falsehoods, in so barefaced a
manner, that he seemed to have outdone the Jesuits them-
selves."

It is probable that this character, though given by an
adversary of no very gentle nature, is little exaggerated.
Atterbury, however, gained in this warfare a mighty reputa-
tion with the Tories ; received the thanks of the Lower House
of Convocation, and the degree of Doctor in Divinity from
the University of Oxford, by diploma, without the usual
forms or fees. In the meantime, the matter was taken up
seriously by the heads of the other party ; the judges held a
consultation upon it, as an impeachment of the royal preroga-
tive, and endeavours were vainly used to injure him in the
opinion of the King, who perhaps secretly approved of his
conduct ; at all events, passed it over silently. Indeed,
during the utmost heat of the contest, we find him waiting
on the King, at Kensington, and received with all possible
grace. Queen Anne, on her accession, appointed him one of
her chaplains in ordinary, and in July, 1704, Dean of Carlisle,
and immediately after, Bishop Trelawny, then of Exeter, his
constant friend, gave him a canonry of that church. In the
same year, he, who so frequently had crowned heads for his
auditors, and occasionally charmed the House of Commons
by his eloquence in the pulpit, condescended to accept the
year's office of chaplain to a Lord Mayor ; a pregnant proof
that notoriety and admiration, from whatever source they
might arise, were always welcome to him, and that no
prospect of future advantage, however distant and obscure,
was in his sight wholly insignificant.

The flame that had been long kindling between Atterbury
and Hoadley at length burst forth in 1706, and blazed, with
little intermission, for four years. To state in the most

122 FRANCIS ATTERBURY,

cursory way the subjects of this wordy war, even to enumerate
the very weapons used in it, would occupy more space than
the limits of this sketch could afford. Let two small speci-
mens of them, and of the mode in which the combatants
commonly used them, suffice.— Atterbury in a pamphlet on
his favourite topic, the Convocation, published in 1709,
charges " the modest and moderate Mr. Hoadley," as he
tauntingly calls him, with " treating the body of the estab-
lished clergy with language more disdainful and reviling
than it would have become him to have used towards a
presbyterian antagonist, upon any provocation; charging
them with rebellion in the church, while he was preaching
it up in the state." Hoadley, in repelling this attack, accuses
Atterbury of carrying on two different causes upon two sets
of contradictory principles, in order to gain himself applause
amongst the same persons, at the same time, by standing up
for and against liberty ; by depressing the prerogative, and
exalting it ; by lessening the executive power, and magnify-
ing it ; by loading some with all infamy for pleading for
submission to it in one particular, which he supposeth an
encroachment, and by loading others with the same infamy
for pleading against submission to it, in cases which touch
the happiness of the whole community. "This," says
Hoadley, "is a method of controversy so peculiar to one
person (meaning Atterbury) that 1 know not that it hath
ever been practised or attempted by any other writer."

In 1710, his heated and busy spirit was amply and delight-
fully occupied in espousing the cause of Dr. Sacheverel,
whose remarkable speech on his trial was universally be-
lieved to have been the work of Atterbury's pen. A few
months after, he was still more gratified by being unani-
mously elected Prolocutor of the Lower House of Convoca-
tion, and that assembly fell, as it were instantly, under his
sole government and direction. The Queen, whose affection
to the Church, that is to say the High Church, is well known,
came into all his measures regarding it, and he had also,

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 123

according to Burnet, the confidence of the chief minister ;
and of these he was not long without a substantial proof, for
in 1712 he was made Dean of Christ Church, in opposition
to most powerful interest which was made in favour of his
competitor, and, it is to be regretted, earnest friend, Dr.,
afterwards Bishop, Smallridge. " No sooner was he settled
there," says Stackhouse (his opponent in party, both as to
Church and State, but an honest man) — " no sooner was he
settled, than all ran into disorder and confusion. The canons
had been long accustomed to the mild and gentle government
of a Dean who had every thing in him endearing to mankind,
and could not therefore brook the wide difference that they
perceived in Dr. Atterbury. That imperious and despotic
manner in which he seemed resolved to carry everything
made them more tenacious of their rights, and inclinable to
make fewer concessions the more he endeavoured to grasp at
power, and to tyrannise," &c. They were relieved from this
haughty ruler in the summer of the succeeding year, when
Atterbury had the yet better fortune to be promoted, at the
recommendation, as is said, of the Lord Chancellor Harcourt,
to the Bishopric of Rochester, and Deanery of Westminster.
He was consecrated at Lambeth on the fifth of July, 1713.

His elevation was but the signal for his fall. The Queen
died in the ensuing summer, and a total change of ministers
and measures immediately followed. Atterbury presently
received an affront from the new Prince, so harsh and so
gratuitous as to make it evident that it could have no other
motive than to prove to him that he was to expect no degree
of favour. It is customary after a Coronation for the Dean
of Westminster to present to the Sovereign the canopy and
chair of state used by him on that occasion, which are the
Dean's perquisites. He offered them to George the First
accordingly, and, for the first time in the annals of Corona-
tions, they were refused. Atterbury's haughty spirit instantly
took fire ; and he, whose affection to the succession of the
House of Hanover was already, at the best, but doubtful,

124 -FRANCIS ATTERBURY,

seems from that hour to have become one of its most deter-
mined enemies. He threw himself openly into the society
of that class; was more than suspected of writing a most
inflammatory pamphlet which was privately circulated, and
denounced by royal proclamation a malicious and traitorous
libel ; refused, in 1715, to sign the " Declaration of the
Bishops," testifying their abhorrence of the rebellion then
raging ; and constantly opposed in the House of Lords all
the measures of the Crown and its ministers, and drew up
most of the furious protests so common there in the first
Parliament of the reign.

An interval of considerable length however followed, in
which we find him apparently confining himself to his profes-
sional offices ; delivering visitation charges ; performing his
duties at Westminster ; distinguishing himself in his corres-
pondence with Pope, Prior, and other men of genius of his
time ; occasionally employing his pen in the composition of
some scriptural tracts ; and paying exemplary attention to
his wife, in a tedious and hopeless illness, of which she died
in 1721. On the fourth of August, however, in the following
year, he was arrested, at the Deanery-house in Westminster,
committed to the Tower, and charged, under the report of a
secret committee of the House of Commons, with carrying on
a traitorous correspondence, in order to raise an insurrection
in the kingdom, and to procure foreign Princes to invade it ;
and, in support of the accusation, three letters were produced,
assumed to have been written by him, under feigned names,
to General Dillon, to the Earl of Mar, and to the Pretender
himself. After much time passed in the usual forms of a
parliamentary impeachment, and in debates of considerable
interest in both Houses, on the sixteenth of May, 1723, the
Peers passed a bill, by a majority of eighty-three to forty-
three, depriving him of all his offices, dignities, and benefices,
and sentencing him to perpetual exile.

On the eighteenth of June he embarked for Calais, where
he found Lord Bolingbroke, who had just received the

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 125

King's pardon, on his return to England, on which Atterbury
jocularly remarked — " Then I am exchanged." He intended
to have settled at Brussels, but was obliged to remove from
thence by the management of the British ministers, who in
other matters also used an ungenerous resentment towards
him after the execution of his sentence. He went then to
Paris, where, as has been since proved by a publication of his
correspondence, he certainly engaged himself in the active
service of the Pretender. He removed in 1728 to Montpelier,
to avoid the suspicion of that connection, but returned to
Paris shortly before his death, which occurred on the fifteenth
of February, 1731-2. His corpse was brought to England,
and interred in Westminster Abbey.

Bishop Atterbury had issue by his lady, of whom we have
already spoken, one son and two daughters : the Rev. Osborne
Atterbury, Rector of Oxhill, in Warwickshire, whose descend-
ants are settled in Ireland ; Elizabeth, who died unmar-
ried, and Mary, wife of William Morrice, high bailiff of
Westminster.

•

.RILES KB CO) I

THIRD EARL OE PETERBOROUGH.
OB, I 735,

CHARLES MORDAUNT,

THIRD EARL OP PETERBOROUGH,

A STATESMAN, a soldier, and a courtier, and not less remark-
able for the brilliancy of his wit, and his affection for the
placid charms of domestic life, than for the zeal, the courage,
and the activity of his public service, was born in, or about,
the year 1658. He was the eldest son of the next brother to
Henry, the second Earl of Peterborough, John Mordaunt, who
having passed more than ten years of his life, in almost per-
petual danger of forfeiting it, in the most generous and disin-
terested services to the cause of Charles the Second, received
from that Prince, in the year before his restoration, the title
of Viscount Mordaunt of Avalon. His mother, not less
zealous, and almost as active, was Elizabeth, daughter and
heir of Thomas Carey, second son to Robert, first Earl of
Monmouth. His father dying in 1675, he was left to the
exercise of his own inclination, and sailed, as it should seem
a volunteer, in the fleet under Lord Torrington and Sir John
Narborough, which was soon after sent to the Mediterranean
against the Algerines. He served also in 1680, with some
distinction, in an expedition for the relief of Tangier, in which
he accompanied an adventurer even younger than himself,
Charles Fitzcharles, Earl of Plymouth, a natural son of the
King, who perhaps had the nominal command, and who died
there in the course of that year.

Soon after his return he commenced politician, and uni-
formly opposed the measures of the Court in the House of
Peers, where he is said to have been " one of the chief

128 CHARLES MORDAUNT,

arguers " against the repeal of the Test Act. This aversion
increased after the accession of James, and he engaged in all
the secret plans of what was called the Country Party with a
vehemence which indeed always distinguished him in all
things, of all sorts, that he ever undertook. They seem
indeed to have chosen him as the manager of their intrigues
with the Prince of Orange. Thus marked as a partisan, he
had the boldness to represent to the King that the command
of a Dutch squadron about to sail for the West Indies had
been offered to him, and asked permission to accept it, and
to go to Holland ; and James, who could not but have at
least suspected his real motives, magnanimously granted it.
Arrived there, he immediately offered his services to the
Prince, and was the first, says Burnet, " of the English nobi-
lity that came over openly to see him." William received
him with great cordiality, and listened to proposals, which
he seems to have made very abruptly, for an immediate
invasion of England, with a readiness and condescension
which prove that he considered him as an accredited mes-
senger from the revolutionary party there. Burnet however
tells us that " he represented the matter as so easy that it
appeared too romantical to the Prince to build upon it ;" and
adds that " he was a man of much heat, many notions, and
full of discourse ; that he was brave and generous, but had
not true judgment, and that his thoughts were crude and
undigested, and his secrets soon known."

In spite of these objections, and of William's cautious
temper, he was actively concerned in every material part of
the prelude to the revolution, and at length attended the
Prince hither in 1688, on whose elevation to the throne he
was called to the Privy Council, and appointed a Lord of the
Bedchamber; on the eighth of April, 1689, he was placed in
the office of first Commissioner of the Treasury ; on the fol-
lowing day created Earl of Monmouth ; and a few weeks after
was constituted Lord Lieutenant of the county of North-
ampton. In this very year, and under these circumstances,

THIRD EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 129

if we are to believe Burnet, he became apprised of a
Scottish design to restore James, and not only let it pass
without disclosing it to William, but even betrayed an
inclination to its success. The Bishop's words are : " Mont-
gomery " (the chief agent here) " came to have great credit
with some of the Whigs in England, particularly with the
Earl of Monmouth, and the Duke of Bolton, and he employed
it all to persuade them not to trust the King, and to animate
them against the Earl of Portland. This wrought so much
that many were disposed to think they could have good
terms from King James ; and that he was now so convinced
of former errors that they might safely trust him. The Earl
of Monmouth let this out to myself twice, but in a strain
that looked like one who was afraid of it, and who endea-
voured to prevent it ; but he set forth the reasons for it with
great advantage, and those against it very faintly." He main-
tained his character however for fidelity ; and, in the spring
of 1694, when William, soon after the meeting of a new
Parliament in which the Tories preponderated, was obliged
to soothe them by the dismissal of some of his ministers,
Monmouth was of the number, and quitted his office of the
Treasury on the second of May in that year.

He was no more employed in this reign. On the nineteenth
of June, 1697, he succeeded to the titles and estates of his
family, upon the death of his uncle, Henry, Earl of Peter-
borough, and the few years which immediately preceded and
followed that event were passed by him in the most graceful
indolence — in the society of the first men of genius of his
time, and in the cultivation of elegant literature ; in foreign
travel, and in building, and the tasteful improvement of his
estates at home. Amidst these delightful engagements, public
affairs appeared to be, and probably were, wholly forgotten,
and it is to be feared that all seriousness was even worse than
excluded — Peterborough is said to have been at least a deist,
and without the decency of concealment. During a visit of
some time to the celebrated Fenelon, at his archiepiscopal

VII. K

130 CHARLES MORDAUNT,

palace at Cambray, he was so charmed by the sweetness of
temper and benevolence which adorned the pious lessons of
that Prelate, that he said to the Chevalier Ramsay, " Upon
my word I must quit this place as soon as possible, for if I
stay here another week I shall be a Christian in spite of my
myself."

On the accession of Anne, he was again brought into public
service by her Whig ministry, and appointed Governor of
Jamaica. How long he held that office does not appear, but
it could have been little more than two years, for on the
twenty-seventh of March, 1705, he was sworn of her Privy
Council, and at the same time declared general of the forces
then about to be sent to Spain, and Admiral, jointly with Sir
Cloudesley Shovel, of the fleet which conveyed them thither.
He had no experience to recommend him to these weighty
commissions beyond the two volunteer expeditions of his
boyhood, and such military observations as he might have
made on a single campaign in Flanders, where he had
attended William in 1692, and in which he had no distinct
command : but he possessed a quickness of apprehension, a
clearness of judgment, and a promptness and firmness of
decision, which, joined to the most undaunted courage, had
fitted him intuitively to lead an army : nor can it be doubted
that he owed his nomination to this important service to the
Duke of Marlborough, then in the plenitude of his influence,
and to that great man's observation of those qualities in
another which so splendidly shone in himself.

The bravery and skill manifested by Peterborough in his
two campaigns in Spain were admirable. He sailed from
England on the twenty-fourth of May, and, taking on board
at Lisbon Charles the Third, one of the rival kings, landed
in the bay of Barcelona in the beginning of August. The
military placed under his command were found to be so
miserably inferior in number, that they had scarcely disem-
barked when the question was agitated in a council of war,
whether it would not be prudent wholly to abandon the

THIRD EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 131

objects of the expedition, and to return. Peterborough, and
the Prince of Hesse d'Armstadt, who had been governor of
Barcelona till the French had taken it for Philip the Fifth,
were the only advocates for offensive operations, and an
immediate siege of that city, which however were in the end
determined on, and the Prince of Hesse fell in the very
outset. The troops first landed, which he, jointly with the
Earl, had commanded, were disheartened, and gave way,
when Peterborough rallied them, and attacking furiously a
fort, which was held to be the key to Barcelona, and impreg-
nable, carried it almost without loss ; and, bombarding the
city from the elevation on which it stood, blew up the
magazine of powder, by which the Governor and some of his
best officers were killed, and the town soon after surrendered
at discretion.

It is not intended, nor would it be here proper, to recount
his operations in detail, even thus confined. Suffice it there-
fore to say, that when Barcelona was soon after again attacked
by the French, under the Duke of Anjou, he forced them to
raise the siege, with immense loss of men, ammunition, and
provisions ; and, in the following year, with only ten thou-
sand men, chased that Prince, and Philip the Fifth, at the
head of an army of twenty-five thousand, wholly out of
Spain : taking possession of Catalonia, Valencia, Arragon,
and Majorca, with part of Murcia and Castile ; thus clearing
the way for the Earl of Galway, who commanded an English
army in Portugal, to march to Madrid without resistance.
Through the whole of these exploits, as his sagacity was
equalled by his courage, so was his vigilance by his activity.
Swift, with whom he lived in the latter years of his leisure
in the strictest intimacy, alluding in one of his letters to the
rapidity of his motions, says that Queen Anne's ministers
used to complain that they were obliged to write at him, and
not to him ; and some one, as Lord Orford tells us, said of
him that he had seen more kings, and more postillions, than
any other man in Europe.

K2

132 CHAELES MORDAUNT,

His brilliant services, however, could not secure him from
one of those party attacks which so frequently disfigure the
history of that reign. He was recalled in 1707, and great
reverses of fortune presently occurred to the English army
in Spain. On his return Anne refused to admit him to her
presence, and an inquiry into his conduct was commenced by
both Houses of Parliament. After an examination of wit-
nesses and papers which lasted many days, the proceedings
were suspended, nor were they resumed till the winter of
1710, when the resentment of parliament was transferred to
the Earl of Gal way ; and on the twelfth of January, N. S.,
Peterborough received the thanks of the House of Peers,
couched in the most flattering terms. He was now again
received into full favour, and presently sent Ambassador to
Vienna, as he was in the course of this and the following
year to Turin, and other courts of Italy, and on his return,
in the end of 1712, was appointed colonel of the royal regi-
ment of. .horse guards ; on the fourth of August, 1713, installed
a Knight of the Garter ; and soon after went Ambassador ex-
traordinary to the King of Naples and Sicily, from whence
he returned not till after the death of the Queen.

Here ended his public life. The long remainder seems to
have glided on to very old age in a felicity which few expe-
rience, and which no one better knew how to enjoy. If not
deeply respected, highly beloved ; not less admired for the
good nature than for the brilliancy of his wit ; honest even
in his politics ; firm in his friendships ; amiable in his very
foibles ; he reached the age of seventy-seven years, which
had passed in uninterrupted health and vigour. All his
mortal sufferings were reserved for his last days, and they
were sharp indeed. From what morbid cause they arose we
are not informed — surely not from a wound received in the
public service, which his ungrateful country forgot to record
— but we have the following account of them in a letter from
Pope to his friend Martha Blount, highly characteristic of the
subject, and somewhat of the writer ; —

THIRD EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 133

" Bevis Moimt, near Southampton,
" MADAM, « A ugust the 17 'th, 1 735.

" I found my Lord Peterborough on his couch,
where he gave me an account of the excessive sufferings he
had passed through with a weak voice, but spirited. He
talked of nothing but the great amendment of his condition,
and of finishing the buildings and gardens for his best friend
to enjoy after him ; that he had one care more, when he went
into France, which was to give a true account to posterity of
some parts of history in Queen Anne's reign, which Burnet
had scandalously represented ; and of some others to justify
her against the imputation of intending to bring in the Pre-
tender, which, to his knowledge, neither her ministers
Oxford and Bolingbroke, nor she, had any design to do. He
next told me he had ended his domestic affairs, through such
difficulties from the law, that gave him as much torment of
mind as his distemper had done of body, to do right to the
person to whom he had obligations beyond expression. That
he had found it necessary not only to declare his marriage to
all his relations, but, since the person who married them was
dead, to re-marry her in the church at Bristol before wit-
nesses. The warmth with which he spoke on these subjects
made me think him much recovered, as well as his talking of
his present state as a heaven to what was past. I lay in the
next room to him, where I found he was awake, and called
for help most hours of the night, sometimes crying out for
pain. In the morning he got up at nine, and was carried
into the garden in a chair. He fainted away twice there.
He fell about twelve into a violent pang, which made his
limbs all shake, and his teeth chatter, and for some time he
lay cold as death. His wound was dressed, which was done
constantly four times a day, and he grew gay, and sat at
dinner with ten people. After this he was in great torment
for a quarter of an hour, and as soon as the pang was over
was carried into the garden to the workmen, talking again of
history, and declaimed with great spirit against the meanness

131 CHARLES MORDAUNT,

of the present great men and ministers, and the decay of the
public spirit and honour. It is impossible to conceive how
much his heart is above his condition. He is dying every
other hour, and obstinate to do whatever he has a mind to.
He has concerted no measures beforehand for his journey,
but to get a yacht, in which he will set sail ; but no place
fixed on to reside at, nor has determined what place to land
at, nor has provided any accommodation for his going on
land. He talks of getting towards Lyons, but undoubtedly
he never can travel but to the sea-shore. I pity the poor
woman who has to share in all he suffers, and who can in no
one thing persuade him to spare himself. I think he will be
lost in this attempt, and attempt it he will. He has with
him, day after day, not only all his relations, but every
creature of the town of Southampton that pleases. He lies
on his couch, and receives them, though he says little.
When his pains come, he desires them to walk out, but
invites them to stay and dine or sup, &c. He says he will
go at the month's end if he is alive. Nothing can be more
affecting and melancholy to me than what I see here : yet he
takes my visit so kindly that I should have lost one great
pleasure had I not come. I have nothing more to say, as I
have nothing in my mind but this present object, which
indeed is extraordinary. This man was never born to die
like other men, any more than to live like them."

He did, however, reach the end of his intended journey,
and died at Lisbon on the twenty-fifth of the following
October, N. S. Lord Peterborough married, first, Carey,
daughter of Sir Alexander Eraser, of Dotes, in the shire of
Mearns, in Scotland, by whom he had two sons, John and
Henry, the elder distinguished in the army, the second in
the navy, both of whom died before their father ; and one
daughter, Henrietta, wife of Alexander, second Duke of
Gordon. His second Countess was Anastasia Robinson, a
celebrated public singer, who is frequently alluded to in the

THIRD EARL OF PETERBOROUGH.

135

letter we have just now seen, and who had for many years
almost lived with him, without any blemish on her character.
She long survived him, enjoying that intimacy with many of
the rank to which she had been thus raised which the strict
correctness of her conduct and manners had deservedly
obtained. By her the Earl had no children : he was suc-
ceeded therefore by his eldest grandson, Charles, son and
heir of his eldest son, John, Lord Mordaunt.

Kneller Pin-r

EILIL.
DUKE OF A-RGTLL & GREENWICH.

0 B , 1745,

JOHN CAMPBELL,

SECOND DUKE OF ARGYLL, AND DUKE OF GREENWICH.

THE severities of punishment and forfeiture which an
intemperate attachment to the dangerous extravagances of
presbyterianism had drawn down on the heads of some of
this great nobleman's ancestors, formed an ample recom-
mendation of their posterity to the highest favour upon the
great change in the form of English government which
occurred in 1688. His father, Archibald, tenth Earl of
Argyll, had been accordingly restored in blood immediately
after that revolution, and at length received from William
the title of Duke. He married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of
Sir Lionel Talmash, of Helmingham, in Suffolk, by Elizabeth
Murray, Countess of Dysart in her own right; and the
eminent person of whom we are to treat was the first issue
of their union, and was born on the tenth of October, 1678.

He is said to have profited not much by the usual course
of a fine education, his attention to which was interrupted
by an ardent inclination to the study of the military art, and
to the life of a soldier ; and so little did this partake of the
caprice of a lively boy, that his father at length determined
to indulge it, and, soon after his introduction at Court, in his
seventeenth year, procured for him the command of a regiment
of infantry. He does not appear however to have been
engaged in active service till the following reign, when he
highly distinguished himself at the siege of Keyserswaert, one
of the first operations of Queen Anne's long and glorious war.
In September, 1703, he succeeded to his father's dignities

138 JOHN CAMPBELL, SECOND DUKE OF ARGYLL,

and estates, and was presently after sworn of the Privy
Council in Scotland, and appointed captain of the Horse
Guards there ; and, on the revival of the order of the Thistle
in the next year, was chosen a Knight Companion. In 1705
the important office of High Commissioner to the Scottish
Parliament was intrusted to him, and with it the manage-
ment of the overtures to the treaty of Union, an affair of
much delicacy and difficulty, by the preparations for which
the transactions of that year were distinguished. Argyll
promoted the measure with all the powers of his own mind,
which were very considerable, and with all the weight of his
great family influence in Scotland, and sacrificed to it much
of the popularity which he had acquired there, or rather,
according to the custom of that country, was born to possess.
In this, as in all his early public conduct, he was actuated
wholly by a clear and resolute judgment, and the most con-
scientious motives. " He was extremely forward," says an
enemy who has left a character of him, " in effecting what he
aimed at and designed, which he owned and promoted above-
board, being altogether free of the least share of dissimulation,
and his word so sacred, that one might assuredly depend upon
it. His head ran more upon the camp than the court ; and
it appears that nature had dressed him up accordingly, being
altogether incapable of the servile dependency and flattering
insinuations requisite in the last, and endued with that
cheerful lively temper and personal valour esteemed and
necessary in the other."

Anne testified her sense of his services in Scotland by
receiving him on his return into the English Peerage : on the
twenty-sixth of November, 1705, he was created Earl of
Greenwich and Lord Chatham, and in the succeeding spring
indulged his ruling disposition by serving a campaign, in the
station of Brigadier-General, under the Duke of Marlborough,
and is said to have evinced great courage and prudence in the
famous battle of Ramillies, as he certainly did in the sieges
of Ostend and of Menin, which important post presently

AND DUKE OF GREENWICH. 139

after surrendered to him. He returned in the autumn to
Scotland, and supported in Parliament, with all the ardour
and frankness that distinguished his character, the great
question of the Union, by which the senate and the people
were then equally agitated. During the debates on it he
gave a remarkable proof of his powers of persuasion, as well
as of his personal courage, in quitting the House of Lords to
present himself alone to an enraged and tumultuous multitude
which had assembled at their doors to demand the rejection
of the bill, and which was peaceably dispersed solely by his
efforts. He longed however to be again engaged in active
military service, and we find him soon after, being then a
Major-General, and Colonel of the third regiment of infantry,
commanding twenty battalions in the battle of Oudenarde,
where he acquired signal credit, as well as in the consequent
reduction of Lille, Ghent, and Tournay, in the attack of the
latter of which he was second in command. He had an
eminent share in the victory of Malplaquet, which speedily
followed, and which was better known by the name of the
Battle of the Woods, having been fought close to two great
woods. From one of these the Duke dislodged the main
body of the French infantry with incredible bravery, and
imminent personal hazard, for we are told that several musket
balls passed through his clothes, his hat, and even his wig,
yet he escaped unhurt.

During these services, some coolness, of the cause of which
we are uninformed, arose between Argyll and the Com-
mander-in-chief, which had now ripened into a confirmed
disgust. He returned to London in the autumn of 1710,
when Marlborough's political interest was rapidly declining,
and it may be easily supposed that no means were neglected
by the Tories to take advantage of the discord of these great
men, and to secure the every way important aid of a man of
Argyll's power and talents. His frank and generous nature
was incapable of receiving any tincture either of the cunning
or of the malignity of party, but the warmth cf his temper led

140 JOHN CAMPBELL, SECOND DUKE OF ARGYLL,

him to give way to their suggestions ; he engaged with them,
and the first public step of his opposition was to object in
the House of Lords to a motion of thanks to the Duke of
Marlborough. He spoke and voted for the inquiry also which
was instituted in this session into the conduct of the English
affairs in Spain, and joined in all the censures which were
passed on the at length vanquished Whig administration.
He was now chosen a Knight of the Garter, and, in January,
1711, accepted the appointments of Ambassador-extraordinary
to King Charles the Third of Spain, and Commander-in-chief
of the English forces in that country ; and, taking Holland
on his way thither, had an opportunity, which his high spirit
should have forbade, of personally affronting Marlborough,
who was then at the Hague, by singling him out from the
eminent public men in that city for the denial of the com-
pliment of a visit. On his arrival at Barcelona he found the
army ill-paid, ill-provisioned, and altogether in disorder, and
unfit for service. He remonstrated again and again in vain
to the ministers at home, and, having pressed as ineffectually
for remittances, at length borrowed money on his own secu-
rity, to save the troops from actual famine. The anger and
chagrin caused by these disappointments ended in a violent
fever, soon after his recovery from which, finding himself
wholly unable to prosecute any active operations, he returned
to England, after a short stay at Minorca, of which island he
had been lately appointed governor.

Upon his arrival he was complimented with the appoint-
ments of Commander-in-chief of the Queen's troops in
Scotland, and Governor of the Castle of Edinburgh ; but he
had returned full of a resentment against the ministers which
far greater concessions on their parts could not have appeased.
On the meeting of Parliament he appeared among the most
determined of their opponents. He arraigned their conduct
in the peace of Utrecht ; joined warmly in supporting a
resolution proposed in the House of Peers to declare the
Protestant succession to be in danger while the government

AND DUKE OF GREENWICH. 141

remained in their hands ; charged them with a traitorous
correspondence with the exiled royal family ; and argued,
even with vehemence, for a motion made in 1713 by the
Earl of Seafield for the dissolution of the Union, which he
himself a very few years before had so earnestly laboured to
accomplish. He endeavoured on this occasion to avoid the
charge of inconsistency by professing that as his main motive
for favouring it was to secure the succession to the House of
Hanover, so, that being now firmly established by other and
better means, it would be wise to abrogate a system which,
among a multitude of evils, involved no other benefit. The
temperate and cautious Harley, though at this time tottering,
was at length excited to anger ; and, on the fourth of March,
1714, the Duke was deprived of his regiment of Scottish
Horse Guards, and of his governments of Edinburgh and
Minorca.

With a more becoming dignity, he suddenly presented
himself, in company with the Duke of Somerset to the Privy
Council, in the last hours of the life of Anne, and moved that
all the members of that august body, without distinction of
party, should be instantly summoned to attend. It was a
critical moment, for so nicely balanced at that period through-
out the country were the friends of the rival royal Houses,
that there is nothing extravagant in supposing that the happy
event which followed might possibly have arisen from this
firm and timely interference. The Queen expired two days
after, but the friends to the Act of Settlement had now
placed themselves at the Council Table, and an order was
issued for the instant proclamation of King George the First,
who had already included in an instrument which he
despatched from Hanover the name of the Duke of Argyll,
to be added to those on whom, in right of their offices, the
executive government devolved, with the style of Lords
Justices, during the King's absence. On the twentieth of
September, 1714, he was nominated a Commissioner for
settling the Household of the Prince of Wales, to whom he

142 JOHN CAMPBELL, SECOND DUKE OF ARGYLL,

was made Groom of the Stole ; on the twenty-seventh was
restored to his station, at that moment of the very last
importance, of Commander-in-chief of the forces in Scotland ;
and, a few days after, was sworn of the Privy Council, and
reappointed Governor of Minorca. On the fifteenth of June,
in the succeeding year, he received the commission of Colonel
of the royal regiment of Horse-guards in England.

The feeble rebellion of 1715 immediately followed, and
the Duke, hastening to oppose it, arrived at Edinburgh in the
last week of October. He found the King's affairs in con-
fusion, and the people panic-struck. The regular troops
there consisted but of two thousand men, and it was with
difficulty that he could speedily add to them fifteen hundred
by a new levy. With this very inferior force he attacked, at
Dumblain, on the thirteenth of November, 1715, the rebel
army, under the Earl of Mar, amounting to nine thousand,
and compelled it to quit the field, with considerable loss.
This event, though some circumstances of the action gave the
Scots a pretence to call it a drawn battle, considerably broke
their spirits. An accident indeed had nearly given them the
victory, for the Duke, with an imprudent valour, had once
charged so far into their ranks that it was with the greatest
difficulty he escaped falling into their hands. They faced
him no more in the field. He was soon after sufficiently
reinforced, and, having driven them from Perth, the only
important stronghold possessed by them, at length com-
pletely dispersed them, while their unhappy Prince, who
had commanded them in person, precipitately embarked for
France.

Having received all marks of the highest gratitude in
Scotland, he returned to London early in the following spring,
and was greeted by the King with the most distinguished
cordiality and approbation ; yet, before many weeks had
passed, he was suddenly dispossessed of all his employments.
It is strange that we can find no sufficient reason given for
this singular change, so immediately following the perform-

AND DUKE OF GREENWICH. 143

ance of eminent services. It was rumoured that it arose
from the King's jealousy of his growing favour with the
Prince of Wales, but those who have spoken of it seem to
have been even ignorant whether he had given or received
offence ; whether he resigned, or was dismissed ; and yet
there must have been some more than ordinarily serious
cause, since his brother, the Earl of Islay, at the same time
relinquished certain high offices which he held in Scotland.
Whatever it might have been, Argyll now again engaged in a
strenuous opposition to all the measures of government ; and
we find him, of whom it might be almost said that he was
born a soldier, declaiming in Parliament against the mutiny
bill, and the terrors of a standing army. This disposition sub-
sisted till the winter of 1719, when on the sixth of February,
N. S., he accepted the appointment of Lord Steward of the
Household, and on the thirtieth of the succeeding April was
advanced in the English Peerage to the dignity of Duke of
Greenwich. He now again stood forth a declared friend to
the government ; opposed a bill for securing the freedom of
elections to the lower House of Parliament; voted for the
temporary suspension of the Habeas Corpus act ; and impaired
his reputation for consistency by defending a mutiny bill,
and speaking of a standing army at least with complacency :
thus may the loftiest native independence bend insensibly
to the rule of political example, and the meanness of party
spirit.

In June, 1725, he resigned his office of Lord Steward, and
was appointed Master General of the Ordnance : in January,
1731, received the command of that which was called the
Queen's own regiment of Horse ; and was soon after made
Governor of Portsmouth. On the fourteenth of Jamfary,
1736, N.S., he was constituted Field Marshal of all the
King's forces. He had now continued for nearly fifteen years
a steady supporter in Parliament of the measures of the
Court, when in 1739 he again suddenly abandoned it, and
devoted all the vigour of his mind, and his not less powerful
eloquence, to the arraignment of the measures of the govern-

144 JOHN CAMPBELL, SECOND DUKE OF ARGYLL, ETC.

ment. He was now once more deprived of all his offices,
civil and military ; but, on the removal of Sir Robert Walpole
in 1741, was not only restored to that of Master General of
the Ordnance, and appointed to the command of the royal
regiment of life guards, but elevated to the station of Com-
mander-in-chief of the army. Within one month however
he unexpectedly waited on the King with his final resignation
of the whole. No satisfactory reason has been assigned for a
step seemingly so capricious ; but it may perhaps be ascribed
to a motive merely private and personal. He had been for
some time afflicted by paralytic affections, which, as his years
increased, had become more frequent, and more violent ; and
it is probable that some attack of this infirmity sterner than
usual had warned him to retire from the high trusts which
had been committed to him while he possessed capacity to
execute them, rather than incur the censure of having held
them till the decay of that ability should have become evident
to the world.

John, Duke of Argyll, whose private life was adorned by
almost all the most estimable moral qualities, died on the
third of September, 1743, and was buried in Westminster
Abbey. By his first lady, Mary, daughter of John Brown,
and niece to the wealthy Alderman Sir Charles Buncombe,
he had no issue. His second, Jane, daughter of Thomas
Warburton, of Winnington, in Cheshire, brought him five
daughters ; Caroline, married first to Francis Scot, Earl of
Dalkeith, secondly to the right honourable Charles Town-
shend, second son of Charles, third Viscount Townshend;
Anne, to William Wentworth, fourth Earl of Strafford ; Jane,
who died young and unmarried ; Betty, wife of the right
honourable John Stuart Mackenzie, second son of James
Stuart, second Earl of Bute ; and Mary, married to Edward,
Viscount Coke, eldest son of Thomas Coke, first Earl of
Leicester of his family. The Duke thus dying without male
issue, his English titles of peerage became extinct, but his
Scottish honours devolved on his brother, Archibald, Earl of
Islay.

iely

DUCHESS OFMARLBORO'U&H
OB ,1744-,

SARAH JENNINGS,

DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.

THIS remarkable lady, who, without the aid of great talents t
and with the positive disadvantage of a most irregular temper,
possessed for many years a considerable share of public
influence, was the second of the three daughters and coheirs
of Richard Jennings, of Sandbridge, in the county of Hertford,
a gentleman of respectable family, by Frances, daughter and
heir of a Mr. Thornhurst of Kent. The two elder sisters, in
acknowledgment, as it is said, of some loyal services and
losses by their father, were received at a very early age,
Sarah being then only twelve years old, into the household
of Mary, Duchess of York. Here she was chosen for the
peculiar attendant on the Princess Anne, James's younger
daughter, who was nearly of the same age ; and here, three
or four years after, she gained the heart of the gallant and
accomplished Churchill, then a colonel in the army, and a
gentleman of the bedchamber to the Duke, by whom he was
already much esteemed and trusted. She became his wife
in the spring of the year 1678.

While Churchill gradually acquired the confidence and the
favour of James, his lady rose more rapidly in the affections
of the young Princess. Anne was mild, sincere, humble,
timid, and abounding in that sort of general reserve which is
almost characteristic of a heart susceptible of the tenderest
friendship ; the powers of her mind were very limited, and
to her earnest desire to be beloved was probably added
a consciousness that she needed an adviser: with these

VII. L

146 SARAH JENNINGS,

qualities she possessed another by no means inconsistent with
any of them — a spirit of perseverance, when she had once
resolved, so firm as perhaps to merit the harsher appellation
of obstinacy. Mrs. Churchill, with a character almost wholly
opposite, was yet well qualified to live easily with such a
person. She too was kind and sincere, but her kindness was
generally grounded in pity, and her sincerity in disdain : she
had however a heart strictly honest, and was neither cruel
nor unjust, even amidst her highest resentments. Incapable
of useful deliberation, she possessed a sagacity which seldom
erred, and joined to a clear conception of characters and
manners a never failing vivacity in the unreserved communi-
cation of her opinions. Between such a Princess, anxious
to descend to the familiarities of private life, and such a
servant, in whom the hatred of superiority was even an
instinct, an union of some duration might perhaps be fairly
expected.

In 1683 her husband was advanced to the Scottish peerage,
by the title of Lord Churchill ; and in the same year, when
a more extended household was allotted to the Princess on
her marriage to the Prince of Denmark, she was appointed,
at Anne's special request to her father, a lady of her bed-
chamber, and was soon after placed at the head of that
department. In a letter to her, written just at that period,
the Princess says — " let me beg of you not to call me ' your
Highness ' at every word, but be as free with me as one
friend ought to be with another ; and you can never give me
any greater proof of your friendship than in telling me your
mind freely in all things, which I do beg you to do." Not
satisfied with such minor condescensions, and solicitous to
indulge to the utmost in the illusion of equality, she shortly
after proposed that they should correspond in the feigned
names of private persons, and in all their secret intercourse
for many subsequent years they used the designations of Mrs.
Morley and Mrs. Freeman, Lady Churchill, to whom the
Princess had given the option, having chosen the latter.

DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH. 147

James now succeeded to the throne, and it is almost
needless to say that in his anxiety to gain proselytes to the
Romish faith he did not overlook his daughter. Lady
Churchill, zealous in all that she professed or practised, was
a zealous protestant and whig, and strengthened with all her
influence Anne's inclination to resist. Doubtless too she
assisted in inducing the Princess to desert her father, on the
landing of the Prince of Orange, and she was the companion
of her flight, the method of which she had previously planned
in concert with the Bishop of London. Neither were her
persuasions wanting to obtain the Princess's consent to the
settlement of the crown on William for his life. Such
praise or blame, however, as she incurred in matters involved
in that revolution might probably be more justly due to her
husband, whose activity in it, against the interest of his royal
master and patron, has been abundantly and justly censured.
William, on obtaining the throne, rewarded him with an
earldom, and she now became Countess of Marlborough.

The new king, whose doubtful title Anne had thus con-
tributed to strengthen by ceding her birthright in his favour,
began his reign by quarrelling with her on the amount of the
revenue to be settled on her, in which he was heartily joined
by the Queen, her sister. Anne, supported by the tories,
threw herself on the Parliament, and carried her point,
chiefly through the management of Marlborough and his
lady, to the mortal offence both of the King and Queen.
Marlborough, against whom there were other causes for
resentment, was now discharged from his appointments ; and
the Princess having refused to obey a stern mandate, by
which the Queen required her to dismiss his lady, received
presently a second, to prohibit the residence of the Countess
at the Cockpit, where Anne had long lived, and which she
now instantly quitted, with her friend, for a borrowed house.
The most furious anger ensued on both sides, and was as
usual vented in unbecoming and vulgar expressions. William,
in the private conversations of Anne and Lady Marlborough,

L2

148 SARAH JENNINGS,

was nsually called "Caliban, the Dutch abortion," and "the
Monster," and his favourite countryman, the Earl of Port-
land, was complimented with the name of " Wooden-head."
These disgraceful broils were terminated by the unexpected
death of the Queen in 1694, soon after which Marlborough
was restored to the King's good graces, and the persecution
of the Countess ceased, but her hatred to William remained
unaltered till his death.

On the accession of her mistress to the throne she burst
forth a politician. The love of rule was her darling passion,
and she seems to have applied it to the affairs of a kingdom
with as little hesitation as to the intrigues of a royal house-
hold. Her party predilections were diametrically opposed
to those of the Queen, as well as to those professed by her
Lord, who acted with the tones. " I resolved," says she, in
the ( Account of her own Conduct,' which she published in
the latter years of her life, " from the very beginning of the
Queen's reign, to try whether I could not by degrees make
impressions on her mind more favourable to the whigs ;" and
Anne, in a letter to her of the same period, writes — " I am
very glad to find by my dear Mrs. Freeman's that I was
blest with yesterday, that she liked my speech ; but I cannot
help being extremely concerned you are so partial to the
whigs, because I would not have you and your poor, unfortu-
nate, faithful Morley differ in opinion on the least thing ;
and, upon my word, my dear Mrs. Freeman, you are mightily
mistaken in your notion of a true whig," &c. Each however
remained stedfast in her opinion, as well as in the means
severally used by them to conquer each other's prejudices.
While Lady Marlborough besieged by regular and open
approaches, the Queen sought to gain her by bribery. She
was placed in the great courtly offices of Groom of the Stole,
Mistress of the Robes, and Keeper of the Privy Purse ; two
of her daughters were made Ladies of the Bedchamber ; and
Lord Godolphin, whose heir was married to the elder of
them, was appointed Lord Treasurer. Even the vast favours

DUCHESS OF MARYBOROUGH. 149

lavished at the same time on Lord Marlborough, may be in
some measure traced to the same motive. To so ridiculous
a length did Anne carry this system of conciliation, that
when she had resolved, on the termination of his first
campaign, to raise him prematurely, for so it was, to the first
dignity that an English subject can hold, she gave notice of
it to his lady in these terms — " It is very uneasy to your
poor unfortunate faithful Morley to think that she has so
little in her power to shew how truly sensible I am of all
my Lord Marlborough's kindness, especially at a time when
he deserves all that a rich crown could give ; but since there
is nothing else at this time, I hope you will give me leave as
soon as he comes to make him a Duke." The Countess
objected to this proposal, and stated her reasons with equal
good sense and sincerity, but at length submitted.

The Queen had commenced her reign with a tory admini-
stration. The Duchess, after passing two years in incessant
efforts to undermine it, and in endeavouring to persuade Anne
to replace it wholly from the opposite party, was obliged to
content herself with half a triumph. The Queen, worn out
by her importunities, and sheltering herself under the advice,
or rather compliance, of Marlborough and Godolphin, who
were in a great measure ruled by the same influence, con-
sented to a sort of compromise, and several of the whig
leaders were admitted into office : among these, the Queen
hesitated long on the appointment of the Earl of Sunderland
to the office of Secretary of State. He was perhaps the most
determined member of his party ; his manners were repulsive,
and his temper was ungovernable ; but he was the husband
of one of the Duchess's daughters. Marlborough himself
faintly opposed his advancement to the post; the Queen
besought with fond and querulous entreaties, but at length
gave way ; and the Duchess, in gaining this point, seems to
have lost irrevocably her mistress's affection. It had been
long failing, but so inveterate was the habit of control on the
one side, and compliance on the other, that the parties them-

150 SARAH JENNINGS,

selves were perhaps insensible of its decay. The Duchess's
letters to her, however, which had been for some time gradu-
ally assuming a tone of formality, became on this occasion
frequently rude and scornful not only in their sense, but in
their very terms of expression. Anne seems not to have
recollected that she was a Queen till the Duchess had wholly
forgotten herself to be a subject.

It is doubtful whether her Majesty, even under this extre-
mity of oppression, could have found sufficient strength of
mind to set herself at liberty by her own efforts, but encou-
ragement is always at hand to Princes who wish to dispose
of favourites. The Duchess had placed in the royal house-
hold, some years before, a first-cousin of the name of Hill,
the daughter of a broken merchant, and the insignificant
office held by this lady gave her frequent access to the
Queen's person. Anne, to whom custom as well as nature
had rendered a familiar companion necessary, presently
distinguished her from her other attendants of the same
rank ; sought consolation in her society after the storms to
which the intemperance of the Duchess now so frequently
exposed her, and insensibly became attached to her. She
was at length married, with the greatest privacy, to Mr.,
afterwards Lord, Masham, in the presence of the Queen, who
gave her a portion ; and the discovery of these facts by the
Duchess, which was long in reaching her, was accompanied
by the fearful intelligence that Mrs. Masham had become
the medium of secret communication between the Queen and
the most dangerous political enemies of Maryborough and
herself. She now besieged Anne with new remonstrances
and reproaches, which were heard with patience, and for
some time answered by faint professions of kindness ; but
the Queen had formed her determination, and, after several
months had been passed in unceasing endeavours to effect
even the decent appearances of reconciliation, as well by
the Duke as by his lady, she parted finally with Anne on
the sixth of April, 1710, after a long conversation little

DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH. 151

remarkable but for the taciturn coldness of the one, and the
angry volubility of the other.

The conduct of the Duchess after this interview dis-
appointed the expectations of her friends, and gratified the
malice of her enemies. She left no means untried to retain
her offices. She even condescended to the baseness of
indirectly menacing the Queen with a publication of all their
correspondence, and the expedient for a while succeeded.
She prevailed on Marlborough to return from the Continent,
and to solicit for her, as he did, almost abjectly, at more than
one audience. Anne, however, was inexorable; yet the
Duchess delayed her resignation even to the hour in which
she was conscious that it would be forced from her. She
resigned ; and having passed this bitter point, abandoned her-
self to all the extravagances of childish resentment, such as
tearing down chimney-pieces, locks, and other small matters,
which had been put up at her expense in her official apart-
ments in St. James's Palace ; while Anne, as though to
emulate this mean and spiteful absurdity, threatened, through
her Secretary of State, alluding to the mansion of Blenheim,
that " she would build no house for the Duke of Marlborough
when the Duchess had pulled hers to pieces." Anger is the
only passion the excesses of which high breeding cannot in
some degree refine, or at least disguise.

She retired into the country, overwhelmed with discontent,
and assailed by innumerable libels, and remained there in
seclusion till the following year, when the Duke, discharged
from his employments, went to Germany, whither she pre-
sently followed him, and returned with him after the death
of the Queen. In spite of disappointments, loss of power,
and increasing years, she now relapsed into party politics,
and private resentments ; taxed her lord with inactivity when
he had become incapable of exertion ; quarrelled, individually
and collectively, with a ministry which had been formed by
her son-in-law, Sunderland, and most bitterly with himself ;
was accused by him, in return, of secret correspondence with

152 SARAH JENNINGS, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.

the Pretender, and driven to court humbly the good graces of
the Duchess of Kendal, the royal mistress, to obtain the
means of justifying herself to George the First; and finally,
became the implacable, however impotent, enemy to the
family and interests of that Prince, because he forbore in his
civil answer to her representations implicitly to acquit her,
when he had not in fact the means of knowing whether she
was innocent or guilty. The restless violence of temper
which had plunged her into these difficulties vented itself in
her old age on her own family, with almost every member of
which she was on ill terms, and with more than one engaged
in law-suits.

The Duchess of Marlborough survived her celebrated Lord
for more than twenty years. She was solicited in marriage,
when past her grand climacteric, by the Duke of Somerset,
and Lord Coningsby, and her answer to the former is yet
extant. After excusing herself on the score of her age, she
concludes by declaring that " were she only thirty years old,
she would not permit the Emperor of the world to succeed
in that heart which had been devoted to John Duke of Marl-
borough;" and surely gratitude as well as pride demanded
of her this tribute to his memory, for to the last he loved
her with the most exquisite tenderness. She died on the
eighteenth of October, 1744, at the age of eighty-four.

J) ARffl E

TILER

SECOND DUKE OF ORMOND
OBJ 745 ,

JAMES BUTLER,

SECOND DUKE OF ORMOND,

WAS the only surviving son of that model of almost
universal perfection, Thomas, Earl of Ossory, and grandson
and heir to the scarcely less worthy James, on whom the Duke-
dom was conferred immediately after the Restoration. His
mother was Amelia Nassau, daughter of Louis van Beverwaert,
a natural son of the celebrated Maurice, Prince of Orange,
and he was born in the Castle of Dublin, during the Vice-
royalty in Ireland of his grandfather, on the twenty-ninth
of April, 1665.

Of the commencement of his education we are uninformed,
but it was concluded at Christchurch, in the university of
Oxford, of which the Duke, his grandfather, had been for
many years Chancellor, a circumstance which will amply
account for his being complimented there with the degree of
a Master of Arts at the early age of fifteen. His father had
died very suddenly, of an acute illness, just five weeks before
his election, which was on the sixth of September, 1680,
and he was summoned immediately after to Ireland by the
old Duke, with whom he remained for more than three years,
and left him in April, 1684, to serve as a volunteer at the
siege of Luxembourg, which was then invested by the French.
This military expedition occupied him till the following July,
in the end of which month he returned ; received a commission
of Colonel of a regiment of Horse in Ireland ; and, in the
spring of the succeeding year, came to London, and was
appointed a Lord of the King's Bedchamber, then bearing

154 JAMES BUTLER,

the title of Earl of Ossory. The wild insurrection of the
Duke of Monmouth occurring presently after, he was de-
spatched into the west, and was present, with what command
does not appear, on the sixth of July, in the decisive battle
of Sedgemoor.

His grandfather, to whose high honours and great estates
he succeeded, died on the twenty-first of July, 1688, and,
before the close of the month, such was the respect of that
learned body for his name and blood, he was elected, in the
place of the late Duke, Chancellor of the University of
Oxford. He joined heartily in the disapprobation excited by
the weak and extravagant measures of this short reign, and
signed, with several other spiritual and temporal Peers, that
remarkable petition of the seventeenth of November, 1688,
in which the consequences of those errors, and their remedies,
were so clearly and so respectfully pointed out ; and, on the
refusal of the King to listen to those arguments, was among
the first of the nobility to leave the Court, and, in company
with Prince George of Denmark, presented himself to the
Prince of Orange, at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, immediately
after his landing. Among the last acts of James's short-
lived rule in Ireland was the seizure of the Duke's vast
estates there, and the exception of him from the general
pardon offered. He was at the same time attainted by the
Irish Parliament.

The severity of these attacks was softened by William's
distinguished favour. On the fourteenth of February, the
very day after the proclamation of his accession to the
Throne, he appointed Ormond a Lord of his Bedchamber,
and Colonel of the second troop of Horse Guards ; and, in
the following April, gave him the Garter, and nominated
him High Constable of England for the solemnity of the
Coronation. He became in some measure a personal
favourite, and his qualifications for a soldier were soon so
evident to William's military acuteness, that in 1689 he
was intrusted with the command of the English cavalry in

SECOND DUKE OF ORMOND. 155

the Netherlands, and served there in that character during
the campaign with ample credit, as may be clearly inferred
from the fact that in the following year he was chosen by
the King, as a companion in his warlike and momentous
expedition to Ireland, and fought under his eye in the battle
of the Boyne, from which he marched, with a strong body of
Horse, and took possession of the cities of Dublin and
Kilkenny. He remained in Ireland till the end of the war
there, and soon after attended William to the army in
Flanders, where he had his full share of service in all
important affairs of the campaign of 1693, and was peculiarly
distinguished at the adverse battle of Landen, in which,
gallantly charging the enemy at the head of a strong squadron
of Horse, he had his horse shot under him, received several
severe wounds, and was saved from death by an officer of
the French Guard, who seized the arm of a soldier which
was raised to stab him. He was carried to Namur, where
the first thought that occurred to him was to put a large
sum into the hands of Count Guiscard, the Governor, to be
distributed among his fellow prisoners ; and, being permitted
to go to London on his parole, was soon after exchanged for
the Duke of Berwick, who had been captured by the English
in the same action.

Queen Anne pursuing the war against France and Spain,
which had been rather suspended than concluded by the
peace of Ryswick, an expedition was despatched against
Cadiz in the first year of her reign. In the month of June
the Duke embarked, with ten thousand men, on board a
fleet commanded by Sir George Rooke, which sailed directly
thither. The attack on Cadiz failed, but, on their return to
England, they learned that the Spanish Plate Fleet, with a
strong convoy of French ships of war, were in the bay of
Vigo ; Rooke returned thither ; and the famous service of
breaking the boom ensued ; the Duke then landed, with his
troops, and, after seizing several forts on the coast, advanced
into the country, and stormed the town of Ridondella, while

156 JAMES BUTLER,

Rooke, whose conduct, by the way, incurred much blame,
possessed himself of the fleet. Vast treasure, however, fell
into the hands of the General, as well as of the Admiral,
and they received on their return, together with the thanks
of both Houses of Parliament, the most extravagant gratula-
tions from the people. In the course of this year the Duke
was appointed Lord Lieutenant of the county of Somerset,
and on the fourth of February, in the next, was nominated
to succeed the Earl of Rochester as Governor-general of
Ireland, in which exalted office he remained till 1706,
delighting the people not less by the unexampled splendour
of his Court than by the mildness and beneficence of his
rule. In 1707 he became Colonel of the third troop of Horse
Guards ; on the nineteenth of October, 1710, was again
declared Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, on the recal from thence
of the Lord Wharton ; on the first of January, 1712, N. S.,
was made Colonel of the first regiment of Foot Guards ; and
on the twenty-sixth of the succeeding month Commander in
Chief of the army, upon the dismission of the Duke of
Marlborough.

In that exalted character he set out for Flanders in the
spring of 1712, to direct and superintend the operations of
the allied armies, in concert with Prince Eugene. On the
twenty-third of April he arrived at the Hague, with instruc-
tions to inform the Grand Pensionary that the Queen was
resolved to prosecute the war with all vigour, and afterwards
to settle with the Prince, " and such other generals as were
in the secret, the proper measures for entering on action."
The " secret " was a sort of half-engagement to Louis the
Fourteenth to forbear, as much as possible, all offensive
operations against him, on certain conditions as loosely
agreed to on his part. The allied armies however marched
towards the head of the Scheldt, where the French lay, as
to attack them, when on the twenty-fourth of May, Ormond
received a letter from Secretary St. John, conveying "the
Queen's positive command that he should avoid engaging in

SECOND DUKE OF ORMOND. 157

any siege, or hazarding any battle, till further orders ; " and
entered immediately after into a private and confidential
correspondence with Marechal Villars, who commanded the
French. In the mean time, these matters coming imper-
fectly to the knowledge of the States, they complained
heavily that we had betrayed them, and Prince Eugene,
on the part of the Austrians, however far he might have
been originally admitted into the "secret," seemed little
less dissatisfied ; while Ormond, whose dignity, both as a
nobleman and a general, had been grossly insulted by these
orders, could not conceal his chagrin, though he persisted,
from public motives, in retaining his command. They were
at length taken up at home by the opponents of the ministry,
and canvassed with great severity in Parliament, after which
Ormond was allowed to join Prince Eugene in besieging
Quesnoy, but, when that place was on the point of capitu-
lating, he informed the Prince that he had received orders to
proclaim a cessation of arms for two months. The Generals
now parted in mutual disgust, and the Duke, having received
permission to return, accompanied by the strongest declara-
tion of the Queen's entire approbation of his conduct, on the
first of November landed in England. On the twenty- sixth
of June, he was appointed Warden of the Cinque Ports, and
Governor of Dover Castle.

Anne survived this period barely for one year, and, imme-
diately after her death, on the first of August, 1714, Ormond
was among the foremost to sign the proclamation of the suc-
cession of George the First to the throne, and to meet him
on his landing at Greenwich, where that Prince received him
without any indication of distaste, as he did again a few days
after, on the Duke's presenting at St. James's, in his characr
ter of Chancellor, the address of the University of Oxford ;
but on the eighteenth of September, the Viscount Townshend,
one of the Secretaries of State, waited on him to inform him
that the King had no further occasion for his services in the
capacity of Commander in Chief, but would always be glad to

158 JAMES BUTLER,

see him at Court. He now retired into privacy till the
meeting of Parliament, in 1715, when, to the utter astonish-
ment of all people, on the 21st of June, he was impeached of
high treason in the House of Commons by Mr. Secretary
Stanhope, and the House resolving to that effect, Ormond,
warned by the fury with which the new Whig ministry were
then prosecuting Oxford and Bolingbroke, and in compli-
ance, as has been said, with the earnest advice of Bishop
Atterbury, passed over privately, on the eighth of August,
into France, and on the twentieth of that month was
attainted ; his estates forfeited ; his honours extinguished ;
and a reward of ten thousand pounds offered for his appre-
hension. Such were the terrible penalties inflicted on him
for having executed orders which he would probably have
been charged with high treason for disobeying. On his
arrival in France, he immediately threw himself into the
arms of the great person who was then called the Pretender,
to whose interests he had probably, in common with several
others of Anne's faithful servants, and perhaps with her
knowledge, been long somewhat favourable, and to whom he
now became sincerely attached. Of his transactions in the
affairs of that person some account may be found, too long,
and perhaps too unimportant, to be here given, in Lord
Bolingbroke's "Letter to Sir William Wyndham." Of his
story, after his flight from England, nothing more I believe
is to be found, except that he finally settled at Avignon,
where he lived for many years, on a pension of two thousand
pistoles from the King of Spain, and died, at the age of
eighty-one, on the sixteenth of November, 1745, when his
body was brought to England, and deposited in his family
vault in Henry the Seventh's chapel, in Westminster Abbey.
Macky, in his " Characters of the Court of Great Britain,"
written when the Duke was in the prime of life, says of him
— "He governs in Ireland with more affection from the
people, and his court is in the greatest splendour ever known
in that country. He certainly is one of the most generous,

SECOND DUKE OF ORMOND. 159

princely, brave men that ever was, but good-natured to a
fault; loves glory, and consequently is crowded with flat-
terers; never knew how to refuse anybody, which was the
reason why he obtained so little from King William, asking
for everybody. He hath all the qualities of a great man,
except one of a statesman, hating business ; loving, and is
beloved by, the ladies ; of a low stature, but well shaped ; a
good mien and address ; a fair complexion, and very beautiful
face. He is about forty years old."

Swift, writing almost in the hour of his prosecution, gives
his character at greater length, and with a more manly seri-
ousness : — rt The attainder," says he, " of the Duke of
Ormond neither I, nor I believe any one person in the three
kingdoms, did ever pretend to foresee ; and, now it is done,
it looks like a dream to those who will consider the noble-
ness of his birth ; the great merits of his ancestors and his
own ; his long unspotted loyalty ; his affability, generosity,
and sweetness of nature. I knew him long and well ; and,
excepting the frailties of his youth, which had been for some
time over, and that easiness of temper, which did sometimes
lead him to follow the judgment of those who had, by many
degrees, less understanding than himself, I have not con-
versed with a more faultless person : of great justice and
charity ; a true sense of religion, without ostentation ; of
undoubted valour ; thoroughly skilled in his trade of a
soldier ; a quick and ready apprehension, with a good share
of understanding, and a general knowledge of men and
history, although under some disadvantage by an invincible
modesty, which however could not but render him yet more
amiable to those who had the honour and happiness of being
thoroughly acquainted with him. This is a short imperfect
character of that great person, the Duke of Ormond, who is
now attainted for high treason, and therefore I shall not
presume to offer one syllable in his vindication upon that
head, against the decision of a Parliament. Yet this I think
may be allowed me to believe^ or at least to hope — that

]GO JAMES BUTLER, SECOND DUKE OF ORMOND.

when by the direct and repeated commands of the Queen,
his mistress, he committed those faults for which he hath
now forfeited his country, his titles, and his fortune, he no
more conceived himself to be acting high treason than he did
when he was wounded, and a prisoner at Landen, for his
sovereign, King William, or when he took and burned the
enemy's fleet at Vigo."

The Duke of Ormond married, first, Anne, eldest daughter
of Laurence Hyde, first Earl of Rochester of his family, who
died young, and childless ; secondly, Mary, eldest surviving
daughter of Henry Somerset, first Duke of Beaufort, by whom
he had an only son, Thomas, who died in infancy ; as did
three daughters, Mary, Emilia, and Henrietta ; another
Mary, who was married to John, first Lord Ashburnhara ;
and Elizabeth, who died a spinster in 1750.

.KARL OF OKFC/RD
OB . 1746 , •

, ROBERT WALPOLE,

FIKST EARL OF ORFORD.

SIR ROBERT WALPOLE, perhaps the most able and honest,
and certainly one of the most consistent, statesmen of his
time, sprung from a long line of powerful and wealthy ances-
tors who had been for many centuries seated at Houghton, in
the county of Norfolk, where he was born on the twenty-
sixth of August, 1676, the third son of Robert Walpole, of
that place, by Mary, only daughter and heir of Sir Geoffrey
Burwell, of Rougham, in Suffolk.

Neither the circumstances of his family, respectable as
they were, nor his own position in it, at the time of his birth,
afforded any prospect of his attaining to the important and
dignified station which awaited him, for he was the third son
among nineteen children. He was designed therefore for the
profession of the law, and received such an education, first at
]Eton, and afterwards at King's College, in Cambridge, where
he was admitted a scholar in 1696, as was thought fit to
qualify him for it : his two elder brothers, however, dying in
their youth within two years after, he became heir apparent
to his father, on whose death, in the year 1700, he succeeded
to the family estates, estimated at two thousand pounds
annually, as well as to the representation of the borough of
Castlerising, in his native county, for which his father had
sat in^ Parliament for several years, ending at his decease.
He married, too, a few months after, a wealthy city heiress ;
and now, finding himself at a very early age in a state of
the most ample independence, it remained only for him to

VII. M

162 ROBERT WALPOLE,

determine on his future course. The choice was readily made.
He already possessed all that is usually esteemed valuable
in human life, except fame, and for that a very short expe-
rience in Parliament excited in him an eager appetite. He
presently resolved to devote himself to public business, for
which indeed he is said to have evinced, at a very early age,
a remarkable inclination and aptitude.

During the two sessions which next followed his election
we hear little of him beyond that he applied himself con-
stantly to the ordinary business of the House, especially
on all matters that related to the affairs of his own county.
That he was diligent, however, appears certain from the fact
that he was often appointed a teller on important occasions,
particularly on the divisions connected with the impeachment
of Lord Somers ; but he had hitherto given no indication of
the faculties which afterwards so eminently distinguished
him. St. John, not yet raised to the Peerage, who had been
his rival at school, had long engrossed the admiration of the
House by his brilliant talents, and captivating powers of ora-
tory ; and Walpole, anxious to emulate his success, deter-
mined to attempt a competition, but the first essay made by
him produced a failure so lamentable as to create a general
impression among his friends that he would never gain the
attention of Parliament. The ascendancy of the whig party,
to which he had from the beginning attached himself, having
been established in the latter years of William's reign, that
of Queen Anne opened under their direct influence, and Wal-
pole suddenly and unexpectedly became important to them.
Little discouraged by the ill success of his first attempts, he
now became a frequent debater ; soon gained that facility of
speaking for which he afterwards became remarkable ; and,
no longer aiming at decorative eloquence, presently com-
manded the respect of his auditors by the force of his
arguments, and the manly simplicity of expression in
which he couched them.
In 1705, he was appointed one of the Council to Prince

FIRST EARL OF ORFORD. 163

George of Denmark for his office of Lord High Admiral.
Some gross abuses in the management of the navy had pro-
voked very general dissatisfaction, and the whigs were among
the loudest in their complaints of its mal-administration.
The task of defending the ministry against any imputations
on this score was put on Walpole, and, although the execu-
tion of it was necessarily opposed to the great body of the
party with which he had acted, he acquitted himself with a
boldness, and even vehemence, which recommended him
powerfully to the favour of the government, and with a dex-
terity which in a great measure disarmed the resentment of
his party. A more difficult office awaited him — that of
endeavouring to reconcile the treasurer Godolphin to the
whigs, whom he hated, and by whom he was distrusted. It
was entirely through his efforts that a concord so desirable
was accomplished, and for this, and other services and kind-
nesses, as well in private as in public life, Godolphin enter-
tained a gratitude which ended only with his life, for in his
last hours he earnestly recommended Walpole to the pro-
tection and patronage of the favourite Duchess of Marl-
borough. In 1708, he succeeded St. John in the office of
Secretary at War, and in the following year was appointed
Treasurer of the Navy. He defended the Duke of Marl-
borough with great ability and zeal against the charges of the
Earl of Peterborough, and in the ill-advised impeachment
of Sacheverell acted as one of the managers for the
Commons.

The intrigues of Harley, and his instrument, Mrs. Masham,
who had now supplanted the Duchess of Marlborough in the
Queen's favour, aided by the dissension and want of con-
fidence which prevailed amongst the chief members of the
government, effected that which could have been accom-
plished by scarcely any other means. The whig admi-
nistration was overthrown, and Walpole retired from office
somewhat later than his colleagues, and not until Harley had
found him proof equally against his offers and his threats.

M2

164 ROBERT WALPOLE,

He then threw himself openly into the ranks of the oppo-
sition, and by his able and animated defence of his friend
Oodolphin, as well in the House of Commons, in reply to
St. John's charges on the displaced Treasurer of mal-adminis-
tration of the finances, as by a most powerful pamphlet to
the same effect, proved himself so formidable an antagonist
to the party then in office, that they resolved, since they
could not purchase his silence, to strive to destroy his reputa-
tion. He was accused of venality and corruption in his cha-
racter of Secretary at War in the management of certain
forage contracts. On the seventeenth of January, 1711, he
was heard in his defence, and, after a long and warm debate,
in which his enemies exerted all their talents and influence
against him, it was resolved by small majorities that he
should be expelled, and committed to the Tower of London.
On the following morning he surrendered himself, and was
sent to the Tower, where he remained till the eighth of the
following July.

His constitutional intrepidity, a conviction that he had
been unjustly persecuted, and, more perhaps than all, a con-
fident belief that the discordant elements of the existing
administration could not long hold together, kept up his
spirits under his imprisonment ; while the countenance and
congratulations of his friends gave an air of triumph to that
which had been contrived for his disgrace and ruin. He was
immediately returned for Lynn, which he had represented in
the preceding Parliament, but the House of Commons resolved
that his expulsion had rendered him ineligible. His restraint
was of short duration, for the Parliament was dissolved in the
following August. His time had been fully employed in the
interval. He had now engaged so deeply in politics, and
had imbibed so strong a relish for the excitement which
belongs to them, that neither danger nor disappointment
could check him in the pursuit. While in the Tower he
had published a satisfactory justification of himself, and he
now engaged with Sir Richard Steele in the composition of

FIRST EARL OF ORFORD. 165

several political pamphlets for the purpose of repelling some
of the misrepresentations of the party in power, and of rous-
ing the public feeling against them. The most powerful of
these was entitled " A short History of the Parliament " — a
piece full of danger to the writer ; and indeed, as Walpole
himself said on a subsequent occasion, " the author of that
history was so apprehensive of the consequences of printing
it that the press was carried to his own house, and the copies
printed there."

He was again returned for Lynn in the Parliament which
met in February, 1714, and, by the acuteness of his mind,
the vigour and boldness of his eloquence, and his extensive
knowledge as well of public business as of the men by whom
it was conducted, he presently became the chief leader of
the opposition, and the most formidable of the foes of the
government. It was chiefly by his exertions that the Whigs
were kept together at a time when the success of their oppo-
nents might have daunted a less constant spirit. His courage
dispelled their dejection, while his frank convivial disposition,
and his profuse hospitality, even at the hazard of the ruin of
his private fortune, procured him their personal regard, and
with their private their political confidence. One of his
happiest displays in Parliament at this period was his defence
of Steele, when his pamphlets, entitled "the Crisis," and "the
Englishman," were voted seditious libels by the House of
Commons. Walpole's speech on that occasion is an admirable
exhibition of the decorous Whig principles of his time.

The death of Queen Anne brought about the extinction of
that power which the tories had almost absolutely possessed
during the last four years of her reign. On the accession of
George the First, the exertions of the friends to the Protestant
succession, in which no man had taken a more decided and
active part than Walpole, were without delay acknowledged
and rewarded by the new King. All the offices of the
government were divided among them, and, though some
held a higher rank, the power of none was greater than that

166 ROBERT WALPOLE,

of Walpole, and Lord Townshend, Secretary of State, who
was not only his relation in blood, but had married his sister.
He was appointed Paymaster of the Navy immediately on
the King's arrival, and soon after appeared in the station of
ministerial leader in the House of Commons, which indeed
no one but himself was then qualified to fill. In that cha-
racter he carried on the prosecutions of the Lords Oxford and
Bolingbroke, and the Duke of Ormond, with great ability,
and with an earnestness which savoured perhaps as much of
& pardonable personal vengeance as of indignation at the
faults and errors of which the late ministry was accused.
The times indeed required all the energy, as well as all the
talent, of a rnind like his to steer the vessel of the state
through the dangers by which it was surrounded. The dis-
satisfaction of the Tory and Jacobite parties, the hostile
influence of France, the appearance in England of the son of
James the Second, and the rebellion which ensued in Scotland
upon that event, called for the most bold and decisive mea-
sures here, and the call was not less wisely than promptly
met by Walpole. The stern inflexibility with which he
insisted on the punishment of the rebel Lords has often been
alleged as a charge of cruelty against him, but the circum-
stances of the time must be admitted to have justified, as
much as they admitted of justification, the measures which
were then resorted to ; and certainly cruelty was not among
the faults of his nature.

The uncontrolled vigour and power with which he con-
ducted the affairs of that eventful year were doubtless in
great measure to be ascribed to his being now actually at the
head of the administration. He had been, on the tenth of
October, 1715, appointed first Lord of the Treasury, and
Chancellor of the Exchequer. This pre-eminence was how-
ever of no long duration. The absence of the King, who
went to Hanover in the following summer ; the jealousies
which, found their way into the ministry, and presently
ripened into dissensions ; and the rapacity and intrigues of

FIRST EARL OF ORFORD. 167

what was called the German party, who considered England
as a mine of wealth now first opened to them ; rendered the
station at once painful and precarious. The misunderstanding
which soon after arose between his Majesty and the Heir
Apparent, and the management of the Earl of Sunderland?
who soon after obtained the office of principal Secretary of
State, and then that of first Lord of the Treasury, at length
determined the power of the ministers ; and, just at the time
when the able schemes of Townshend for establishing the
foreign relations of the country on a secure basis were brought
to their accomplishment, and when Walpole had supplied a
simple and efficacious measure for restoring the finances of the
country, the cabals of their enemies triumphed. Townshend
was dismissed, and Walpole resigned his offices, in spite of
the King's urgent, and even passionate, persuasions. The
most influential members of the administration followed his
example, and he once more became a member of the
opposition.

The stern vehemence which he now assumed in this cha-
racter ; the undisguised contempt which he expressed of his
enemies ; and, above all, his bold avowal of faults, and great
ones too, with which from time to time they upbraided him ;
were so many proofs of his full consciousness not only of his
own powers, but of the ascendancy which they proudly held.
Sunderland felt that he was sinking under it, and was com-
pelled, in a manner, to implore his assistance. Overtures
were made to him, and to Townshend, without whom he
would not have engaged, and were accepted. The first
merely resumed his former post of Paymaster-general of the
Army. He took no active part in the affairs of the govern-
ment, but retired to Houghton to recruit his health, which
had suffered from his late exertions, and perhaps to arrange
the steps towards another change, which it is not unlikely
was already meditated by him. He was not however other-
wise unemployed : in his treaty with the new ministers,
Sunderland had insisted that he should abstain from all

168 ROBERT WALPOLE,

interference in the painful and unseemly difference between
the King and the Prince of Wales, to whom he had in some
measure engaged his services. Walpole not only steadily and
honourably refused, but undisguisedly redoubled his efforts
to reconcile the royal parties, and was at length completely
successful. The destructive scheme which is known by the
name of the South-sea Bubble was soon afterwards exposed,
and brought on the country that general distress which he
had truly predicted when it was first proposed* In the
sudden and general dismay which now spread throughout the
country the eyes of all men were turned to him, then justly
acknowledged the most able master of finance that had ever
appeared in public business, for some remedy for the evils
which prevailed. He was hastily called to town, and, while
the means he recommended fully justified the general opinion
of his profound judgment, they were as much distinguished
by moderation as ingenuity. He devised a plan for engrafting
into the Bank and East India stocks a large portion of the
debt which had been contracted by the South-sea Company ;
and, having thus quieted the public mind, and staved off the
difficulties which pressed upon the country, he displayed a
noble magnanimity in extricating Sunderland, and Stanhope,
now at the head of the Treasury, who had been of late his
most implacable foes, from the consequences into which their
own imprudence, and the contrivances of the projectors of the
scheme, had plunged them. His temporary retreat was dis-
tinguished too by the invention of some measures for the
benefit of commerce which will ever be remembered with
gratitude by those of that interest.

His popularity, before very considerable, was raised to the
highest by these circumstances, and the public opinion of the
Ministry had sunk in a more than equal proportion. The
influence of his party in Parliament was no longer doubtful ;
Stanhope was saved by death from the discredit of dismis-
sion ; and, on the fourth of April, 1721, Walpole was restored
to his appointments of first Commissioner of the Treasury and

FIRST EARL OP ORFORD. Ifi9

Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Tris friend and former coad-
jutor, Townshend, to that of Secretary of State. His services
had been so eminently advantageous to the nation, not to
mention the degree of royal favour in which he personally
stood, that the King now proposed to raise him to the peerage,
but the incomparable dexterity with which he managed the
House of Commons rendered it inexpedient that he should
quit his post there in the actual state of the country ; the
proffered dignity was therefore conferred on his eldest son,
who, on the tenth of June, 1723, was created Baron Walpole,
of Walpole, in Norfolk, by a patent which, referring to the
services of the father, stated that " he rather chose to merit
the highest titles than to wear them." He accepted however
the order of the Bath, on its revival in 1725 ; and, in the
following year, that of the Garter, the highest honour that
can be held by a Commoner, was conferred on him.

Walpole's love of peace has been, and not unjustly, iden-
tified with his very name. A favourable opportunity offering
at this period of obtaining a permanency of that blessing by
a treaty with France, he seems, instead of intrusting it to
Townshend, in whose department it properly lay, to have
taken the management of it mostly on himself, and therefore
to have made his brother, Horace Walpole, the immediate
instrument of the negotiation. Cardinal Fleury, actuated by
a policy not less pacific, heartily coincided. The progress of
the treaty was marked by a candour and good faith most rare
in diplomacy, and the result proved not only the sovereign
efficacy of those attributes in their application to public
policy, but also the incontrovertible fact that the powers of
England and France, steadily and sincerely united, would
ever be irresistible. It was in 1727 that the peace of Europe
was thus established. The exiled and attainted Bolingbroke,
who was then resident in France, and who secretly opposed,
while he affected to aid in forwarding, the fruition of these
great arrangements, in the hope of obtaining a complete
amnesty, was now in part gratified : Walpole not only

170 ROBERT WALPOLE,

assented to but procured his qualified restoration. He deter-
mined however that this great bad man should not resume
his place in the country with untarnished honour ; and, by
keeping the attainder still in force against him, drove him to
take a part in politics after his return which effectually pre-
vented the possibility of his ever again sharing in the councils
of the government. Bolingbroke became accordingly his most
implacable, and far from impotent, enemy.

Walpole was in the plenitude of his power, and royal
favour, when the sudden death of George the First seemed to
threaten the extinction of both. The new King had not
only in a great measure withdrawn his confidence from the
minister, but had transferred it to William Pulteney, who,
after several years of early friendship, had conceived, from
some political slights, the most bitter and lasting resentment
against him, which he had gratified by introducing Boling-
broke also to the royal ear. The reception which Walpole
experienced on his first appearance at Court was so mortifying
as to leave scarcely a doubt that his dismissal was resolved
on, and here his dexterity and prompt decision seem to have
saved him from the impending danger. He was, as might
be expected, speedily and accurately informed of all that
occurred about the Court, and, having learned that the Queen
had applied on the subject of her jointure to Sir Spencer
Compton, who had promised his exertions to get it fixed at
fifty or sixty thousand pounds, Walpole adroitly introduced
the subject in an early audience, and induced her to ask his
opinion as to the probable amount. He replied that, with
respect to her merits, and the obligations the country owed
to her, it ought to be left to her dictation ; but he added
that, considering the public distress, the losses which had
been sustained, and the burthens caused by the late war, he
feared he should be unable to obtain for her a larger annual
income than one hundred thousand pounds. This well-timed
suggestion had its full effect. Her Majesty's influence over
the King was most extensive ; and within ten days after he

FIRST EARL OF ORFORD. 171

had been treated by that Prince with open contempt, he was
re-appointed first Lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor of
the Exchequer.

He was now in the possession of a larger share of power
than any other subject in the realm. He had however to
contend with an opposition formidable for its numbers, and
yet more for the talent which it combined. Bolingbroke,
who, as a debater or a writer, was very superior to Walpole
in natural and acquired talents, gave energy and effect to
the attacks which the Tories and the Jacobites, the latter
consisting for the most part of country gentlemen whose
influence was very considerable, directed against the ministry.
Pulteney headed such of the whigs as were discontented
with Walpole's recent conduct. The minister knew that
such foes were neither to be contemned nor defied, and there-
fore, while he made head against their attacks in public, he
employed arts more secret and more certain, to win over
such as might be induced boldly and openly to change sides,
and to neutralize others, who would not venture to brave,
although they did not scruple to deserve, the public reproach
for their baseness. His success in this sort of policy even
surpassed his own expectation, and is said to have produced
in him the opinion that public virtue was a mere pretence,
and that, whatever might be sometimes the seeming firmness
of the principles and conduct of men, there was a price at
which almost every individual might be bought.

Thus Walpole maintained the power which he had
obtained, and was enabled to realise the plans which he
had devised for the peace of the country, and the restoration
of its impoverished resources. His increasing influence at
length excited the jealousy of his coadjutor, Townshend.
It first produced a mutual decay of confidence ; frequent
bickerings followed ; and at length a quarrel on a point of
foreign negotiation attended by disgraceful circumstances,
even of personal violence, occurred in the presence of the
Duke of Newcastle, and others of high rank. The story of

172 . ROBERT WALPOLE,

this indecent contest got abroad, and the careless wit of Gay
dramatised it with irresistible ridicule in the recriminatory
scene between Peacham and Lockit, in the Beggar's Opera.
Lord Townshend's retirement from office soon followed*

Sir Robert Walpole first devised and put into practice the
scheme of a sinking fund, for the reduction of the national
debt, and, as soon as it had attained to a respectable amount,
yielded to the temptation which it offered, and proposed its
appropriation to the service of the current year. Another,
and one of the most important of his financial operations
Was the amendment of the excise laws, and the simplification
of that material branch of the revenue. He proposed also
to convert the customs into duties of excise, but the pains
taken to excite the popular dislike to the measure were so
successful that he was compelled to abandon it. This failure
inspired his enemies with sanguine hopes of displacing him,
but his genius again prevailed, and the defeat with which he
had been threatened fell on his antagonists. His greatest
triumph however was in the success with which he brought
about the general pacification of 1733, when the elements of
war surrounded him on all sides, and when the smallest
departure from the strictly consistent course he had pre-
scribed to himself, the slightest wavering of resolution,
would inevitably have produced the consequences he so
carefully endeavoured to avoid.

A misunderstanding now, as in the late reign, unfortu-
nately occurred between the reigning King and the Prince of
Wales, and became, as the former had been, the source of an
opposition to the government. The Prince's taste led him
to cultivate the acquaintance of men of parts and accom-
plishments, and a society was formed of which his Royal
Highness was nominally the leader, but of which the restless
Bolingbroke, Pulteney, Sir William Wyndham, and some
younger men, who afterwards attained to eminent distinction,
were the active members. They were all opposed to the
minister, and, by their advice and example, suggested to the

FIRST EARL OF ORFORD. 173

Prince a line of conduct so imprudent and unbecoming, that
the breach between him and the King soon assumed a
serious aspect. Walpole at first endeavoured to reconcile the
difference, and it was not till he had wholly failed to effect
this object that he resorted to more decided measures, which
secured to him the favour of the King, but involved him in
the open enmity of the Prince of Wales. At the end of the
year 1737 Queen Caroline, who had certainly entertained a
high personal regard for Walpole, died, and from that hour
the lofty state of the minister's power gradually declined.

Foreign affairs assumed soon after an aspect altogether
adverse to his favourite policy. The jealousy with which
Spain insisted on the exclusive advantages of the South
American commerce, and the pertinacious efforts of the
English traders to participate in it, gave rise to differences
which soon assumed a hostile character. Some English
vessels had been seized, and others plundered under the
pretence of a right of search, and the severities exercised
on the captains and crews raised a popular feeling against
Spain which could not be allayed. The opposition eagerly
availed themselves of the pretext thus afforded. Petitions
were poured into the House of Commons, and the captain of
a trading vessel was brought to the bar to state that one of his
ears had been wantonly cut off by a Spaniard by whom his
ship had been captured, and such became the public excite-
ment, that tales far less probable gained an easy credit with
the million. Walpole laboured earnestly to prevent the
impending rupture ; to engage Spain in a treaty ; and to
convince the Commons that nothing could be more adverse to
the true interest of the country than to enter upon a war.
His efforts however were vain. In addition to the popular
cry, within and without the walls of Parliament, the King
had now manifested his inclination to settle the contention
rather by the sword than by negotiation. In 1739 a war
was declared with Spain, and Walpole became only nominally
minister.

14 ROBERT WALPOLE,

The remainder of his political life was but a series of
reverses and mortifications. His adherents gradually fell off ;
he was compelled to admit to a share of his power men who
used it only to annoy and betray him ; and he felt that the
moments chosen by his enemies to put into practice their
machinations against him were precisely those in which his
failing strength rendered him least able to cope with them.
In the bitterness of his heart he complained in council that
he was thwarted on every side, and unable to execute
measures of the expediency of which he was convinced.
At length a motion was made in the House of Commons for
an address to the King to dismiss him, by Mr. Sandys, who
prefaced it by an elaborate speech filled, of course, with the
bitterest imputations and censures. Walpole's reply was one
of the most able, and, now that the feelings which then lent
a false colour to men's professions have subsided, one of
the most satisfactory, that ever was uttered in Parliament.
The falsehood of some of the accusations, the staleness of
others, and the absurdity of the pretence that, in a govern-
ment like ours, a minister is to be held personally responsible
for all that may have gone wrong through a long series of
years, were so grossly apparent, that only party spirit, in its
wildest mood, could have resorted to them.

Walpole's secure ground of defence was his innocence;
but the perfect knowledge he possessed of the character of
his assailants, and of the usual effect of the biting sarcasms
which he had been so long used to launch against them, gave
him advantages that might have made even the worse appear
the better cause. There is a part of his speech, where he
replied to the pretence of patriotic feeling under which this
great attack on him was masked, the point of which is not
weakened, though the occasion that excited it has so long
passed away. — " Gentlemen," said he in a tone of indignant
satire, " have talked much of patriotism ; a venerable word !
but I am sorry to say that of late it has been so hackneyed
about that it is in danger of falling into disgrace. The very

FIRST EARL OF ORFORD. 175

idea of true patriotism is lost, and the term has been
prostituted to the worst of purposes. A patriot, sir ! — why
patriots spring up like mushrooms : I could raise fifty of
them within twenty-four hours. I have raised many of them
in one night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable
or an insolent demand, and up starts a patriot. I have never
been afraid of making patriots ; but I disdain and despise all
their efforts ; for this pretended virtue proceeds from personal
malice, and from disappointed ambition. There is not a
man among them whose particular aim I am not able to
ascertain, and from what motive he has entered into the lists
of opposition."

The motion was negatived, chiefly through the secession of
that most incorruptible Jacobite, " honest Will Shippen,"
who, with thirty-four of the party headed by him, quitted
the House, and refused to vote on the question. The result
however was that all the world saw, and the minister clearer
than others, that his influence was extinct. He soon after
found himself occasionally in minorities, and unable to carry
on the business of the government. His health failed ; his
command of temper, and his capacity for exertion were
diminished ; and, after many struggles between his feelings
and his judgment, he reluctantly determined to retire from
public life. On the ninth of February, 1742, he was created.
Earl of Orford, and on the eleventh surrendered his offices.
The King, who now knew and duly appreciated his services,
and who had the most implicit reliance on his talents, was as
unwilling to receive as Walpole to tender his resignation.
When the necessities of the public business forced this
measure upon him, George the Second expressed his regret
with unaffected kindness, and hopes that, although he was
deprived of the minister's active exertions, he should yet
have the advantage of his advice on important occasions.
The interview in which this conversation occurred was
marked by more real feeling than such scenes commonly
display. The King shed tears, and the minister was so

176 ROBERT WALPOLE,

overcome by his emotion that when he had knelt to kiss his
master's hand he was unable for some minutes to rise from
that posture.

With the loss of office he lost not the cares which had been
connected with it. The late proceedings of his enemies had
convinced him that their animosity would be appeased only
by his total ruin, and, in order to evade the result of the
reserved attack, he earnestly employed himself in endea-
vouring to disunite the opposition, and to form a whig
administration, to be headed by his old antagonist, Pulteney.
Walpole's address and exertions overcame the obstacles
which opposed themselves to this plan, but the new ministry
was no sooner arranged than he was accused in the House of
Commons of various crimes and misconduct in his office. A
parliamentary enquiry was resolved on by a majority only of
seven, and a secret committee of his most notorious enemies
were appointed to conduct it. The prosecution was carried
on with equal virulence and injustice, till cut short by
impediments too numerous, and too complicated, to be here
explained ; and an attempt was made to revive it in the
succeeding session, but instantly negatived. The King's
confidence in his old servant was in no degree shaken by
these attacks. His Majesty was engaged in frequent
communications with him, chiefly carried on secretly in
correspondence by letters, which were mutually returned.
The King not only solicited, but generally adopted, the
advice given by Lord Orford, and it was chiefly by him that
the Pelham administration was formed in the summer of
1743.

He now retired to Houghton, with a broken spirit and
constitution, intending to pass the remainder of his life in
the privacy which those infirmities required; but, on the
news of the invasion of 1745 the King sent for him, and
though he was then suffering under an attack of a nephritic
complaint which had long afflicted him, he came by slow
journeys to London, and in a speech which he made in the

FIRST EARL OF ORFORD. 177

House of Peers displayed all the force and fervour which had
graced his happiest efforts on former occasions. These
exertions however, joined to the injudicious use of a quack
medicine, in the hope of removing their consequences, so
aggravated his disease, that, after lingering for a few months,
in a state of torment which was only capable of relief by
continual doses of opium, he died on the eighteenth of March,
1746, N.S., at his house in Arlington Street, and was buried
at Houghton.

Of Lord Orford's private life, if the expression may be
properly used respecting a man who scarcely existed but in a
public character, little is to be said. He was of imperturbable
good temper : addicted to the pleasures of the table in a
greater degree than most of his contemporaries of his own
rank, even in those days, when such excesses were universally
indulged in ; and is said to have been better satisfied with a
reputation for gallantry, of all reputations the most easily
raised, and the least worth earning, than for the exalted
qualities which he unquestionably possessed. We have been
told by some that he had a vulgar love of expense, without
any true notions of magnificence ; that he collected pictures,
at immense cost, without either taste or love for the arts ;
and that, although he had been in his early life fond of
literature, he was so unhappy as to survive that inclination,
and to have regretted in his latter days that he no longer
found any enjoyment in intellectual pursuits. He has left a
name identified with one of the most interesting portions of
the modern history of his country, and a reputation altogether
brilliant, but for the adventitious stains which sometimes fell
on its surface in his unavoidable contact with the baseness
of others.

He married, first, Catherine, daughter and heir of Sir
John Shorter, a wealthy merchant, by whom he had three
sons, and one daughter : Robert, his successor ; Sir Edward,
a Knight of the Bath ; Horace, who, in his old age, succeeded
his nephew George, and became fourth Earl, but who will

VII. N

178 ROBERT WALPOLE, FIRST EARL OF ORFORD.

ever be better remembered as the greatest master of elegant
literature of his time ; and Mary, married to George, fourth
Earl of Cholmondeley. His second Lady was Maria, daughter
and heir of Thomas Skerret. By her he had issue one
daughter, born before marriage, to whom the rights of
legitimacy, and the rank of an Earl's daughter, were specially
granted by King George the Second. She became the wife
of Charles Churchill, a Colonel in the army.

DUKE OF SOMERSET
OB, 174-8,

CHARLES SEYMOUR,

SIXTH DUKE OF SOMEBSET.

THIS great Peer, whose constant endeavours in a time of
altered feelings and fashions to maintain his claim to those
forms of deep respect which in the preceding age flowed, as
it were naturally, towards the heads of the aristocracy,
had obtained for him the appellation of the proud Duke of
Somerset, was the second surviving son of Charles Lord Sey-
mour of Trowbridge (first cousin to John, the fourth and last
Duke of the elder line), by his second lady, Elizabeth, daughter
of William Lord Allington of Wymondley, and was born on
the twelfth of August, 1662. He succeeded to the superb
titles and estates of his family in 1678, on the death of his
elder brother, Francis, who was assassinated at Lerici, in the
Genoese territory, when he had just attained the age of
twenty-one. With the circumstances of his very early life,
we are unacquainted, knowing only that he studied in the
University of Cambridge. A splendid alliance was arranged
for him, and celebrated in his minority ; for, on the thirtieth
of- May, 1682, he was married to Elizabeth, only daughter
and sole heir of Josceline Percy, eleventh and last Earl of
Northumberland of the original male line, a lady of whom it
was said that she had been thrice a wife, and twice a widow,
before she had passed her sixteenth year. She had indeed
been already affianced, first, to the only son of Henry Caven-
dish, Duke of Newcastle, Henry Earl of Ogle, who died in
childhood ; and then to Mr. Thynne, whose life was in the
preceding year sacrificed to his successful suit for her favour,

N2

180 CHARLES SEYMOUR,

by the well known horrible murder perpetrated in Pall Mall,
by a disappointed pretender to her hand, Count Conings-
mark, and his associates.

He accepted the office of a Lord of the Bedchamber from
King Charles the Second, who about the same time gave him
the command of the third regiment of dragoons, and on the
first of January, 1684, invested him with the ensigns of the
Garter. On the death of that Prince, which occurred about
a year after, James continued him in his appointments, and
called him to the Privy Council, in which he had sat also in
the former reign. When Monmouth appeared in arms, in
Somersetshire, the Duke hastened thither, and placed himself
at the head of the militia of the county, but the ephemeral
fate of that wild rebellion rendered his services unnecessary.

Few of the great nobility stood higher in the royal favour
than himself, when a circumstance somewhat singular sud-
denly deprived him of it. James, among the concluding
follies of his short reign, had determined to receive in the
face of the country a public minister from the Pope, and
Ferdinand d'Adda, who had been about James's court for
some years, was the Queen's favourite priest, and had long
privately managed the chief papal affairs in England, was
chosen for that office. But the King was not satisfied with
this degree of imprudence — he resolved to grace the embassy
with peculiar honours ; and d'Adda, having been first
pompously consecrated an Archbishop, in the royal chapel of
Whitehall, was conducted with great ceremony to Windsor
Castle, to his first audience of the King and Queen, in the
character of Nuncio. The Duke happened to be then in his
turn of waiting, and it was therefore his office to usher the
minister into their presence ; this he positively refused,
though twice urged to it by James himself, who, in vehement
anger, immediately dismissed him from his appointments.
Two Whig historians, generally in happy agreement, differ
much as to the Duke's motives to this denial. Kennet says
that " this illustrious patriot resigned without the least

SIXTH DUKE OF SOMERSET. 181

concern, as being abundantly satisfied that he kept his con-
science and his honour, while he lost nothing but his places."
Burnet tells us that " he had advised with his lawyers, and
they told him he could not safely do the part that was
expected of him in the audience." This was caution, not
conscience. In the last days of this unhappy reign, he was
elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.

He was one of the Peers who offered their services to the
Prince of Orange immediately on his arrival, but seems to
have held no public office under him till the last year of his
reign, when he was appointed President of the Council, and
was one of the Lords Justices to whom William committed
the Government during his final visit to Holland, On the
accession of Anne, he was called to the Privy Council, and
was one of the five noblemen nominated by that Princess to
examine the papers of the deceased King, and on the third
of July, in the same year, 1702, was placed in the post of
Master of the Horse, which he held till 1712. In 1708 he
was one of the commissioners for the great affair of the
Union, and in 1710 was largely concerned in bringing about
that change of administration which emancipated the Queen
from the thraldom in which she had been so long held by the
Duchess of Marlborough and the Whigs. " The Duke of
Somerset," says Burnet, " had very much alienated the
Queen from the old ministry, and had no small share in their
disgrace ; but he was so displeased with the dissolution of
Parliament, and the new model of the ministry, that, though
he continued some time Master of the Horse, he refused
to sit any more in Council, and complained openly of the
artifices that had been used to make him instrumental to
other people's designs, which he did, among others, to
myself."

This nobleman, however, as became his exalted station, seems
to have acted always independently of party, and Jo have
interfered little in the direction of public affairs. In two
other instances in this reign, we trace, it is true, important

182 CHARLES SEYMOUR,

consequences from his resolute conduct in the Council — in
1708, when his steady refusal, in the Queen's presence, to
enter on the consideration of the affairs of Europe, in the
absence of the Commander-in-Chief, Marlborough, produced
Barley's resignation ; and again on the thirtieth of July,
1714, when the unexpected and uncalled for appearance at
the Board, of himself and the Duke of Argyle, a few hours
before the Queen's death, interrupted the deliberations of the
Jacobite majority, and perhaps secured the succession to the
House of Hanover. On her Majesty's decease King George
the First included him in the list of eminent persons to whom
he committed the government till his arrival in England, on
which the Duke was immediately sworn of the Privy Council,
and shortly after restored to the place of Master of the Horse,
which however he resigned in the autumn of the succeeding
year, on his security being declined for the good conduct of
his son-in-law, Sir William Wyndham, who was suspected of
treasonable correspondence. After this he never held any
public appointment either in the Court or State, except that
he was again a Privy Counsellor in the following reign.

The Princes whom he served, and their ministers, seem to
have been fully aware of his taste for pompous show and
dignified ceremony, and studious to gratify it, for he was
almost invariably appointed to act a principal part in every
grand public solemnity which occurred during his life, and
the loftiness of his temper and habits, the most exact high
breeding, and a fine person and countenance combined to
qualify him peculiarly for such offices. Of his excessive
haughtiness in private life a multitude of instances, for the
most part unworthy of being here repeated, have been pre-
served. We are told that his second Duchess, who will be
presently mentioned, having once familiarly tapped him on
the shoulder with her fan, he started, and cried, with great
indignation, " Madam, my first wife was a Percy, and she
never took such a liberty." He exacted too the most pro-
found respect for his children. It was one of the offices of

SIXTH DUKE OF SOMERSET. 183

his two youngest daughters to watch him in turn while he
slept after dinner, but they were to stand without intermis-
sion. Indulging one afternoon in a longer portion of repose
than usual, the fair centinel became fatigued, and took a
chair, when the Duke suddenly awaking, and finding her
seated, severely reprimanded her, and told her that he would
make her remember her disobedience. He left twenty
thousand pounds less to her than to her sister, and this has
been, it is to be hoped falsely, ascribed to his resentment of
that offence. His communication with his servants is said to
have been conducted by signs, in perfect silence. He em-
ployed a multitude of people in repairing bye-roads near his
country seats that he might not be liable, in his airings, to
obstruction or observation. Meanwhile he was not less
punctual in conceding to the few who could justly claim them
at his hands those rights of which when due to himself he
was so tenacious. The facetious Sir James Delaval betted a
thousand pounds that he would make the Duke give place to
him. Having gained information when his Grace would pass
a piece of narrow road on his way to London, he waited
there in a coach, covered with the armorial ensigns, and
attended by several servants in the livery, of the Head of the
House of Howard. These, when Somerset approached, cried
out, "My Lord Duke of Norfolk;" when the junior Duke
hastily ordering his coachman to run his near horses and
wheels into a ditch, made room for Delaval to pass, who,
bowing, wished his Grace a good morning — but enough, if
not too much, of these characteristic trifles.

His lady died in 1722, and the Duke, after a widowhood
of three years, married, in his grand climacteric, Charlotte,
second daughter of Daniel Finch, Earl of Winchelsea and
Nottingham. From that period he lived almost wholly in
the country, residing chiefly at his mansion of Petworth, in
Sussex, now the seat of his great grandson, the Earl of Egre-
mont. In this retirement his objects and his pursuits seem
gradually to have narrowed and dwindled into a constant

184 CHARLES SEYMOUR,

series of efforts to prolong a life which, especially to one of
his character, had teemed with so many blessings. Among
the papers of Sir Hans Sloane, preserved in the British
Museum, are numerous letters from the Duke and Duchess,
and their attendants, to that celebrated physician, chiefly on
the state of his Grace's health, marked by an anxiety so
intense and so extravagant as to be at once ridiculous and
deplorable. Many of them are to press the Doctor for reme-
dies for a deafness that vexed him, the cause of which he
seems at last himself shrewdly to have guessed, for, in the
year 1737, when he was seventy-five, the Duchess thus con-
cludes a long letter to Sir Hans, — " My Lord desires his most
humble service to you. He continues with thickness of
hearing, which puts him in the spleen, fearing it proceeds
from old age. He has been very seldom out of the house,
and keeps his ears stopt with black wooll, dipt in oyl of
vipers, mixt sometimes with palsy drops, sometimes with
spirit of castor, and sometimes dipt only in oyl of bitter
almonds, but does not find advantage from either."

I will add the following letter from himself, chiefly for the
sake of the last paragraph, in which the solicitude that he
expresses for an insignificant stranger who seems to have
treated him with negligence, if not rudeness, strongly argues
that his pride had no mixture of unfeelingness or ill
temper : —

" Pettworth, Jan. 31, 17-g-f-.

" SIR,

" The inclosed Paper will give you a melancholy
account of a very severe cold that my wife dosse at present
lye under. Wee desire your advice upon it, although shee
is at more eas at present than shee hath been, yet wee want
to gett rid of these paines, by your opinion and direction most
proper to bee done under our present circumstances.

" As to myself, my bleeding stopt the day before my ser-
vant returned, so that I did not bleed — It was occasioned
by a timorous surgeon, who pricked 3 times with a shaking

SIXTH DUKE OF SOMERSET. 185

hand, without bleeding an ounce, therefore I stopped him.
I have not taken any of the electuary for the same reason
that I bleed no more, but I have taken Acton waters, boyled
to half the quantity. It did operatte well, and I am very
well, and free from those bleedings, but I doe begin to have
breakings out of redness on my hands and armes. These
scorbutick humoures you know I am subject too at this time
of the year, but otherwise I am perfectly well in health, but
not in my hearing. Pray what opinion have you of one
Duckett, lately come up to town, who is mentioned in the
newes papers as having done very great cures on people who
have been deaff some years 1

« I had the last week a letter from one Mr. W. Bedford.
Hee sent me a certificatte from the Vice-qjiancellor, and
severall heads of colleges, that hee is a man of good learning
and sobriety, as is testifyed to them by severall eminent
physicions ; that, as he hath been educated abroad, hee can-
not be admitted without his Majesty's royall letter. I desire
your opinion of him as to his skill in the profession of physick,
for I know not whoe nor where he is, for hee dothe not tell
mee ; nor when hee will come to mee for my certificatte to
the Secretary of Statte, therefore I doe desire your opinion of
him. I am your very humble servant, "SOMERSET."

The Duke died at Petworth on the second of December,
1748, and was buried in Salisbury Cathedral. His marriages
have been already stated. By his first Duchess he had issue
Algernon, his successor -, Percy, and Charles, who died un-
married ; Elizabeth, married to Henry O'Brien, Earl of
Thomond ; Catherine, to Sir William Wyndham, of Orchard
Wyndham, in Somersetshire, Bart. ; Anne, to Peregrine
Osborn, Marquis of Caermarthen; and Frances, who died
unmarried. His second lady brought him two daughters ;
Frances, married to John Manners, Marquis of Granby,
eldest son of John, Duke of Rutland ; and Charlotte, to
Heneage Finch, second Earl of Aylesford.

[F

OB, 1749,

JOHN MONTAGU,

SECOND DUKE OP MONTAGU,

WAS the only surviving son of Ralph, Lord Montagu, of
Boughton, in the county of Northampton, who had been
created by William and Mary, Viscount Monthermer, and
Earl of Montagu, and, by Queen Anne, Marquis of Mont-
hermer, and Duke of Montagu, by Elizabeth, one of the
daughters and coheirs of Thomas Wriothesley, fourth and
last Earl of Southampton of that family, and relict of Jocelyn
Percy, eleventh Earl of Northumberland. He was born in
1688, or in the following year, and in 1705 married Mary,
fourth and youngest daughter and coheir of John Churchill,
the great Duke of Marlborough. He succeeded to the
honours and superb estates of his father on the ninth of
March, 1708-9.

Little has been delivered to us respecting the character
and conduct of this nobleman, who seems to have been
content to confine himself merely to the sphere of the court,
and with offices there, which, though not beneath his dignity,
were certainly of an order very inferior to such as it might
have entitled him to challenge. He officiated as Constable
of England at the Coronation of King George the First, who,
on the eleventh of October, 1715, appointed him Colonel of
the first regiment of foot guards ; on the thirty-first of March,
1718, gave him the Order of the Garter ; and on the revival
of that of the Bath, in 1725, constituted him Great Master.
He was also Master of the Great Wardrobe, an office in the
royal household, which had been settled on his father by
patent, with remainder to himself; and I find him styled
" Lord Proprietor, and Captain General, of the Islands of St.

188 JOHN MONTAGU,

Lucia, and St. Vincent, in America," probably by virtue of
grants which reverted to the Crown at his death.

On the twenty-seventh of August, 1733, he was made
Governor of the Isle of Wight, and in the succeeding June,
captain of the band of gentlemen pensioners ; and in 1736
was called to the Privy Council. Though he abounded in
military appointments, he seems never to have been in
active service. He received in 1735 a commission of Major
General, and in 1739, of Lieutenant General ; and on the
twelfth of May, 1740, became Master General of the Ord-
nance, and Colonel of the Queen's Regiment of Horse ; and
was now, as again in 1745, and 1748, one of the Lords
Justices for the administration of the government, during the
periods which occurred in those years of the absence of
George the Second at Hanover. On the occurrence of the
rebellion in 1745, he raised a regiment in the counties of
Northampton and Warwick, of which he was Lord Lieu-
tenant, but Lord Orford informs us that the men were paid
by the Crown: the Duke's loyalty however was acknow-
ledged in the following year by the grant of a commission of
General of the Horse. The witty and severe Sir Charles
Hanbury Williams has a satirical poem on the noble raisers
of troops in that time, entitled " the Heroes," in which he
bestows these lines on the Duke of Montagu —

" Three regiments one Duke contents,
With two more places you know ;
Since his Bath knights,
His Grace delights
In tria junct' in uno."

We find perhaps in his private character the causes which
tended to detach his mind from that inclination to important
employment in the state which generally excites the ambition
of men of his rank — He was an eccentric humourist, but with
a heart overflowing with kindness and generosity ; and his
irresistible affection to the surprising and the ridiculous
seldom failed to insinuate itself even into those noble acts

SECOND DUKE OF MONTAGU. 189

of beneficence which ought to immortalise his name. The
neighbourhood of Boughton, his favourite seat in Northamp-
tonshire, still cherishes abundant traditionary anecdotes of
this singular disposition ; for it is chiefly to the perhaps safe
evidence of tradition that we owe our knowledge of it. His
tenderness was extended to (possibly the truest test of its
excess and genuineness) every class of animated nature.
His tenants and dependants were strictly charged neither to
work nor to kill their old or disabled cattle ; but to bring
them to his park, a portion of which was set apart for their
reception, which he called " the reservoir," in which they
remained till their natural death. The Memoirs of the Kit
Kat Club, the only printed work which records his amiable
extravagances, informs us that " he was constantly seeking
for objects whereon to exercise his benevolent propensities,
and was remarkable for performing acts of charity and kind-
ness with a singularity and dexterity of achievement which
at once astonished and confounded the persons on whom his
favours were lavished ; and he used to declare that it was
this very surprise in the party which afforded him so much
delight and amusement ; and that the pleasure with which
he bestowed a benefit on a deserving individual was precisely
in proportion to the opportunities he had of making the
reverse so much the more extraordinary and unlocked for.
These statements are followed, and beautifully illustrated, by
a narrative too long to be here inserted, and too interesting
throughout to admit of abridgement.

John, Duke of Montagu, died of a virulent fever, at his
house in Privy Gardens, Whitehall, on the sixteenth of July,
1749, without male issue, leaving two daughters his coheirs ;
Isabella, married, first, to William Montagu, second Duke of
Manchester ; secondly, to Edward Hussey of Ireland ; and
Eleanor, to George Brudenel, fourth Earl of Cardigan, who in
1766 assumed her family surname, and in whom the titles of
Marquis of Monthermer, and Duke of Montagu, were then
revived, and by whose death in 1790, without male issue,
again became extinct.

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VISCCUITT BOLING-BROKE

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HENRY ST. JOHN,

FIRST VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE.

THE life of Lord Bolingbroke is one of those lessons by
which mankind are taught that genius, learning, wit, the
loftiest aspirations, and the happiest opportunities for realising
all that honest ambition can suggest to a great mind, are
bestowed in vain, unless they are accompanied by prudence,
and integrity of principle. His character has been made
alternately by his friends and by his enemies a theme of the
highest panegyric, and of the blackest censure. The opinions
of posterity are likely to be as much divided as were those of
his contemporaries ; and the only safe conclusion that can be
arrived at is, that he possessed an extraordinary mixture of
good and of evil, of greatness and meanness, of that which
ennobles as well as of that which disgraces mortality.

He was the only child of Sir Henry St. John, of Battersea,
in Surrey, by his first wife, Mary, second daughter and coheir
of Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, and was born in 1672. The
course of his early education was such as might have checked
the growth of parts less brilliant than his. His grandmother,
the daughter of the republican Chief Justice St. John, was
strongly tinctured with the puritanical zeal which had flou-
rished during Cromwell's usurpation, and which had not yet
been wholly eradicated by the licentious state of public
morals that had ensued. Under the inspection of this lady
his education was commenced : the tutor of his most tender
infancy was her spiritual guide, the fanatical Daniel Burgess,
and his first steps in learning were made through Dr.

192 HENRY ST. JOHN,

Manton's hundred and nineteen sermons on the hundred and
nineteenth Psalm. At Eton School, and at Christ Church,
Oxford, the impressions of his childhood were presently
effaced, and his wit blazed forth with a brilliancy equalled
only by the force and prematurity of his understanding. He
made his first appearance in the great world with a high
reputation ; but even at that period his love of pleasure
had excited the apprehensions of his friends. Besides consi-
derable learning, of which his accurate and retentive memory
gave him the most perfect command, he possessed a fine taste,
an inexhaustible imagination, and a rapid and irresistible
eloquence ; and added, to a remarkably handsome and graceful
person, elegant and prepossessing manners, with a flow of
animal spirits which excess could not exhaust, and which
disappointment had not yet controlled. Up to the age of
twenty-eight, with talents which might have gained him
universal respect and admiration, he had done nothing but
establish a character for consummate dissipation; and his
most notable triumphs had been exploits which sometimes
scandalized all decency and manliness. One of his bio-
graphers has said, that this period of his life "may be
compared to that of fermentation in liquors, which grow muddy
before they brighten; but it must also be confessed, that
those liquors which never ferment are seldom clear:" an
apology which contains more of ingenuity than of soundness.
In the year 1700, he formed a matrimonial connection with
the wealthy heiress of Sir Henry Winchcomb, of Bucklebury,
Berks ; but the union was so ill-assorted, that, after a short
period, passed in incessant dissensions, they separated by
mutual consent. In the same year he took his seat in Par-
liament, as member for Wootton Bassett. His graceful and
impassioned eloquence, the solidity of his judgment, and the
comprehensive views which he took of business, attracted the
notice of every party ; but, to the disappointment of his dis-
senting friends, he at once espoused the side of the Tories ;
attached himself closely to Harley, their leader ; assisted him

FIRST VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE. 193

powerfully in the busy debates which ensued : and exerted
himself at no time more earnestly than in the discussions
respecting the bill against occasional conformity, which he
supported as vigorously as, considering his early education,
and his family connections, it was expected he would have
opposed it. In 1704 Mr. Harley was appointed Secretary of
State, and Mr. St. John was at the same time entrusted with
the office of Secretary at War. He had probably little per-
sonal regard even at this time for the Duke of Marlborough,
but he had adopted, together with his colleagues, a conviction
that the duration of the war would be a great evil to the
country, and he therefore exerted himself to furnish the
general with the means of striking such decisive blows as
were calculated to bring it to a termination. The most bril-
liant exploits of that great commander, and the munificent
rewards which were heaped upon him by the nation, occurred
while Mr. St. John was at the head of the war department.
Tory as he was, and pledged to the establishing of the Tory
party and Tory principles on the destruction of the Whigs,
he had too strong a sense of his country's true interests, and
too generous a feeling towards Marlborough, for whose talents
he had a high admiration, to do anything, or to leave anything
undone, which might interfere with the success, or moderate
the triumph of either.

In 1708 his party was doomed to yield to the influence of
their opponents. Harley was dismissed, and St. John un-
hesitatingly resigned his own office, an act the more gracious
because it was a voluntary sacrifice to political principle.
The new ministry successfully opposed his re-election in the
ensuing Parliament, and he retired to spend in privacy and
study the two following years, a period which he often after-
wards said was the most active of his life. In 1710 the
power of the Tories was once more in the ascendant. Har-
ley was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. St.
John Secretary of State. Now it was that the vigour and
versatility of his talents were tasked to their utmost, and

VII. O

194 HENRY ST, JOHN,

were found equal to the performance of duties more im-
portant and multifarious than it had ever before fallen to the
lot of a minister to discharge. The peace of Utrecht was to
be accomplished, in spite of innumerable difficulties, — against
the opinions of the repulsed but not defeated Whigs, — against
the opposition of the House of Lords, — against the more
powerful, though more secretly exerted, influence of the Bank
of England, the East India Company, and the whole monied
interest of the country, — against the popular names of the
Duke of Marlborough, and Prince Eugene, — against the jealous
intrigues of the Emperor, and such of the allies as found their
interest in continuing the war, or feared to lose by the peace,
— and notwithstanding the weakness of the Queen, and the
timidity and envy of his colleagues. The first thing to be
done was to prepare the public mind, by informing it of the
real state of the country's foreign relations and domestic
resources, which had been grossly misrepresented by party
feelings and interests. To accomplish this, Mr. St. John
laboured in his speeches in Parliament ; with this view he
composed his official dispatches ; and to the same end he
wrote in the periodical publications of the day. The Exa-
miner newspaper, which he planned with Prior and Atter-
bury, and which fell afterwards into the hands of Swift, was
a main instrument in this design, and by convincing the.
people that the burthen and charges of the war rested on
them, while the fruits were reaped by the allies, had a
material influence on the elections for the new Parliament.
St. John was the master-spirit that directed every movement.
It was in vain that his political opponents endeavoured to
make head against the immense power of public opinion
which he had raised by these means. The bitter and un-
sparing sarcasm, the irresistible force of argument, and even
the aid of strong invective, to which he and the unscrupulous
Swift resorted, were feebly met by the polished periods of
Addison, and the somewhat elaborate wit of Steele. Like
one of those old Norman warriors whom he reckoned among

FIRST VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE. 195

his ancestry, he fought with a heavy mace, which he wielded
with both hands, and with which he dealt such blows as
crushed at once his enemies, and the brilliant but slender
weapons they opposed to him. At length his work was
accomplished ; his enemies were unable to withstand the
storm he had raised ; the peace was determined on, Marl-
borough was displaced, and the conferences for the treaty of
Utrecht were opened.

In 1712 he was raised to the peerage by the title of Baron
St. John, of Lidyard Tregoze, in the county of Wilts, and
Viscount Bolingbroke, in the county of Lincoln, with re-
mainder, in default of issue male, to his father, Sir Henry St.
John, and the heirs male of his body. At this period a dis-
sension broke out between him and Harley, then Earl of
Oxford, which accelerated the ruin of both. Lord Boling-
broke had been denied, or at least had expected, not only
the dignity of an Earl, but the Order of the Garter, in which
it happened at that time there were many vacancies. He
obtained neither, and he believed that Barley's influence
had produced him this mortification. He complained that he
was dragged into the House of Lords at such a time as made
his promotion a punishment and not a reward, and that he
was left there to defend, almost alone, and without influence,
the treaties which he had carried by his own personal weight
in the House of Commons, where, he says to Sir William
Wyndham, " You know, from the nature of that assembly,
they grow, like hounds, fond of the man who shows them the
game, and by whose halloo they are used to be encouraged."

In October, 1713, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant and
Gustos Rotulorum of the county of Essex, and soon after-
wards went to Paris to conclude the treaty which his friend
Prior had been for some time carrying on under his directions.
Louis the Fourteenth received him with every mark of dis-
tinction. His appearance at the Opera there was greeted by
a homage probably more sincere and much more flattering ;
the whole audience rising, and testifying by their acclamations
o 2

196 HENRY ST. JOHN,

the good-will they felt for the man whose wise counsels and
persevering exertions had restored to them the blessings of
peace. A month's residence in the French capital enabled
Lord Bolingbroke to overcome the principal difficulties which
remained, and assisted by the conciliatory temper of the
Marquis de Torcy, whose benevolent and enlightened views
on the subject were similar to his own, the peace of Europe
was established. The expediency of this important measure
gave rise to questions which occupied the public mind for
many years, and upon which party feeling may be said even
now to be hardly extinct. It does appear to have been dis-
proportionate to the success which England and the allies
had gained in the war ; but Bolingbroke, after several years
had elapsed, and when disappointment and adversity had
cooled the fervour which he might once have felt respecting
it, said, while he admitted the country ought to have reaped
greater advantages from the " successful " folly it had com-
mitted, he was so convinced of the necessity of peace, that if
he could be placed in the same circumstances again, he would
again take the same resolution, and act the same part. This
was the termination of his glory ; and here, if his history
were to be concluded, it would, with the exception of faults
committed during " the age of folly and the passions," be
one of the most brilliant in modern history. Unfortunately
for his reputation, as well as for his happiness, his after years
were stained by graver faults, and embittered by their conse-
quences ; and that period of his life in which experience had
matured the fruits of his early promise, without diminishing
the elasticity of his spirit, was doomed to be passed under
circumstances so painful that they impelled him to conduct
which rendered his patriotism questionable, and raised
suspicions against his honour.

One of those sudden changes in politics which happen in
no country but England, occurred at this time. There were
two classes of Tories ; one was attached to the House of
Hanover, the others were the adherents of the fallen fortunes

FIRST VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE. 197

of the Stuart family. The former party, with the most ridi-
culous versatility, joined the Whigs, whose power they
believed would predominate upon the Queen's death. The
first object of attack for the new coalition was the late treaty
of peace, and the ministers were marked for their victims.
At this time, when a union of their strength was more than
ever necessary, the mutual dislike of Oxford and Bolingbroke
had increased to such a degree that each seemed to prefer
encountering the worst dangers to ensuring their safety by a
co-operation. Lord Oxford's disgrace came first, and the
exultation which Bolingbroke did not scruple to testify was
scarcely over when his own followed. The death of the
Queen annihilated his power and crushed his expectations.
On the accession of George the First, he was dismissed from
his office with insult. He was aware that he could expect
no quarter from the Whigs, for he knew he had deserved
none : he was threatened with a prosecution, and apprehended
that " his blood was to be the cement of a new alliance." He
therefore determined on flight; and, after announcing his
intention to brave the storm, and appearing frequently in
public to give a countenance to his assertion, he withdrew
privately to France. His enemies were now left to pursue
their hostile designs against him without opposition. Sir
Robert Walpole conducted an impeachment against him in
the House of Commons, and on the 10th of September, 1715,
he was attainted of high treason.

Soon after his first arrival in France, in March, 1715, he
had been solicited to join the party of the Pretender there ;
but receiving, at the same time, a well meant caution from
Lord Stair, the English Ambassador, he promised that noble-
man that he would enter into no Jacobite engagements.
This promise he says he kept ; but it is difficult to reconcile
that assertion with his subsequent conduct, unless an implied
condition be understood, that, on the failure of his attempts
to get his attainder reversed, he should be freed from his
engagement. It was not until he saw that all his hopes in

198 HENRY ST. JOHN,

this respect were vain, that " with the smart of his attainder
tingling in every vein," he accepted the office of Secretary of
State to the titular king of England, James the Third. A
very short experience sufficed to convince him of the utter
hopelessness of James's cause. He saw that those who were
most interested in it supported it so ill and so feebly ; that
their councils were so distracted, their means so small and so
ill directed, that it could not but end in disaster and dis-
appointment. He was disgusted at the falsehood and want
of confidence he everywhere encountered, and was shocked
at discovering that intriguers of the most wretched kind were
permitted to meddle with matters on which the lives and
fortunes of many noble and gallant persons depended, and
which, as it was then believed, were intimately connected
with the true interests of these realms. For some time,
however, he exerted all the powers of his fertile mind and
indefatigable industry in this ill-starred cause. He sent emis-
saries to England who might be trusted, and iriade such appli-
cations to the French Court as, by compelling a distinct
answer, if they did not accomplish the objects to which they
were directed, would at least put an end to the mischievous
delusions which had been kept up. The Chevalier's rash
landing in Scotland, and his still more rash retreat, however,
effectually destroyed all hope. Bolingbroke's discontent
at his conduct, expressed in a moment when the influence of
wine had thrown him off his guard, was repeated to his new
master, and soon afterwards, before the year 1715 was at an
end, he was dismissed from his post of Secretary, and the1
papers of his office, which he says might have been contained
in a moderately sized writing case, demanded of him. His
own account of this event is amusing : — " The Thursday
following the Duke of Ormond came to see me, and after the
compliment of telling me that he believed I should be sur-
prised at a message he brought, he put into my hand a note
to himself, and a little scrip of paper directed to me, and
drawn in the style of a justice of peace's warrant. They

FIRST VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE. 199

were both in the Chevalier's hand-writing, and were dated
on the Tuesday, in order to make me believe that they had
been writ on the road, and sent back to the Duke. His
grace dropped in our conversation, with great dexterity, all
the insinuations proper to confirm me in this opinion. I
knew at this time that his master was not gone, so that he
gave me two very risible scenes, which are frequently to be
met with when some people meddle in business — I mean
that of seeing a man labour with a great deal of awkward
artifice to make a secret of nothing, and that of seeing your-
self taken for a bubble, when you know as much of the
matter as he who thinks that he imposes on you." — He gave
up such of the papers as were at hand, but, with a candour
which the Chevalier's treatment of him hardly deserved,
kept until he had a safer opportunity of delivering them to
him, some letters, in which he had expressed a very uncere-
monious opinion of his General's capacity. To add the last
degree of ridicule to this affair, the Chevalier had articles of
impeachment prepared against him, by which he was accused
of having neglected and betrayed the duties of the office with
which he had been entrusted. He answered these articles
by a prompt and complete refutation, and congratulated him-
self that the Chevalier had, by his own act, broken the links
of the chain which his engagement had fastened on him,
Lord Stair had received instructions to detach him from the
Jacobite interest, if it might be practicable, and no sooner
learnt this rupture than he sent a gentleman to inform him
that George the First was willing to grant him a pardon, and
to assure him of his own good offices in bringing about his
restoration. This offer was accompanied by a proposition
that he should make certain discoveries, which he unhesitat-
ingly and firmly rejected, but, at the same time, explained
his intention of addressing to the Tories of England, a great
portion of whom were Jacobites, such a statement of the
late affairs as the conduct of the Chevalier towards him and
the safety of his friends, no less than the vindication of his

200 HENRY ST. JOHN,

own honour, had rendered necessary ; and which, he said, he
thought would contribute to the establishment of the govern-
ment, and the union of the people. Lord Stair felt the force
of his representations, and advised the King to accede to
them. Bolingbroke soon afterwards received a promise of
pardon on the expiration of the Parliament by which the
attainder against him had been passed, and which had yet
nearly seven years to run. His father, in the mean time, as
an earnest of the King's intentions, was created Baron of
Battersea and Viscount St. John, with remainder to his
younger sons ; and Bolingbroke put in practice the intention
he had expressed to Lord Stair, by publishing his well known
letter to Sir William Wyndham.

In 1716 (his former wife having died soon after he went
abroad) he married a young lady of great beauty and accom-
plishments, the widow of the Marquis de Villette, and a
niece of Madame de Maintenon. In her society he enjoyed
the happiness which he had failed to find in his former mar-
riage, and they remained in France until 1723, when, the
Parliament being dissolved, he received a pardon. This,
however, fell very far short of what he wished and of what he
expected. He had hoped that he should be able to overcome
the inveterate hatred of Sir Robert Walpole, his old foe and
now the first Minister ; and to compass that design, he had
adopted the most conciliatory conduct towards him. Without
relaxing in those civilities, he engaged, by means of a bribe of
.£11,000, the assistance of the Duchess of Kendall, George
the First's favourite mistress, who exerted herself so power-
fully, that Walpole, contrary to his own feelings and judg-
ment, and enforced by a threat of dismissal from office if he
should persist in his opposition, carried a bill through Parlia-
ment, restoring Bolingbroke in blood, and to the enjoyment
of his family estates, but excluding him from his seat in the
House of Peers. He now bought Dawley, near Uxbridge, a
seat of Lord Tankerville's, whither he retired, as he gave it
out, for the purpose of avoiding all temptations to mingle in

FIRST VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE. 201

the busy scenes of the world, and with a determination to
devote himself wholly to study and rural enjoyments. He
wrote exulting to Swift that he had, in the gardener's phrase,
" laid hold of the ground, and that neither friends nor enemies
would find it easy to transplant him ;" but he either deceived
himself or sought to deceive others. He was extremely
desirous for a full restoration, of which, he said, the King had
made him frequent solemn and unsolicited promises, and on
the faith of which he had returned to England. He wrote to
George the First claiming the fulfilment of this promise, but
being unable to obtain it, his patience was exhausted, and he
determined to try what his hostility would do against the
minister whom his forbearance, and even his repeated sub-
missions, had failed to move. He openly attributed to Wai-
pole the proscription under which he laboured, and accused
him of meanness and treachery, which he had affected to
conceal under the mask of good- will towards him ; he declared
open warfare against the minister, joined Mr. Pulteney and
the discontented Whigs, and embarked with all his strength
in an opposition. The influence of his powerful pen was
again felt : a quantity of pamphlets, and a still greater num-
ber of papers in the Craftsman, a periodical publication of
that day, conducted with great violence and ability, testified
his unabated strength, and the intensity of his resentment.
Walpole felt his power totter, but the unconquerable nerve
which always distinguished him prevented his evincing the
slightest apprehension, while it confirmed the King, strength-
ened his party, and eventually triumphed. Bolingbroke,
through the means of the Duchess of Kendall, procured a
memorial against Walpole to be delivered to the King, and
requested an audience. Walpole, instead of opposing, backed
this request. Bolingbroke had his audience, and when Wal-
pole asked the King what his adversary had said, his Majesty
replied, " Bagatelles ! Bagatelles ! " It was impossible for
Bolingbroke now not to be convinced, by the repeated morti-
fications he had endured, that he struggled in a hopeless

202 HENRY ST. JOHN,

contest. The spirit of the times was different from that in
which he had created and directed the force of public opinion ;
the occasion was wanting ; and he had an opponent of a very
different kind to cope with. Their relative positions too
were changed ; Walpole was in the very plenitude of his
power — the minister who dispensed the gifts and favours of
the government : — Bolingbroke was a helpless, hopeless indi-
vidual, whose presence in the country seemed to be by the
sufferance of his very enemies, and who, besides his talents,
had no other distinction than that formed by the contrast
between the once palmy state of his fortunes and their pre-
sent degradation. In 1735 he found, too, that some of his
coadjutors were disposed to depart from the views they had
originally taken ; his disgust at this discovery broke out into
reproaches ; quarrels ensued ; and after ten years of unspar-
ing warfare against the ministry, he determined to lay down
his weapons. He had discovered that neither his parts,
which everybody acknowledged, and which his enemies
feared, nor the unostentatious life he had been leading for so
many years, could procure the reversal of his attainder, and
he determined to withdraw to France, where he should at
least avoid the mortification of being in sight of the object of
his wishes, after he had convinced himself that to attain it
was impossible.

In his retreat at Chanteloup, he wrote his " Letters on the
Use and Study of History," a work in which the beauties and
the blemishes are so intimately blended, as to furnish ample
materials for the praises of his admirers, and for the worst
censures of his foes. Its main and unpardonable fault is,
that it attacks the authority of revealed religion, and some
points of theology, a science of which the author was pro-
foundly ignorant, and in which his speculations are as
frivolous as they are blameable. In some letters which he
afterwards published " On the true Use of Study and Retire-
ment," he appeared to greater advantage, and expressed some
highly original and philosophical observations with great

FIRST VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE. 203

power and eloquence. On the death of his father, who
attained to a very advanced age, he returned to England, and
took up his residence in the family mansion at Battersea,
after which he went very little into public. In his intimacy
with the Prince of Wales, the son of George the Second,
those who impugn his memory have affected to discover
marks of the angry spirit which had actuated the former part
of his life, and have accused him, somewhat hastily, of having
fomented the lamentable differences which prevailed at this
period in the royal family. Here he wrote his " Letters on
the Spirit of Patriotism," and the " Idea of a Patriot King,"
and he was engaged on " Some Reflections on the State of the
Nation," when death put a period to his eventful and dis-
turbed life. As a writer his productions were voluminous ;
among the political portion of them there are proofs of such
rare and exalted talents as entitle him to an eminent literary
reputation ; the parts which consist of religious speculations
have been often reprinted, but are now fallen into the obli-
vion they deserve. He died on the twelfth of December, 1751,
of a cancer in the cheek, in that house where he had often
expressed a wish to breathe his last sigh, and was buried in
Battersea church. He left no issue of either of his marriages.

" BflD^flLIE.

EAUI, OFBURLnsTGT.
OB , !753 ,

RICHARD BOYLE,

THIRD EARL OF BURLINGTON.

THIS nobleman, who had the wisdom and courage to
withdraw himself in the prime of life from the splendid
vexations of courts and cabinets, to enjoy in a dignified
retirement the consciousness of an unspotted fame, and the
indulgence of a refined taste, was the eldest son and heir of
Charles, second Earl of Burlington, and third Earl of Cork, by
Juliana, daughter, and sole heir, of Henry, second son of
Edward Noel, fourth Viscount Campden, and was born on
the twenty-fifth of April, in the year 1695.

He is thus fairly characterised by the anonymous author,
his contemporary, of a note attached to the article appropri-
ated to his grandfather, Richard, the first Earl, in the
Biographia Britannica — " I might take this opportunity of
telling the reader that his Lordship inherits the virtues and
abilities, as well as the estates and titles, of his family ; that
his merit has acquired him the most honourable reward in
this kingdom, a blue riband ; that he has had interest to
obtain, and virtue enough to resign, great employments ; that
he has been a courtier above suspicion, a patriot without
pique, or private views ; a friend to his country in all
circumstances of a public nature, as well as an honour to it in
his personal accomplishments, and correct taste in the polite
arts, more especially architecture, in which it is not easy to
say whether his modesty or knowledge deserve applause
most. But these are in a great measure beside our purpose,
which is to do justice to the dead, not to court the favour of

206 RICHARD BOYLE,

the living ; nor should I think what has been already said
pardonable, but that it is no inconsiderable addition to the
glory of a house, which has given Peers to all the three king-
doms, to have the present Earl of Burlington and Cork for its
head, in which light I hope this liberty, taken from no
other motive, will be considered and excused." Lord Orford,
who lived also in his time, has left this brief but ample
encomium at once on his liberality and his talents — " Never
was protection and great wealth more generously and more
judiciously diffused than by this great person, who had every
quality of a genius and an artist, except envy."

The story of Lord Burlington's public life, if he can be
said to have had any, lies in the smallest possible compass.
We have no proof of his having ever betrayed even the
slightest party inclination, and are left to infer, merely from
remote circumstances, that he was held at least in no distaste
at Court. The order of the Garter, a distinction strictly due
to one so illustriously descended, for he sprung from a family
more extensively ennobled than any other in the three king-
doms, was conferred on him in 1730, on the eighteenth of
June, in which year he was installed ; and in the following
he accepted, rather in testimony, as it should seem, of his
wish to be considered as an immediate servant of the Crown
than from any other motive, the appointment of Captain of
the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners. This however, though
requiring but an unfrequent personal attendance, he resigned
in 1733, and retired for the remainder of his life to the
practice and the patronage of those elegant and innocent
occupations in which he delighted.

Passing over slightly his skill in music, and judgment in
painting, which were critically good, we will turn to his
proficiency in that art of which several monuments remain to
justify the praise which may be demanded for him. His
munificence in promoting the publication of most expensive
works on the subject of architecture was truly princely. In
1728, he bore the whole charge of preparing and publishing a

THIRD EARL OF BURLINGTON. 207

series of plates in folio, which appeared under the title of
" the Villas of the Ancients, by R. Castell," and gave the
profits, and the property, to the authors. In 1730, he
printed " Fabriche Antiche disegnate da Andrea Palladio, e
date in luce da R. Conte di Burlington, a splendid volume in
folio, of which a small number of copies were taken, to be
distributed in presents to his friends, and to promising artists.
He soon after collected Inigo Jones's designs, and published
them in the name, and for the advantage, of William Kent,
a painter, an architect, and a planner of pleasure grounds,
whom he had brought from Rome, and who lived mostly in
his Lordship's house, where he died a few years before his
noble patron. He also enabled Kent to publish the designs
for Whitehall, and gave a beautiful edition of the ancient
baths, from the drawings of Palladio.

His buildings, which are numerous, are believed to be
wholly from his own designs, although his modesty or his
beneficence, frequently gave the credit of them to others.
Thus he ascribed to Kent the finest work of his own taste,
the new front of that noble mansion, Burlington House, in
Piccadilly, which had been built by his father, though it is
certain that Kent was at the time in Italy, and perhaps
unknown to him. Of the grand colonnade which he attached
to it Lord Orford says, in his " Anecdotes of Painting," " I
had not only never seen it, but had never heard of it, at least
with any attention, when, soon after my return from Italy,
I was invited to a ball at Burlington House. As I passed
under the gate by night it could not strike me. At day-
break, looking out of the window to see the sun rise, I was
surprised with the vision of the colonnade that fronted me.
It seemed one of those edifices in fairy-tales that are raised
by genii in a night's time."

He erected many works also at his seat of Lonsborough,
in Yorkshire, and in its neighbourhood, particularly the
magnificent assembly room at York, which he not only
designed but built, and for which, in 1732, the Lord Mayor

208 RICHARD BOYLE, THIRD EARL OP BURLINGTON.

and Corporation sent a deputation to return their thanks,
accompanied by a compliment of the freedom of their city,
in a gold box. The best known relic however at this day
of his architectural taste and skill is his Villa at Chiswick,
in Middlesex, now, by inheritance from him, owned by the
Duke of Devonshire, That remarkable house was erected
in imitation of the Villa Capra, near Vicenza, a work of his
idolized Palladio, and has obtained the highest celebration
from the most refined judges, though not without a candid
admission of some faults.

Pope addressed to Lord Burlington the fourth epistle of
his " Moral Essays," which concludes, rather hyperbolically,
with these lines —

" Make falling Arts your care,

Erect new wonders, and the old repair ;
Jones and Palladio to themselves restore,
And be whate'er Vitruvius was before ;
Till Kings call forth the ideas of your mind,
Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd.
Bid harbours open, public ways extend ;
Bid Temples, worthier of the God, descend ;
Bid the broad arch the dang'rous flood contain,
The mole projected break the roaring main ;
Back to his bounds their subject sea command,
And roll obedient rivers through the land :
These honours peace to happy Britain brings ;
These are imperial works, and worthy Kings."

This accomplished Nobleman died on the fourth of Decem-
ber, 1753. By his lady, Dorothy, eldest of the two daughters
and co-heirs of William Savile, Marquis of Halifax, he had
issue three daughters; Dorothy, and Juliana, who died in
infancy ; and Charlotte, the last born, and sole heir to her
father, who was married in 1748 to William Cavendish,
fourth Duke of Devonshire.

OSJ iLCOmiQ) W^ , *-
OBJ 757,

HORATIO, FIRST LORD WALPOLE,

WAS the second surviving son of Robert Walpole, of
Houghton, in Norfolk ; grandson of Sir Edward, who
received the order of the Bath from Charles the Second, in
reward for zealous services in the restoration ; and a younger
brother to that eminent statesman of the last century, to
whom he was little inferior in sagacity, and equal in integrity.
His mother was Mary, only daughter and heir of Sir Geoffery
Barwel, of Rougham, in Suffolk.

He was born on the 8th of December, 1678, and received
his education on the foundation of Eton, and afterwards at
King's College, in Cambridge, of which he was admitted a
scholar when in the twentieth year of his age, and chosen a
fellow in May, 1702. After some hesitation in the choice of
a profession, he resolved to adopt that of the law, and took
chambers in Lincoln's Inn, where he remained not long, for
in 1705 he accepted the office of secretary to General, after-
wards Earl, Stanhope, envoy to the Archduke Charles, whose
claim to the then disputed crown of Spain the allied powers
had warmly espoused. In this employment he became
sensible not only of his talent but of his taste for public
business, and this impulse, together with the example and
the rising interest of his brother Robert, who was already
distinguished in Parliament, and attached to Queen Anne's
Whig ministry, determined him to embrace a political life.
He became private secretary to Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord
Carleton, in that minister's several offices of Chancellor of
the Exchequer, and afterwards of Secretary of State ; and in

VII. P

210 HORATIO, FIRST LORD WALPOLE.

lame

1709 accompanied Lord Townshend to the Hague in the same
capacity, on the appointment of that nobleman to the station
of Plenipotentiary, jointly with the Duke of Marlborough,
at the Congress of Gertruydenberg. He not only acquitted
himself in this office to the entire satisfaction of his prin-
cipals, but is said to have acquired, together with a degree of
confidence which extended far beyond the limits of its actual
occasions, their real esteem and friendship. Townshend
indeed became unalterably attached to him, and received in
return the most constant fidelity. He quitted, for the time,
his incipient connection with public affairs on the retirement
from office of that nobleman in 1711 ; was brought into Par-
liament by him in 1713; and joined the Whigs, to whom
indeed the political bias of his family had always leaned.

To that party, which might be said to be now headed by
his brother and his friend Lord Townshend, George the First
on his accession committed the management of public affairs.
The latter, who was immediately appointed a Secretary of
State, placed him in the post of under secretary, and in the
autumn of the succeeding year, 1715, his brother, who had
rapidly and deservedly risen to the station of prime minister,
removed him to that of secretary to the Treasury. The
fitness however which he had already manifested for
diplomatic employment almost immediately detached him
temporarily from the occupations of that office, and he was
associated to General Cadogan, the English minister at the
Hague, whose talents were thought incompetent to certain
complicated negotiations which the circumstances of the time
had suddenly required. The chief objects of these were to
gain the consent of the States to the triple alliance with
England and France, and to a defensive treaty between the
former and the Emperor ; and he succeeded in both, with an
address and promptness which surprised all parties concerned.
The result to himself was severe mortification. He had
been authorised during the negotiation to assure the States,
and had so done, that no treaty should be concluded with

HORATIO, FIRST LORD WALPOLE. 211

France without their participation. The King, however,
impatient to bind a court not less fickle than artful, had in
the mean time completed a treaty with the Abbe du Bois, its
minister at Hanover, and Secretary Stanhope, by whom it
had been conducted there, despatched instructions for its sig-
nature to the Plenipotentiaries at the Hague ; Walpole nobly
refused, and wrote to Stanhope, requesting to be instantly
recalled. "Having plighted," says he in his letter, "my
faith, my honour, and my conscience, in his Majesty's name
to the States that nothing of this nature should be done, if I
should afterwards sign with the Abbe, in violation of these
sacred and solemn assurances, which I repeated but last
Tuesday in a conference, I should never be able to show my
ignominious head here again. And therefore I plainly see
that this business, in which I thought that I should have
some share of credit, will end in my ruin, because, although I
shall ever think it the last misfortune to disobey so good and
gracious a sovereign, yet I must freely confess I had rather
starve, nay die, than do a thing that gives such a terrible
wound to my honour and conscience, and will make me for
ever incapable of serving the King any more, especially
in this place, where I have at present some little credit and
interest."

Such was the spirited independence of one who was but
making his first steps in the profession of a statesman. He
persevered firmly in insisting on his recal, and obtained it
with difficulty ; but had scarcely arrived in London when the
sudden discovery of certain intrigues against them by the Lords
Stanhope and Sunderland, who headed what was called the
Hanover Party, and were then with the King in that State,
compelled his brother and Lord Townshend to despatch
thither instantly a most confidential person, and he was
appointed to execute their commission. He expostulated
with their rivals with a warmth and candour which were
always the chief features of his disposition, and received
from them such solemn professions of attachment and support

212 HORATIO, FIRST LORD WALPOLE.

that he returned to London in the fullest confidence of the
good success of his expedition, but, to his utter astonish-
ment, was met there by a royal mandate for the dismission
of Townshend. His brother, justly enraged at such shameful
duplicity, resigned his office of first Commissioner of the
Treasury, and himself, though solicited by a direct message
from the King to retain it, that of secretary. He now engaged
with them in a parliamentary opposition to the knaves who
had deceived and succeeded them, with a violence for which
perhaps so treacherous a provocation sufficiently apologised.

The new ministers, Stanhope and Sunderland, inefficient
and unpopular, were soon compelled to solicit the aid of
their predecessors, and it was granted, with a disinterested
frankness, seasoned with contempt. Both died shortly after,
and Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Townshend returned
triumphantly to their posts of First Lord of the Treasury
and Secretary of State. Horace, as he was usually called, who
had in the mean time accepted the office of secretary to the
Duke of Grafton, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was now
despatched to the Hague, to solicit military succour, in the
event of a new attempt at that time apprehended, in favour
of the exiled royal family, and obtained, with some difficulty,
a resolution of the States to that effect. At length to such a
height had his diplomatic credit risen that he was sent, in
January, the following year, 1723-4, with unlimited confi-
dence, on a mission to the Court of Versailles, involving
points of considerable delicacy and importance, and, on the
fifth of the succeeding May/ was invested with the character
of Ambassador Extraordinary, in which he remained there
till his powers were extinguished by the death of George the
First in 1727, when he returned, merely to receive a renewal
of them from the new King, and was soon after appointed
one of the Plenipotentiaries at the Congress of Soissons, to
meet the Imperial, French, Spanish, and Dutch ministers.
Of his negotiations at the Court of Louis the Fifteenth
during his long residence there, for his embassy terminated

HORATIO, FIRST LORD WALPOLE. 213

not till the year 1730, even the slightest detail would be
more than could be here expected. They present to our
view the singular and agreeable picture of two statesmen
mutually attempting, and succeeding in the attempt, to per-
form their duties to their respective masters with strict
precision and fidelity, without using any of those petty
tricks and contrivances which discredit and falsify the name,
usually attributed to them, of dexterity, and have, even for
ages, cast an unfavourable shadow on the diplomatic cha-
racter. The intercourse of Mr. Walpole with Cardinal Fleury
seems to have passed on both sides in the honourable confi-
dence of gentlemen, and with the freedom even of private
friends ; while the results, equally beneficial to the two
states which they represented, were acknowledged by each
with full approbation and gratitude.

Walpole indeed, favoured by the King, and yet more by
Queen Caroline, who possessed great influence, not to mention
the power of his brother, which was then at its zenith, might,
had he been ambitious or avaricious, have commanded any
degree of advantage ; but he contented himself with no higher
reward than the appointment of Cofferer of the Household, to
which he was nominated immediately before his final return
from Paris. This office was not however without its recom-
mendations ; it gave him a ready access, as of right, to the
royal closet, where he was frequently consulted on affairs of
the greatest importance and delicacy, and where he was
admitted, in their moments of leisure, to a freedom of con-
versation in which an arch and lively simplicity of manners
and expression contributed, not less than his solid good sense
and judgment, to render him highly interesting both to the
King and Queen. In the autumn of 1733 he was again
despatched to the Hague on a secret mission, the object of
which was to prevent the States from concluding a treaty of
neutrality with France, in the expected event of a war
between Louis and the Emperor. In this he was in a great
measure successful ; and, so well had he managed the affair,

214 HORATIO, FIRST LORD ' WALPOLE.

that he was not long after appointed Ambassador in ordinary
to the republic, much, as we are told, against his inclination.
During this mission, and probably most others in which he
had been employed, he carried on a large epistolary corre-
spondence with the Queen. His letters to her Majesty exhibit
the most minute details, and amply prove the high opinion
he entertained of her talents. They are couched too in terms
of familiarity which show that he thought no less favourably
of her temper. This, it seems, was sometimes carried to
such an extent as to cause offence. Writing, about this
period to his brother, Sir Robert, he says — " I am extremely
sorry to find that the dress of my letters to the Queen is not
liked, although the matter is approved. I solemnly protest
to you that I do not affect that free style, but I can no more
write otherwise than I can tell how to dress my person better
than I do."

He remained in his embassy at the Hague till 1740, occa-
sionally absent in London, arid once, for seven months, at
Hanover, whither he attended the King, in June, 1736, in the
capacity of his Minister of State in the Electorate for English
affairs, and returned with him for a few weeks in the suc-
ceeding January. The sequel of his services in Holland was
rendered unpalatable and even painful to him by the per-
verseness of George the Second with respect to the disputed
inheritance of the principality of East Friesland, and yet
more by the inveterate personal enmity of that Prince to the
Great Frederic the Second of Prussia, one or the other of
which cramped and embarrassed all his latter transactions
with the Dutch ministers. Walpole solicited, earnestly and
repeatedly, his recal, and having obtained it with great diffi-
culty, quitted the Hague with testimonials of respect and
regard, such as perhaps were never before bestowed on any
foreign minister. On the second of May, 1741, he was
appointed to the then very lucrative sinecure of a Teller of
the Exchequer, resigning at the same time his little less
profitable office of Cofferer of the Household,

HORATIO, FIRST LORD WALPOLE. 215

The resignation, within a few months after, of his brother,
Sir Robert, produced no alteration in either the public or
private condition of Mr. Walpole. Always independent of
party, he lost no old friends among those who with that great
man quitted the administration, nor sought any new ones
among those who succeeded. His opinion and advice in
most affairs on the great theatre of continental politics and
relations continued to be frequently and eagerly asked by
each class of statesmen, and were never denied ; for his good
temper, and obliging disposition, were little less remarkable
than the great extent of his experience and intelligence. At
the end of fifteen years from this period, which he had passed
without taking any active concern in public affairs beyond a
constant and most impartial performance of his duties in the
lower House of Parliament, the marriage of his heir to a
daughter of one of the most illustrious families in the king-
dom, induced him, in his old age, and at a moment when his
opinion disagreed with some favourite measures of the govern-
ment, to solicit an advancement to the Peerage, and his
request was immediately granted. " It was an honour." says
he, in a letter to his friend, Archbishop Herring, of the nine-
teenth of June, 1756, "flowing entirely from his Majesty's
own good will." On the first of that month he had been
created Baron Walpole, of Wolterton, in Norfolk.

This nobleman's biographer, the late Archdeacon Coxe, to
whose work this meagre sketch has been mainly indebted,
has drawn his character much at large, and with a masterly
hand. "He was by nature choleric and impetuous. He
corrected however this defect, so prejudicial to an ambas-
sador, for no one ever behaved with more coolness and
address in adapting himself to circumstances, and in con-
sulting the characters and prejudices of those with whom
he negotiated. Notwithstanding his natural vivacity, he was
extremely placable, and easily appeased. He behaved to
those who had reviled his brother's administration, and
derided his own talents and person, with unvaried candour

216 HORATIO, FIRST LORD WALPOLE.

and affability, and no instance occurs of his personal enmity
to the most violent of his former opponents. In conversation
he was candid, unassuming, and communicated the inex-
haustible fund of matter with which his mind was stored
with an ease and vivacity which arrested attention. He
maintained an unimpeached character for truth and integrity,
as well in his public as in his private capacity ; and this
attachment to truth, which has been too often supposed an
incumbrance to ministers in foreign transactions, established
his credit, and contributed to his success in many difficult
negotiations. He paid great attention to the trade and manu-
factures of this country. The treatises which he published,
and many which he left in manuscript, prove his minute and
extensive knowledge of those subjects. There is scarcely an
article of trade, commerce, and manufacture, either native or
foreign, on which documents are not found among his papers."
Although his political publications must have been extremely
numerous, the following are all that can be ascertained to be
his : — Considerations on the present state of affairs in Europe,
particularly with regard to the number of forces in the pay of
Great Britain, 1730 — The grand Question, whether war or no
war with Spain, impartially considered — the Convention vin-
dicated from the misrepresentations of the enemies of our
peace, 1738 — The interest of Great Britain steadily pursued,
in answer to a Pamphlet intitled " The Case of the Hanover
forces impartially and freely examined " — and an Answer to
the latter part of Lord Bolingbroke's Letters on the Study of
History, in a series of letters to a Noble Lord, 1763.

Lord Walpole died on the fifth of February, 1757, leaving
issue by his Lady, Mary Magdalen, daughter and coheir of
Peter Lombard of Burnham Thorpe, in Norfolk, four sons,
and three daughters ; Horatio, his successor, who was created
Earl of Orford in 1806, and was grandfather to the present
Earl ; Thomas ; Richard ; and Robert ; Mary, wife of Maurice
Suckling; Henrietta, and Anne, died unmarried.

WQILlLBASffl FUJI

EARL OT BATH

WILLIAM PULTENEY,

EARL OF BATH.

THIS eminent person was the representative of a family of
respectable antiquity in Leicestershire, which was founded
by a wealthy citizen, in the fourteenth century, several of
which had sat in Parliament, and, among them, his grand-
father, Sir William Pulteney, who represented the city of
Westminster, and was a somewhat distinguished speaker of
the popular party. Of his father, also William, we have no
intelligence, except that he married the daughter of a Mr.
Floyd, and our subject was the eldest son of their union.
. He was born in the year 1682, and received his education
at Westminster School, and afterwards at Christ Church, in
Oxford, where the dawn of his future eloquence was already
so evident, that Doctor Aldrich, then Dean of the College,
selected him to make the complimentary speech, customary
on such occasions, to Queen Anne, when she visited the
University. He acquired considerable fame there, not only
for his talents and attainments, but for the assiduity with
which he cultivated them, and, having passed four years at
Christ Church, set out on the continental tour usually under-
taken by young men of distinction, and on his return, was
brought into parliament, through the interest of a Mr. Guy,
for the borough of Hedon, in Yorkshire. We have sought in
vain to discover the nature of his connection with that
gentleman, who is said to have afterwards left him forty
thousand pounds, and a landed estate, and who, to increase
the obscurity, is described, in a little pamphlet, published in

218 WILLIAM PULTENEY,

1731, with a superficial detail of Mr. Pulteney's public
conduct, as " his friend, Sir John Guise, who bequeathed him
an estate worth thousands per annum."

He made his outset in public life, young as he was, with
all the wariness and care of a prudent man beginning to
exercise a trade or profession, and commenced by forming a
set of precise rules for his conduct in Parliament, one of
which was that a young member ought to speak seldom and
shortly, and that the matters of his speech should arise out
of the incidental suggestions of the debate ; for it was his
opinion, which circumstances have since much tended to
justify, that those who began by making set and studied
speeches scarcely ever became good orators. Thus pre-
pared, he commenced his career, with a decent modesty
in appearance, and an excessive ambition in reality, and
presently acquired the attention and favour of the House.
He enlisted warmly with the Whigs, whose party it seems
his ancestors had long espoused, and, soon finding in their
approbation his own strength and importance, not only
became a frequent and bold speaker on all their chief ques-
tions, but was with little delay received into their most
secret councils. The part which he took in the prose-
cution of Sacheverel completely fixed his reputation as a
subtle partizan, as well as an eloquent orator, and so
obnoxious had he by this time rendered himself to the Tories
that, on their succeeding to the administration in 1710, they
condescended to a personal resentment of his conduct by
removing his uncle, John Pulteney, from the office of a Com-
missioner of the Board of Trade ; a pitiful mark of vengeance,
which did but increase the affection of his party, as well as
his own growing popularity. He not only opposed that
ministry, during the remarkable four last years of Queen
Anne, with the utmost bitterness, but engaged with ardour in
all the measures, private as well as public, to counteract the
endeavours which they had secretly used at that interesting
period to defeat the succession of the House of Hanover, and

EARL OF BATH. 219

that, not only with his tongue and with his pen, but also
with his purse, his affection to which was always known to
be his greatest foible.

On the accession of King George the First, these services
were presently acknowledged. He was sworn of the Privy
Council ; appointed Secretary at War ; and, about the same
time, complimented with the commission of Lord Lieutenant,
and Gustos Rotulorum, of the East Riding of Yorkshire, and
of the town and county of Kingston upon Hull. The manage-
ment, as it has been since called, of the House of Commons
now fell, jointly to himself and Mr. Walpole, afterwards, for
so many years, chief minister, who, though no deficient
speaker, chiefly employed himself in making political
arrangements, while Pulteney charmed the House with the
blaze of his eloquence, and the force of his arguments. This
division of individual faculties, joined to a common interest,
and a partial agreement of tempers, produced a harmony
between them which was supposed, and perhaps not altoge-
ther unjustly, to partake of actual personal regard ; an
opinion which was in a great measure confirmed when, upon
Walpole's first resignation of his post of first Lord of the
Treasury, on the treacherous dismissal of his friend and
relation, Lord Townshend, in 1716, Pulteney immediately
relinquished that of Secretary at War.

It is scarcely possible however that a mutual cordiality
can long subsist between two persons equally aiming at the
same object, especially if the object be political power.
Walpole, strengthened by a reconciliation with some lately
refractory and important members of the Whig party, and
armed with increased popularity, as well as power, by having
made himself the instrument of healing a quarrel of some
standing between the King and the Prince of Wales, formed
a new administration in the construction of which Pulteney
was not included, nor even consulted. His disgust was
already highly excited, when a peerage was offered to him,
which he refused, but he dissembled his anger yet for nearly

220 WILLIAM PULTENEY,

two years, and in the mean time accepted the place of
Cofferer of the Household, for which he is said to have
descended to solicit. While any hope seemed to remain of
obtaining a conspicuous station in the government, he con-
tinued to give it his support in Parliament, but, in proportion
to the failure of his patience, his efforts gradually, but
evidently cooled, and at length he occasionally appeared in
direct opposition. Endeavours were now made to reclaim him,
but they came too late. Walpole himself personally told him
that, on the death or removal of either of the Secretaries of
State, he should be appointed to succeed ; but, after such
tedious delay, he disdained the offer of a reversion, and,
answering the proposal, which was made in conversation in
the House of Commons, merely by a low bow, and a sarcastic
smile, went over directly to the Tories, whose leader he
presently became, as well as the peculiar and inflexible
antagonist of Walpole.

He was of course angrily dismissed from his office, insigni-
ficant to such a man, of Cofferer, and it is strange that he
should have waited for the indignity ; but his opposition soon
assumed so formidable a complexion, that new efforts were
used to reconcile him. Upon Lord Townshend's resignation,
soon after the death of George the First, the office of Secre-
tary for Foreign Affairs was tendered to him, and Queen
Caroline herself was made the instrument of again offering
him a peerage, but he refused both, candidly assigning as his
motive his rooted determination never again to act with Sir
Robert Walpole. From this period their mutual aversion
seems to have risen into actual hatred, and the vituperative
language which passed between them in the House of Com-
mons frequently far exceeded the bounds of good manners.
Pulteney, indeed, to gratify his resentment, broke all measures
of prudence as well as decency, and sacrificed his character
to his anger. He connected himself with Lord Bolingbroke,
the known leader of the Jacobites, to whom he had always
not only professed, but practised, a most bitter enmity ; and

EARL OF BATH.

221

became that nobleman's chief ally in the composition of the
periodical paper called " the Craftsman," in which he loaded
the Minister even with more invective than in his speeches.
His essays in that paper provoked answers in pamphlets
equally scurrilous, one of which, having been ascribed by
him to Lord Hervey, a member of the ministry, whom he
had therefore vilified and ridiculed in his reply, produced a
duel between himself and that nobleman, in which the latter
was wounded.

His intemperance in such publications was at length
seriously noticed in a higher quarter. He had written a
pamphlet, much celebrated at the time, with the title of
" An answer to one part of a late infamous libel, entitled
' Remarks on the Craftsman's vindication of his two honour-
able patrons, in which the character and conduct of Mr. P.
is fully vindicated.'" In this, blinded by his vengeance
against Walpole, he ungenerously betrayed some particulars
of a private conversation in which that minister had once
uttered to him certain contemptuous expressions against the
King, when Prince of Wales. The blow which he had so
aimed at Walpole recoiled on himself. The King, with the
magnanimity which has always distinguished his family,
ordered that the printer should be prosecuted; struck
Pulteney's name out of the Council Book with his own
hand ; and deprived him of his station of Lord Lieutenant
of the East Riding of Yorkshire. This, as may be supposed,
by no means diminished the violence of his anger, which
ceased but with the life of his great antagonist, while it
certainly increased to the utmost the popularity of which he
had possessed a more than common share during almost the
whole of his political career. This advantage, however, if
it may be so called, he had the misfortune for many years
to outlive. Upon the change of administration, on the
resignation of Sir Robert Walpole, in 1741, he was again
sworn of the Privy Council, appointed Lord Lieutenant of
the county of Salop, and on the thirteenth of July, in the

222 WILLIAM PULTENEY,

following year, was created Baron of Hedon, in the county of
York ; Viscount Pulteney, of Wrington, in Somersetshire ;
and Earl of Bath. From the moment that he accepted those
dignities he sunk in the estimation of all ranks, and it would
be difficult to say whether he was more vehemently assailed
by the wit of his politer adversaries, or the folly of the vulgar
thousands by whom he had been for many years almost wor-
shipped. With the exception of two or three feeble attempts
again to interfere in affairs, the rest of his life was passed
nearly in privacy.

Were it consistent with the usage of this work, we would
gladly leave the character of this nobleman wholly untouched.
It shall be given in the words of his two eminent con-
temporaries.

Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, tells us lightly that his
writings will be better known by his name than his name will
be by his writings, though his prose had much effect, and his
verses, for he was a poet, were easy and graceful. " Both,"
adds the noble author, " were occasional, and not dedicated
to the love of fame ; good humour^ and the spirit of society,
dictated his poetry ; ambition and acrimony his political
writings ; the latter made Pope say

' How many Martials were in Pulteney lost ! '

That loss, however, was amply compensated to the world by
the odes to which Lord Bath's political conduct gave birth.
The pen of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams inflicted deeper
wounds in three months on this Lord than a series of Crafts-
men, aided by Lord Bolingbroke, for several years could
imprint on Sir Robert Walpole. The latter lost his power,
but lived to see justice done to his character : his rival
acquired no power, but died — very rich."

When we recollect who was the father of the noble author
of these touches, they should not be deemed uncharitable :
there are, however, several detached anecdotes in Lord
Orford's works of a more severe order, which it is not

EARL OF BATH. 223

necessary to collect, as the substance of them is comprised
in the following solemn and extended report of Lord
Chesterfield.

" Mr. Pulteney was formed by nature for social and
convivial pleasures ; resentment made him engage in business.
He had thought himself slighted by Sir Robert Walpole, to
whom he publicly avowed not only revenge, but utter
destruction. He had lively and shining parts ; a surprising
quickness of wit ; and a happy turn to the most amusing
and entertaining kinds of poetiy — as epigrams, ballads, odes,
&c., in all which he had an uncommon facility. His compo-
sitions in that way were sometimes satirical, often licentious,
but always full of wit. He had a quick and clear conception
of business ; could equally detect and practise sophistry :
he could state and explain the most intricate matters, even in
figures, with the utmost perspicuity. His parts were rather
above business, and the warmth of his imagination, joined
to the impetuosity and restlessness of his temper, made him
incapable of conducting it long together with prudence and
steadiness. He was a most complete orator and debater in
the House of Commons— eloquent, entertaining, persuasive,
strong, and pathetic, as occasion required ; for he had argu-
ment, wit, and tears, at his command. His breast was the
seat of all those passions which degrade our nature, and
disturb our reason : there they raged in a perpetual conflict ;
but avarice, the meanest of them all, generally triumphed ;
ruled absolutely ; and in many instances, which I forbear to
mention, most scandalously."

The charge of avarice — scandalous avarice, to use Lord
Chesterfield's epithet, is strongly supported by an anecdote
too remarkable not to be here particularized, and too well
authenticated to permit any doubt of its truth. The Duchess
of Buckingham, a [natural daughter of James the Second,
was, as might be expected, at the head of the Jacobite ladies
of England. She was enthusiastic in her attachment to the
descendants of that Prince, and with so little caution that

224 WILLIAM PULTENEY,

she frequently exposed herself to the danger of impeachment.
On one of those occasions, she made over her estates, in a
fright, to Mr. Pulteney, and went to Rome, till the cloud
should have passed away. When she returned, she demanded
the deed which she had in confidence signed, and left with
him, when he declared that he could not find it, and put her
off so long with that answer that she became alarmed and
clamorous, and disclosed the matter to her intimates. At
length one of them, who was a friend also of Pulteney's, told
him plainly, that " he could never show his face unless he
satisfied the Duchess," upon which he executed a release to
her of her estates, in due form of law.

"His sudden passion," continues Lord Chesterfield,
" was outrageous, but supported by great personal courage.
Nothing exceeded his ambition but his avarice ; they often
accompany, and are frequently and reciprocally the causes
and the effects of each other, but the latter is always a clog
upon the former. He affected good-nature and compassion,
and perhaps his heart might feel the misfortunes and
distresses of his fellow-creatures, but his hand was seldom
stretched out to relieve them. He was once in the greatest
point of view that I ever saw any subject in. — When the
opposition, of which he was the leader in the House of
Commons, prevailed at last against Sir Robert Walpole, he
became the arbiter between the Crown and the people;
the former imploring his protection, the latter his support.
In that critical moment his various jarring passions were
in the highest ferment, and for awhile suspended his ruling
one. Sense of shame made him hesitate at turning courtier
on a sudden, after having acted the patriot so long, and
with so much applause; and his pride made him declare
that he would accept of no place, vainly imagining that
he could, by such simulated and temporary self-denial,
preserve his popularity, and his power at court. He was
mistaken in both — the King hated him almost as much
for what he might have done as for what he had done ; and

EARL OF BATH. 225

a motley ministry was formed, who 'by no means desired his
company ; the nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he
shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom. I may, perhaps,
be suspected," adds Chesterfield, "to have given too high
colouring to some features of this portrait ; but I solemnly
protest that I have drawn it conscientiously, and to the best
of my knowledge, from very long acquaintance with, and
observation of, the original ; nay, I have rather softened than
heightened the colouring."

The Earl of Bath died on the eighth of July, 1764, at the
age of eighty-two, having had by his wife, Anna-Maria, one
of the daughters and co-heirs of John Gumley, Commissary
and Muster Master General to the army, three children, all
of whom he had the misfortune to survive ; William, who
died in infancy ; another William, Viscount Pulteney, who
died at Madrid, unmarried, in 1763 ; and a daughter, Anna-
Maria, also unmarried.

VII.

DQJ1P

OB ,

PHILIP YORKE,

FIRST EARL OF HARDWICKE.

ONE of the most distinguished ornaments to British juris-
prudence that the history of this country can produce, was
the only son of a gentleman of his own names, who practised
the law for many years with good reputation at Dover, by
Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Richard Gibbon, a descendant
from a highly respectable family which had been long seated
on its own estates at Westcliffe, in the neighbourhood of that
town. Those who, in their envy of distinguished merit, or
rather of the brilliant rewards which it sometimes obtains,
will descend to use even the basest weapons, have invented
various reports of the meanness of this nobleman's extraction.
The truth is, that his grandfather, Simon Yorke, also of
Dover, who came from Calne, in Wiltshire, and is believed
to have sprung from a branch of the Yorkes, of Richmond,
in the county of York, possessed good landed property in
Kent, which has descended to, and is still possessed by, his
male heirs. The accomplished writer who some years since
condescended to give us a new edition of the Peerage, allud-
ing to these slanders, says — " His own merit justly stands in
the place of an host of ancestors ; it has hitherto therefore
been deemed sufficient to begin the pedigree with this great
man ; but it seems something like defrauding the dead of
their rights to withhold from them the honour of having pro-
duced so illustrious a descendant. This false delicacy has
had a different effect from that which was intended : it has
served to sanction silly rumours which perhaps it was

228 PHILIP YORKE,

designed to suppress by a contemptuous silence : The family
of this celebrated nobleman, if of no particular lustre either
from titles or estates, was neither mean, insignificant in point
of property, nor unrespectable in alliances. From them
therefore if he borrowed no splendour, from them he derived
no disgrace."

He was born at Dover, on the first of December, 1690, and
educated under the care of a Mr. Samuel Morland, of Bethnal
Green, who was the intimate friend of the celebrated Dr.
Samuel Clarke, and had then the fame of being one of the
best read and most ingenious scholars of his time. He left
that instructor not only deeply skilled in the learned lan-
guages, but with a nicety of classical taste which he is said
to have indulged in and exercised even amidst his most
arduous and important employments. Having always been
designed for the bar, he was removed at an early age to the
tuition of an eminent conveyancer of the name of Salkeld,
who, it may be worth observing, had also at the same time
as pupils three youths, Jocelyn, Parker, and Strange, who
afterwards became respectively, Chancellor of Ireland, Chief
Baron of the Exchequer, and Master of the Rolls. During
his stay here it happened that Sir Thomas Parker, afterwards
Earl of Macclesfield, and Lord Chancellor, but at that time
Chief Justice of the King's Bench, requested Mr. Salkeld to
recommend to him a young gentleman qualified to instruct
his son in the principles of the English laws, and Mr. Yorke,
who was the party named by Salkeld, was immediately
accepted. In his performance of this office, his early profes-
sional skill, as well as his extraordinary general talents,
were presently observed and admired by the father, while,
combined with the most amiable of tempers, they produced
a strict intimacy and friendship with the son. Under these
auspices he studied the law in the Middle Temple, and was
called to the bar in the year 1714.

He rose immediately into the most extensive course of
practice, and, having in the mean time become known to the

FIRST EARL OF HARDWICKE. 229

Duke of Newcastle, who, though some years younger than
himself, already looked forward to that exalted station in the
direction of public affairs which he afterwards for so many
years held, was, by the interest of that nobleman, returned
member for Lewes, in Sussex, as he was also for Seaford, in
the same county, in the two succeeding Parliaments. Such
was now his reputation, as well as his proficiency, that before
he had fully attained the age of thirty, and when he was the
youngest barrister on the western circuit, his friend, the Lord
Chancellor Parker, recommended him for the office of Solicitor-
general, to which he was appointed on the twenty-third of
March, 1719 — 20, and soon after knighted. In this, as
indeed in all others, he acquired high distinction, particu-
larly in the trial of Mr. Layer, at the King's Bench bar, in
November, 1722, for high treason. His reply on this occa-
sion, which occupied more than two hours in the delivery,
and in which he summed up late at night the evidence against
the prisoner, and ably confuted all the topics of defence,
challenged and obtained the highest and most justly merited
admiration. About the same time he astonished the House
of Commons by his strength of judgment, and acuteness of
observation, in his opening of the bill against Mr. Kelly,
secretary to Bishop Atterbury, and the principal agent in
that prelate's political designs.

On the thirty-first of January, 1723—4, he was promoted
to the station of Attorney-general, and had soon after a pain-
ful opportunity of proving his affection and gratitude to the
Lord Macclesfield. On that nobleman's impeachment, not
less regardless of ministerial censure, or of the probable
charge of imprudence on the part of his own friends, than of
popular clamour, he defended in the House of Commons the
fallen Chancellor, particularly against the rough attacks of
his bitter enemy, Serjeant Pengelly, on his Lordship's manner
of answering the articles of impeachment, and on his plea of
the act of grace, with a zeal which proved that the powers of
his mind were fully equalled by the warmth of his heart.

230 PHILIP YORKE,

In the execution of the important office of Attorney-general,
says an anonymous contemporary writer in the Annual Re-
gister for 1764, who evidently knew him well, "he was
remarkable for his candour and lenity. As an advocate for
the Crown he spoke with the veracity of a witness and a
judge ; and, though his zeal for justice and the due course of
law was strong, yet his tenderness to the subject in the Court
of Exchequer was so distinguished, that it happened once,
when he touched upon his own conduct in that point, in
some of the parliamentary debates upon the excise, in 1733,
the whole House of Commons assented to it with an universal
applause. He was so unmoved by fear or favour in what he
thought right and legal, that he often debated and voted
against the Court." In making this latter assertion the
author more particularly alludes to his conduct in the House
of Commons as to the affairs of the South Sea Company ;
and, afterwards, on a bill which he introduced to regulate
the management of the forfeited estates of the Earl of Der-
wentwater, in a mode contrary to the declared opinions of
most of the ministers of the day.

He remained in the post of Attorney-general for ten years,
when, on the resignation, in October, 1733, of the Lord Chan-
cellor King, public opinion, and indeed the ordinary usage of
legal advancement, pointed to him as the successor. It is
however a curious fact, that, the Crown and Government
seeming indifferent which of two most able and faithful ser-
vants to place in that exalted office, it was in a manner left
to be settled in friendly negotiation between themselves,
when himself, and Sir Charles Talbot, the Solicitor-general,
agreed that it would be more serviceable, under some peculiar
circumstances of the period, to the public, and more honourable
mutually to their own characters, that the latter should suc-
ceed to it ; and Sir Philip Yorke accordingly waived his claim,
for the time, to the Seals, and accepted the Chief Justiceship
of the King's Bench, which happened also then to be vacant.
It is remarkable too on this occasion that it was proposed to

FIRST EARL OF HARDWICKE. 231

augment the salary of the chief of that court from two to
four thousand pounds, and that he refused to accept the
increase. He was appointed on the thirty-first of October,
1733, and on the twenty-third of the succeeding month was
advanced to the Peerage, by the title of Baron Hardwicke, of
Hardwicke, in the county of Gloucester. In his new station
he acquired a new reputation, for the candour and sincerity
of the Bench display without reserve those characters of nature
which the artifices of the bar invariably suppress, or leave
doubtful, and love and esteem for the man became now added
to respect for the wisdom and learning of the judge. He is
said indeed to have been a pattern of humanity, patience,
and courteousness.

He presided in the Court of King's Bench little more than
two years, for his friend Lord Chancellor Talbot dying on
the seventeenth of February, 1736 — 7, the King, four days
after, delivered to him the Great Seal. From this period,
through the long series of years for which Providence per-
mitted him to remain a blessing to his country, the events of
his life were chiefly confined to the performance of the duties
of his court, and the transactions of the cabinet. His name,
as indeed could not but be expected, is to be found in all the
commissions of the reign of George the Second appointing
Lords Justices for the administration of the executive govern-
ment during the occasional absences of that Prince in Ger-
many. So, too, almost as of course, we find him sitting as
Lord High Steward of England in 1746, on the trials of the
Earls of Kilmarnock and Cromartie, and Lord Balmerino ;
and again, in the following year, on that of the Lord Lovat.
On the thirty-first of July, 1749, he was elected High Steward
of the University of Cambridge, and, on the second of April,
1754, received the final reward of his long and eminent ser-
vices, in an unsolicited grant of the further dignities of
Viscount Royston, and Earl of Hardwicke. In November,
1756, from no party disagreement, from no personal pique,
with no secret views, but from the mere desire of that ease

232 PHILIP YORKE,

to which he was now so justly entitled, he resigned his high
office, with the same dignified modesty which had always
distinguished him in the exercise of its faculties.

The Annual Register, which has been lately quoted to
illustrate some part of this sketch, proceeds to give a com-
prehensive view of the whole of this great man's character,
probably from the pen of Edmund Burke himself, who is
well known to have been then, as well as for some years
before and after, the editor of that very respectable pub-
lication. It is under this impression that I give the pas-
sages as I find them, without presuming to vary a single
expression —

" His resignation of the Great Seal gave an universal con-
cern to the nation, however divided at that time in other
respects ; but he still continued to serve the public in a. more
private station, though he had it in his choice, both in the
last and present reign, whether he would again fill other
public offices of high dignity. His attendance at council
whenever his presence was necessary ; at more private meet-
ings whenever his opinion was desired ; in the House of Lords
upon every occasion where the course of public business
required it ; were the same as when he filled one of the
highest offices in the kingdom. He had a pleasure in giving
the full exertion of his abilities to the state, without expecting
or receiving any emoluments, of any kind whatever, and he
seemed only to have quitted the laborious details of the
Chancery that he might be at more leisure to attend to such
parts of the public service as were of more general use to the
community. His reverence for the laws and constitution of
his country was equal to his extensive learning in them. This
rendered him as tender of the just prerogatives invested in
the Crown for the benefit of the whole, as watchful to pre-
vent the least encroachment upon the liberty of the subject.
In the character of a statesman, his knowledge of mankind,
his acquaintance with history and treaties, both ancient and
modern, added to his long experience, penetration, and

FIRST EARL OF HARDWICKE, 233

superior understanding, enabled him to decide with force
and exactness upon all the questions in which he was con-
sulted by his colleagues in other branches of the administra-
tion ; and he had a peculiar talent of analysing such questions
by stating the arguments on both sides in a comprehensive
and pointed view.

" In judicature, his firmness and dignity were evidently
derived from his consummate knowledge and talents; and
the mildness and humanity with which he tempered it"
(them) " from the best heart. He was wonderfully happy in
his manner of debating causes upon the bench, which he did
copiously and elaborately. His apprehension was so quick
and steady that it was unnecessary to repeat facts or reason-
ings which had once been stated to him, a second time. His
attention to the arguments from the bar was so close, and so
undisturbed by impatience, or any passion or affection of his
mind, that he condescended to learn from the meanest, whilst
he every day instructed and surprised the ablest. He gave
the utmost scope to the objections which pressed strongest
against his opinion, and often improved them ; but his judg-
ment was so correct and excellent that even his unpreme-
ditated opinions were generally acknowledged to be profound,
and to turn upon the best points which the cause afforded ;
and would bear examination when reduced into written
reports. His extraordinary dispatch of the business of the
Court of Chancery, increased as it was in his time beyond
what had been known in any former, was an advantage to
the suitor inferior only to that arising from the acknowledged
equity, perspicuity, and precision of his decrees. The inte-
grity and abilities with which he presided there, during the
space of almost twenty years, appears from this remarkable
circumstance — that only three of his decrees were appealed
from, and even those were afterwards affirmed by the House
of Lords.

" His talents as a speaker in the senate, as well as on the
bench, have left too strong an impression to need being

234 PHILIP YORKE,

dilated on to those who had often heard him. To their
memories it will be sufficient to recall that whenever Lord
Hardwicke delivered his sentiments in public, he spoke with
a natural and manly eloquence, unsullied by false ornaments,
declamatory flourishes, or personal invectives. He had a
method and arrangement in his topics which gradually
interested, enlightened, and convinced the hearer. When he
quoted precedents of any kind, either in law, history, or
the forms of Parliament, he applied them with the greatest
skill, and at the same time with the greatest fairness ; and
whenever he argued, his reasons were supported and strength-
ened by the most apposite cases and examples which the
subject would allow. In questions of state and policy he
drew his principles from the ablest authorities in legislation
and the art of government ; and in questions of jurisprudence,
from the purest sources of the laws and constitution of his
own country, and, when the occasion called for it, of others.
His manner was graceful and affecting, modest, yet com-
manding; his voice peculiarly clear and harmonious, and
even loud and strong, for the greater part of his time. With
those talents of public speaking, the integrity of his character
gave a lustre to his eloquence, which those who opposed him
felt in the debate, and which operated most powerfully on
the minds of those who heard him with a view to information
and conviction ; and it were to be wished, for the sake of
posterity, that his speeches on a variety of important points
of law, equity, and policy, were preserved in a more lasting
register than that of the memories of his contemporaries.
Convinced of the great principles of religion, and steady in
the practice of the duties of it, he maintained a reputation of
virtue which added dignity to the stations which he filled,
and authority to the laws which he administered."

This admirable nobleman died on the sixth of March, 1764.
By his lady, who departed about two years before him, Mar-
garet, daughter of Charles Cocks, of the city of Worcester, by
Mary, his wife, a sister of the Lord Chancellor Somers, he

FIRST EARL OF HARDWICKE. 235

had five sons ; Philip, his successor ; Charles, father to the
present noble Earl ; Joseph, who was created Lord Dover ;
John ; and James, who died Bishop of Ely : Lord Hardwicke
had also two daughters ; Elizabeth, married to George,
first Lord Anson ; and Margaret, to Sir Gilbert Heathcote,
Bart.

HORflAS IPElLBBARffl

DUKE OF "NEWCASTLE
O B ,\7<5Q,

THOMAS PELHAM HOLLES,

DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

WITHOUT wisdom to guide, or temper to submit to advice ;
with an insatiable inclination to govern, but without the
dignity of mind or manners to induce respect ; at once rash
and timid ; ever jealous and suspicious, yet idly and unne-
cessarily communicative ; fond to excess of the transaction of
affairs, but incapable of method and arrangement, the Duke
of Newcastle for nearly half a century filled the highest
offices in the state, and actually shared in ruling the destinies
of Europe. This strange anomaly arose from various causes,
of which these were the principal— from the importance to
the Whig party of having for their leader a man of the highest
rank, and most powerful personal influence, and of main-
taining him in the administration of the government ; from
the aid of a most affectionate and rational brother, his col-
league, who, unknown to him, tempered his extravagances,
and was ever on the watch to lend him sagacity and prudence ;
and, lastly, from his own native honour and honesty, whose
pure brightness frequently dazzled the keenest-sighted, and
daunted the boldest of his adversaries.

He was the eldest son and heir of Sir Thomas Pelham, of
Halland, in Sussex, Baronet, representative of one of the
most ancient and powerful families of gentry in that county,
by his second lady, Grace, fourth and youngest daughter of
Gilbert Holies, third Earl of Clare, and sister and coheir to
John, his eldest son, who was in 1694 created Duke of
Newcastle, and was born on the first of August, 1693 . His

238 THOMAS PELHAM HOLIES,

father, who had long sat in Parliament, acted heartily with
those who brought about the revolution of 1688 ; became an
active member of the administration which succeeded that
event ; and in the following reign was created Baron Pelham,
of Laughton, in Sussex. His two sons therefore had in some
measure a political education, while they imbibed with ardour
the public principles of their parent. For the rest, Thomas,
of whom we write, was sent early to Westminster school,
and from thence to Clare Hall, in the University of Cam-
bridge, where he was admitted on the ninth of May, 1709,
and which he left with the reputation of a good classical
scholar.

His maternal uncle, the Duke of Newcastle, dying in 1711,
he became heir, under the will of that nobleman, to the most
part of his princely property, and assumed the surname of
Holies, and in the succeeding year, on the death of his father,
inherited also his title and estates. Upon the accession of
George the First, which presently followed, he is said to
have endeared himself to the King, and the royal family, by
every testimony that youthful heat and sincerity could suggest
to his mind of his boundless zeal for the House of Hanover ;
and his endeavours to suppress and discourage the libels and
tumults by which it was immediately assailed were carried to
a generous extravagance, and even exposed him occasionally
to personal danger. Be this as it might, he was received
immediately into the highest favour, for, on the twenty-sixth
of October, 1714, little more than one month after the King's
arrival in England, he was created Earl of Clare, one of the
dignities of his mother's family, and, on the second of August,
in the next year, Marquis of Clare, and Duke of Newcastle
on Tyne, with remainder to his only brother, Henry Pelham.
Nothing now seemed to be wanting to complete his exaltation
and good fortune but a suitable marriage, and a splendid
public appointment, and both were at hand, for on the second
of April, 1717, he wedded the Lady Harriet, daughter of
Francis, Earl of Godolphin, and grand-daughter of the great

DUKE OF NEWCASTLE. 239

John, Duke of Maryborough ; and in the course of the same
month, was appointed Lord Chamberlain of the King's House-
hold, and sworn of the Privy Council. The Order of the
Garter also was conferred on him, on the thirty-first of March
in the succeeding year.

Here seemed enough to satisfy, could such a medium exist,
any reasonable ambition, but it proved insufficient to his
desires. Satiated with pre-eminence in the Court, he beheld
with envy the burthensome distinctions of a statesman, and
a concurrence of circumstances soon enabled him to assume
them. Some splendid temporary commissions with which he
was now invested increased and confirmed this appetite : in
the summer of 1718 he was one of the Peers appointed to
sign the treaty called the quadruple alliance, and in each of
the two following years was appointed one of the Lords
Justices for the administration of the government in the
King's absence in Germany, as he was again in 1723, and
frequently afterwards. At length his brother-in-law, Charles,
Viscount Townshend, a statesman of several years' practice,
and Sir Robert Walpole, who was also related to that noble-
man, having succeeded in driving Lord Carteret from the
office of a principal Secretary of State, and placed themselves
in fact at the head of the ministry, named the Duke to
succeed him in 1724, when he resigned his post of Lord
Chamberlain. His brother Henry had been two years earlier a
subordinate, but rising member of administration, and by his
advice and assistance the new secretary was already mainly
directed. Several years however passed, in a long period of
profound peace, without the occurrence of a single circum-
stance in his life beyond the mere routine of official business,
and the petty contests and intrigues of party, which few who
have written of that time have either deigned or dared to
record. Scarcely raised in character above these was a violent
disagreement in 1738 between the Duke and Walpole, with
whom he had before had frequent bickerings, on the question
whether the office of Lord Privy Seal should be given to Lord

240 THOMAS PELHAM HOLIES,

Hervey, which, if decided in that nobleman's favour, the
former threatened to resent by immediate resignation. Hervey
was, after some time, appointed, and Henry, with the aid of
the Chancellor Hardwicke, soothed his brother into condescen-
sion to keep the Seals ; but what is this to us or to posterity 1
— such however is the miserable sterility of the history of
public men in that time, that it lifts even such a circumstance
into comparative consequence.

A more serious cause of chagrin soon after occurred. George
the Second, alarmed for the safety of his favourite Hanover,
which the French and Bavarians were on the point of
invading, abandoned suddenly the interests of the House of
Austria, so warmly espoused by him^ and agreed to disarm
the troops which he had raised for its support, and to sign a
treaty of neutrality. This negociation had been conducted at
Hanover by the King himself, without consulting his ministers
at home, a cause of offence which the Duke justly felt, in
common with them ; but what must have been the degree of
his peculiar mortification when he discovered that the King's
private letter to Sir Robert Walpole, announcing the arrange-
ment, had been delivered to, and read in his presence by,
that minister, without making the slightest communication
to him of the contents ? Newcastle became outrageous at
this palpable slight, and vented his anger in intemperate
expressions, not only against Walpole, but against the King
himself, whom he proposed in a manner to inculpate by an
appeal from the English Cabinet to every Court of Europe.
He again resolved to resign, and was again, but with much
more difficulty, pacified by the arguments of the same
mediators.

His resentments, as is usual with men of his temperament,
were not less transient than violent. He was soon reconciled
to Walpole, and, after that minister's retirement, he had the
credit of forming the administration which succeeded. In
this work however, which was full of difficulties, he was
guided almost wholly by the secret advice of Walpole himself,

DUKE OF NEWCASTLE. 241

whose policy indeed in a great measure governed the
country for the remainder of his life. The Duke still held
his post of Secretary of State for the southern department,
and with his brother, who had hitherto rilled no higher
station than that of Paymaster-general of the army, but wrho
had now prudently refused the office of Chancellor of the
Exchequer, resolved to wait patiently for the breaking up of
a ministry that even already, in the hour of its inauguration,
betrayed symptoms of decay which promised them propor-
tionate advantages. They contented themselves in the
interval by generously defending their friend, for such he
really was, the fallen Premier, from the repeated Parlia-
mentary attacks which threatened him with impeachment,
and by a steady adoption of his favourite principles of policy.
The ministry was deranged, but not wholly dissolved, by an
unexpected event, the death, in the summer of 1743, of Lord
Wilmington, who, after a short struggle with that remarkable
partisan, Pulteney, now Earl of Bath, for the royal preference,
was succeeded in the office of first Lord of the Treasury by
Henry Pelham, who was soon after appointed also Chancellor
of the Exchequer. The influence of the brothers was now
consummated, with the exception only of a rivalry between
the Duke and his brother Secretary of State, Lord Carteret,
whose political notions differed widely from theirs, and whose
personal favour with the King rendered him yet more
distasteful to them.

That Prince seems indeed to have been very cordial with
them, particularly with the Duke, during the whole of the
long period of his service, and such of that nobleman's letters
as have appeared abound with complaints of the harshness
with which he was frequently treated by his master ; nor
was this the mere result of infirmity of temper, but in some
measure of a degree of settled and habitual disgust, arising
from a frequent clashing of opinions. The Duke, though by
no means deficient in flattery, seem always to have spoken
frankly and boldly to the King on public affairs, and occa-

VII. R

242 THOMAS PELHAM HOLLES,

sionally contradicted even his strongest inclinations, of which
his constant opposition to the employment of Hanoverian
troops and his lukewarmth as to the vigorous prosecution of
the war, afford striking proofs. At length the King deter-
mined, even amidst the confusion caused by the rebellion of
1745, to employ Lord Bath, and Carteret, who had now
succeeded to the title of Earl Granville, to form a new
administration ; of which the Pelhams had no sooner obtained
certain intelligence than they anticipated his plan by a resig-
nation, in which they were followed by the largest train of
official friends that perhaps had ever before graced a minis-
terial retirement. Never was public regret more strongly
excited than on this occasion. All ranks united in testifying
their affection and respect to the brothers ; and even the
Duke of Cumberland, whose duty to his father was remark-
able, and who had just now added to his weight in public
affairs the highest degree of popularity, expressed those
sentiments most unreservedly in a letter to the Duke of
Newcastle, of the sixteenth of February, 1746. The King
however persisted, but few of the new servants had even
accepted their appointments, when Lord Bath waited on him
to express his doubts of a sufficient majority in the House
of Commons, and his consequent wish to revoke his late
engagements. His Majesty immediately sent to the Duke
and Mr. Pelham, desiring them to re-assume their offices ;
they requested and obtained from him a public proof of his
inclination to replace them ; removed all those who had
been so lately admitted ; and triumphantly returned, with
their friends, to their former stations.

In the summer of 1748 the Duke, for the first time,
attended his Majesty to Hanover. Two motives induced
him to forego on this occasion his strange aversion even to
the shortest sea voyage — the view of lessening, by a daily
familiar intercourse, the King's personal coldness towards
him, and a jealous apprehension that, were the other
Secretary of State, the Duke of Bedford, to have undertaken

DUKE OF NEWCASTLE. 243

that duty, the same advantage might have been cultivated by
that nobleman to his prejudice. His expedition produced
nothing personally remarkable, unless a squabble between
his Grace and Mr. Legge, the British envoy at Berlin, occa-
sioned by the King's desire to secure the bishopric of Osna-
burg to the Duke of Cumberland, may be so considered.
Legge was recalled and reinstated through the mediation of
Mr. Pelham, who, as usual on such occasions, also pacified
his brother. On the variety of political affairs which he
transacted during his stay on the Continent nothing need
here be said, but that his conduct in them seems to have
been highly satisfactory to his master. Immediately on his
return, in the beginning of the winter, he was elected Chan-
cellor of the University of Cambridge, in preference to the
Prince of Wales, by whom he was hated, and who is said to
have suffered, as it was intended he should, a severe mor-
tification by that event.

The return of the Duke to England was the signal for a
renewal of domestic discord. The Duke of Bedford, the
other Secretary of State, with whose indolence, and inatten-
tion to public business he was already disgusted, had now
excited his jealousy by an acquisition of increased favour and
intimacy with the Duke of Cumberland, and his sister the
Princess Amelia. Lord Sandwich, to whom he had been a
zealous patron, but from whom he had received some umbrage
during that nobleman's late negociation of the treaty of Aix-
la-Chapelle, had obtained there the good graces of the royal
Duke, and on his return had attached himself to the Duke of
Bedford. Newcastle thought he saw in these circumstances
clear traces of a combination against him, when, to confirm
his suspicions, the Duke of Cumberland suddenly conde-
scended to tender his good offices towards effecting a
reconciliation between the jealous minister and Sandwich ;
but such however was the degree of ire which transported
the former that he insulted his Royal Highness by returning
no kind of answer to his proposal ; while to avenge himself

R2

244 THOMAS TELHAM HOLLES.

of the Princess, he transferred those respectful attentions
which she was used to receive from him to the King's
mistress, the Countess of Yarmouth, who soon after treated
him with indifference and neglect. After incessant indirect
endeavours to compass the removal of the Duke of Bedford,
and in the midst of these feuds, he was again called on to
attend his master to the Continent, whither he went, leaving
his brother to do his best towards composing them. This
Pelham vainly attempted, and at last, sorely against his will,
was prevailed on, soon after the King's return, explicitly to
solicit him to deprive that nobleman of the Seals, and was
flatly refused. Newcastle now became outrageous ; charged
his brother with having betrayed him to his enemies ; and at
last forced him into a quarrel so serious as to prevent for
some time their speaking to each other, except on public
business. Their reconciliation was by a treaty, in due
diplomatic form, of three articles, dictated by the Duke, who
probably abided by them as long as he remained in good
humour.

The sudden death of the Prince of Wales, father of George
the Third, in 1751, and the attention required by affairs
consequent on that event, not only suspended for a while
these discreditable broils, but produced in effect those events
which the Duke had so earnestly sought. In the conclusion
of that year, Lord Sandwich was dismissed from his post of
first Lord of the Admiralty, and the Duke of Bedford
immediately resigned, in an audience distinguished by the
bitter invectives against his adversary which he allowed
himself to utter to the King. In the following year the
Duke of Newcastle was again plunged, with his Majesty, for
several weeks, into the misery of German politics ; and, on
his return, proposed, and earnestly forwarded, the bill for
the naturalization of the Jews, the repeal of which he was
obliged, in compliance with popular prejudice, to consent to
in the succeeding session. The greatest misfortune of his
life was now at hand— the death, on the sixth of March,

DUKE OF NEWCASTLE. 245

1754, of his brother Mr. Pelham ; a minister inferior to many
in brillancy of design, and in boldness of execution ; in plain
solid sense, and in strict honesty, to none. Five days after,
the King nominated the Duke of Newcastle his successor,
who was hardy enough to accept the charge. The haughti-
ness of Mr. Pitt prevented the new minister from placing
him in the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer ; and the
pliancy of Mr. Fox emboldened the Duke to offer it to him,
with so many restrictions that he was ashamed to accept it.
These distinguished rivals to each other therefore joined in
opposition against him, and Mr. Henry Bilson Legge was
appointed to the office.

The loss of Mr. Pelham was now severely felt, and the
story of the two years in which the Duke occupied, without
filling, his place, presents a mere blank to all but those who
can behold with complacency innumerable intrigues and
meanesses, to minute to be discerned by the eye of history,
as well as too trifling and scandalous to be recorded by its
pen — the discredited government of a great nation, and the
debasement to which the highest cultivated human nature
will submit in the indulgence of unrestrained selfishness.
Newcastle resigned on the eleventh of November, 1756,
amidst quarrels which he had not temper to reconcile, and
weakness which he wanted vigour to corroborate; and affected
to retire cheerfully to a dignified privacy, but to this neither
his nature nor his habits could submit. From the hour of
his retreat he laboured incessantly in the prosecution of
multifarious schemes and negociations for his return ; and at
length, on the second of July, in the following year, he was
replaced at the head of the Treasury, from the same motives
and considerations which so many years before had first
made him a minister of State. There he remained yet five
years longer, lending a great name, and impatiently sub-
mitting to the master mind, and general ministerial domina-
tion, of Mr. Pitt. To the rule of Lord Bute however he
could not so implicitly condescend, and, after an obstinate

246 THOMAS PELHAM HOLLES,

dispute with that nobleman, soon after his elevation, on his
refusing his consent to continue the payment of the King of
Prussia's subsidy, waited immediately on the King, and
finally resigned, on the second of May, 1762.

The character of this remarkable nobleman has been thus
drawn, perhaps with almost as much justice as a bitter
hatred could permit, by the pen of Lord Orford. — "The
Duke of Newcastle had no pride, yet infinite self-love. Jea-
lousy was the great source of all his faults. He always
caressed his enemies, to list them against his friends. There
was no service he would not do for either, till either was
above being served by him ; then he would suspect they did
not love him enough, for the moment they had every reason
to love him, he took every method to obtain their hate by
exerting all his power for their ruin. There was no expense
to which he was not addicted but generosity. His houses,
gardens, table, and equipage, swallowed immense treasures.
The sums he owed were only exceeded by those he wasted.
He loved business immoderately, yet was only always doing
it — never did it. His speeches in Council and Parliament
were flowing, and copious of words, but empty and unmean-
ing ; his professions extravagant, for he would profess inten-
tions of doing more service to many men than he even did
hurt to others. Always inquisitive to know what was said
of him, he wasted in curiosity the time in which he might
have earned praise. He aimed at everything : endeavoured
nothing. Fear, a predominant fear, was predominant in
him : he would venture the overthrow of the Government,
and hazard his life and fortunes, rather than open a letter
that might discover a plot. He was a Secretary of State
without intelligence, a Duke without money, a man of infinite
intrigue without secrecy or policy, and a minister despised
and hated by his master, by all parties and ministers, without
being turned out by any."

The Duke of Newcastle died on the seventeenth of
November, 1768, leaving no issue by his lady, who has been

DUKE OF NEWCASTLE. 247

already mentioned. On his quitting, therefore, the adminis-
tration in 1756, he received, on the thirteenth of November
in that year, a second patent creating him Duke of New-
castle-under-Line, with remainder to Henry Clinton, Earl of
Lincoln, husband to Catherine, daughter and coheir to the
Duke's late brother, the Right Honourable Henry Pelham ;
and, on the fourth of May, 1762, a grant also of the title of
Baron Pelham, of Stanmer, in Sussex, with remainder to
Thomas Pelham, of the same place, Esq.; the former of
which dignities is now enjoyed by the present Duke of. New-
castle ; the latter by the Earl of Chichester.

(Q> ft^ W K^ ^ M IK) E ff£

MARQUIS OF GRANBY"
0 B - 1770,

JOHN MANNERS,

MARQUIS OF GRANBY.

THIS nobleman, so justly famed for his bravery and
generosity, which were equalled only by the sweetness of his
temper and the kindness of his heart, was the eldest son and
heir apparent of John Manners, third Duke of Rutland, by
Bridget, only daughter and heir of Robert Sutton, second and
last Lord Lexington, and was born on the second of January,
1721, N.S. It would be idle to speak of the mode of educa-
tion of persons of his birth and prospects in the last century,
for it was, as it remains, one and the same in all. Almost as
needless therefore is it to observe that he became a member
of the lower House of Parliament as soon as he had reached
the age prescribed, or perhaps earlier. He was first elected
for the town of Grantham, which he represented also in
the two following Parliaments; and afterwards sate for
the county of Cambridge, without intermission, for the
remainder of his life. In the rebellion of 1745, he raised a
regiment of infantry, at the head of which he served in
Scotland, and was engaged, with distinction, at the decisive
battle of Culloden ; and to these circumstances may be
ascribed almost with certainty his inclination to the military
profession, into which he immediately entered, and remained
actively employed till the year of his death. Having passed
through the usual gradations of junior rank, he received, on
the fourth of March, 1755, the commission of Major General ;
in May, 1758, was appointed Colonel of the royal regiment of
horse guards ; and, on the fifth of February, 1759, was
promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General.

250 JOHN MANNERS,

Passing over a variety of previous minor services, we will
observe that at the battle of Minden, on the first of August,
in the year last named, an action rendered even more remark-
able by a collateral circumstance than by the splendid success
which attended it, he was second in command of the British
and Hanoverian Horse, under Lord George Sackville. The
singular conduct of that nobleman, in a disobedience of orders
which afterwards became the subject of inquiry by a court-
martial, produced, in an expression of the resentment of the
commander of the army, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, the
highest compliment to Lord Granby, in the subsequent general
orders — " His Serene Highness," say they, "further orders it
to be declared to Lieutenant-General the Marquis of Granby,
that he is persuaded that, if he had had the good fortune to
have him at the head of the cavalry of the right wing, his
presence would have contributed to make the decision of that
day more complete, and more brilliant." Certainly his con-
duct on the occasion in question exhibited a striking contrast
to that of his superior, for, while he hesitated whether to
comply with the Prince's command to march to the charge,
his own orders to Lord Granby, who was flying to the field,
to halt, were twice disobeyed. On the twenty-fifth of the
same month the Marquis was appointed to succeed Lord
George as " Commander-in-Chief of all his Majesty's forces
then serving in Germany under Prince Ferdinand," and to
the station, which he had also held, of Lieutenant-General of
the Ordnance. These eminent persons had never been on
terms of cordiality, but Lord Granby, who returned for a
while to give his evidence on the trial of his enemy,
" showed," says Lord Orford, in his memoirs of the reign of
George the Second, " an honourable and compassionate ten-
derness ; so far from exaggerating the minutest circumstance,
he palliated or suppressed whatever might load the prisoner,
and seemed to study nothing but how to avoid appearing a
party against him ; so inseparable in his bosom were valour
and good-nature."

MARQUIS OF GRANBY. 251

This proceeding concluded, the Marquis returned to the
army in time for the successful battle of Warburgh, which
was fought on the thirtieth of July, 1760, and in which he
gained signal honour ; and in that of Phillinghausen, the
favourable event of the day may be wholly ascribed to him-
self, and the troops then under his immediate command, as
well as in the affair of Wilhelmstahl, which occurred soon
after. " Towards the end of the war," says an anonymous
writer who had served under him, " when the army was so
situated that, if a rising ground on the left had been taken
possession of by the French, it might have been attended by
the worst consequences ; and when the Generals destined to
lead a corps to occupy it declared the service impracticable ;
Lord Granby arose from a sick bed, in the middle of the
night ; assumed the command of the corps ; marched, with a
fever upon him, in an inclement season ; took possession of
the post, and secured the army." "My Lord Granby's
generosity," adds the same writer, with a blunt and honest
enthusiasm, "knows no bounds. Often have I seen his
generous hand stretched out to supply the wants of the needy
soldier : nor did the meanest follower of the camp go hungry
from his door. His house was open equally to British and
foreigners ; his table was hospitality itself ; and his generous
open countenance gave a hearty welcome to all his guests.
Hence harmony reigned through the whole army ; disputes
had no existence ; and officers of different nations emulated
the social virtues of the British chief. By such means he
gained the hearts of all the army : they followed him with con-
fidence, and fought under him from attachment." These
sentiments of his character have been a hundred times
echoed, and were never contradicted. He certainly was one
of the most amiable men in existence.

Lord Granby, though he lived in a time of great party
violence, took little concern in political affairs. To such a
nature as his, the selfishness, the injustice, the meanness, the
acrimony, which unhappily seem inseparable from them,

252 JOHN MANNERS,

must have been utterly abhorrent ; and the calls of his public
service had fortunately tended in a great measure to detach
him from them. He had not a seat in the Privy Council till
the second of May, 1760, when the King declared him a
member, during his absence with the army. On his return,
after the peace, he became, and remained, as might have
been reasonably expected, a moderate supporter in Parliament
of the measures of Government. On the fourteenth of May,
1763, on his resignation of his commission of Lieutenant-
General of the Ordnance, he accepted the office of Master-
General of that department, and on the twenty-first of
February, in the following year, was appointed Lord
Lieutenant of the County of Derby. These were rather to
be esteemed compliments than favours, the one due to his
military services, the other to just family pretensions. But,
on the thirteenth of August, 1766, he was placed in the
exalted post of Commander-in-Chief of the army, and the
voice of faction was presently raised against him. That
most splendid and superb of all libellers, the person, who,
under the signature of Junius, astonished the country by the
malignity and the injustice of his censures, not less than by
the force and exquisite beauty of the terms in which they
were conveyed, devoted a paragraph of the very first
effusion which fell from his pen to the abuse of the
Commander-in-Chief. With the utmost disposition to injure
him, merely because he had become a member of the
administration, Junius could no further accuse him than of
a partiality to relations and friends in the distribution of
promotions, and the falsehood of the charge as to the few
instances which Junius had ventured to particularize was
fully proved by one of Lord Granby's private friends, who,
with a generous imprudence, signed with his name a reply to
the anonymous slander.

On this subject it is needless to say more. The Marquis
held the high office but for between three and four years.
On the great question whether the House of Commons could

MARQUIS OF GRANBY. 253

incapacitate Mr. Wilkes from sitting in it, he had voted for
the affirmative. On the meeting of Parliament in January,
1770, it was again introduced, and canvassed with great heat
and irritation. He now made a public recantation of the
opinion which he had formerly tacitly expressed on the
Middlesex election ; and concluded a short speech, by
declaring that " it was for want of consideration of the nice
distinction between expulsion and incapacitation that he had
given his vote for the sitting of a member who was not
returned in the last session of Parliament, and that he should
always lament that vote as the greatest misfortune of his life.
That he now saw he was in an error, and was not ashamed
to make that public declaration of it." A few days after, he
resigned his appointments, as did the rest of the members of
the government; and, on the twentieth of the following
October, died, most unexpectedly, of a sudden attack of the
gout in his stomach, at Scarborough.

The Marquis of Granby married Frances, eldest daughter
of Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset, by his second wife,
the Lady Charlotte Finch, by whom he had issue John, Lord
Roos, who died young ; Charles, who succeeded to the
honours and estates on the death of John, the third Duke, in
1779 ; Robert, a Captain in the Navy, who died bravely
of his wounds in 1781 ; Frances, married, first, to George
Carpenter, Earl of Tyrconnel, secondly, to Philip Lesley,
second son to David, Lord Newark ; Catharine, and Caroline,
who died infants.

" Reynolds

0) [HI M G§ y S S [£[L(L

DUKE OF BEDFORD

j

JOHN RUSSELL,

FOURTH DUKE OF BEDFORD.

THIS nobleman was born on the thirtieth of September,
1710, and on the death of his brother, Wriothesley, the third
Duke, on the twenty-third of October, 1732, he succeeded to
the titles and estates of his ancestors. His private life fur-
nishes very scanty materials for biography ; and although he
had given unequivocal proofs of the tendency of his political
opinions by the part he took against Sir Robert Walpole in
1742, it was not until 1744 that he engaged himself in the
public business of the country in which it was afterwards his
lot to play a conspicuous part. Towards the close of the
latter year the government of Lord Granville had become so
unpopular, and was so strenuously opposed, that he was
compelled to resign. A new ministry, which is known in
history by the name of the Broad-bottom administration, then
given to it in derision, succeeded, in which the Duke of
Bedford was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, and was
sworn a member of the Privy Council. On the King's going
to visit his German dominions in 1745, the Duke was nomi-
nated one of the Lords Justices during his absence. In the
latter part of that year, and while George the Second was
abroad, Charles Edward, the son of the first Pretender, or, as
he was most commonly called in England, the Young Che-
valier, having been induced to believe that the kingdom was
ripe for revolt, made his rash attempt to recover the crown
which his ancestors had worn, by landing in Scotland. The
Duke of Bedford, who had been appointed, in the May

256 JOHN RUSSELL,

preceding, Lord Lieutenant of the County of Bedford, was
the first of the English nobility who raised, at his own cost,
a regiment of foot for the defence of the country, an example
that was followed with alacrity, and helped to stimulate the
public feeling to that open demonstration of loyalty and
union, which soon extinguished the partial rebellion, and put
an end to the hopes of its promoters for ever.

Although he had thus given unquestionable proof of his
attachment to the established government, he did not hesitate
to oppose, in the House of Lords, in the same year, a pro-
position for extending the penalties of high treason to the
posterity of persons who should be convicted of corresponding
with the sons of the Pretender. On this occasion he intro-
duced, in an able and energetic speech, a touching allusion to
the melancholy history of his own family. " Your lordships,"
he said, " cannot be surprised that I am alarmed at the
proposal of a law like this — I, whose family has suffered so
lately the deprivation of its rank and fortune by the tyranny
of a Court ; — I, whose grandfather was cut off by an unjust
prosecution, and whose father was condemned for many years
to see himself deprived of the rights of his birth, which were
at length restored to him by more equitable judges. It is
surely reasonable, my lords, that I should oppose the extension
of penalties to the descendants of offenders, who have scarcely
myself escaped the blast of an attainder."

The early part of 1746 was distinguished by an event
which even the fluctuations of English politics, rapid and
capricious as they have often been, have hardly ever paral-
leled. The displaced ministers, Lord Granville and Lord
Bath, had regained the favour of the monarch, and their
influence was felt by the Duke of Newcastle to an extent
which rendered it impossible for him to carry on the govern-
ment, while adversaries so potent were allowed secretly to
contravene his plans. Having first ensured the co-operation
of Lord Cobham and his party, the Duke of Newcastle, on
the twentieth of February, 1746, resigned the seals, which

FOURTH DUKE OP BEDFORD. 257

the King immediately bestowed upon Lord Granville. On
the following day a universal resignation of all the govern-
ment officers took place. The King, whose knowledge of the
politics of the nation he had been called to govern had not
enabled him to foresee this step, was perplexed ; and Lord
Granville, who was fully aware of the consequences of enter-
ing on an administration which would be opposed by the
numerous enemies he had thus provoked, resigned in haste
and dismay the power he had so recently reassumed. In
three days the late ministry was reinstated ; and upon this
occasion the office of Warden and Keeper of the New Forest
was added to the appointments which the Duke of Bedford
had before held.

With the exception of the temporaiy change that has been
noticed, the ministry of which the Duke of Bedford was a
member continued until the conclusion of the peace in 1748,
although the same unanimity which had distinguished it
upon its first formation did not always prevail. In February,
1748, he was appointed Secretary of State for the Southern
Department. His discharge of this office gave rise to dissen-
sions between himself and the Duke of Newcastle. The
Duke of Bedford complained that his colleague engrossed to
himself the whole management of the affairs of their office,
and that his demeanour was haughty and cold — manners so
repugnant to his own temper, which was open and frank in a
remarkable degree, that he looked upon them as personal
affronts. The Duke of Newcastle, on the other hand, alleged
that the official affairs which should have been transacted by
the Duke of Bedford were neglected ; that his fondness for
trivial amusements and rural sports, the carelessness, and
sometimes the obstinacy of his disposition, rendered him
negligent of his duties and impracticable in business. It is
probable that these complaints were well grounded on either
side, and that a conviction of this contributed to widen the
breach between them. The Duke of Bedford's dislike of his
colleague increased daily, and he not only took no pains to

258 JOHN RUSSELL,

conceal it, but gave proofs of it, which could not be mistaken
or forgiven, by attaching himself to the Duke of Cumberland
and the Princess Amelia, neither of whom was favourable to
the Duke of Newcastle. The latter determined upon the
readiest revenge by preparing the means of ridding himself
of so uncongenial a companion as the Duke of Bedford had
become.

The death of the Prince of Wales in 1751, by dividing the
opposition, furnished an opportunity of which the Pelhams
availed themselves to effect this and other plans they had
formed for strengthening their power. In June, 1751, Lord
Sandwich was removed ; the same fate befell other friends of
the Duke, and he perceived that his own dismissal was
resolved on. On the following day he repaired to the King
at Kensington, and resigned the Seals into his Majesty's own
hands. In the interview which took place on this occasion,
the Duke is said to have expressed his resentment and indig-
nation at the conduct of the Pelhams in terms which went
far beyond the bounds of ordinary etiquette. He inveighed
bitterly against his late colleague in particular, whom he
accused of haughtiness and treachery, and enlarged upon the
good qualities of Lord Sandwich and others, who had been
displaced by the Duke of Newcastle, with a view of securing
to himself and his brother all the offices and power of the
state. The King received these expostulations with great
mildness ; expressed his disbelief in Mr. Pelham's being
implicated in the charge brought by the Duke against him
and his brother ; and, with respect to Lord Sandwich, his
Majesty observed that he had very few friends. The King
acknowledged the sense he entertained of the attachment
which the Duke had always evinced for his brother, the
Duke of Cumberland, and ended by pressing on him the post
of Master of the Horse, which his Grace declined to accept.

From this period the Duke of Bedford was to be reckoned
as the leader of a division of the opposition, and took a strong
part in the discussions respecting the education of the heir

FOURTH DUKE OF BEDFORD. 259

to the crown. In March, 1753, he moved for the production
of the examinations and papers connected with certain
charges against the prince's preceptors, which was negatived ;
and in further prosecution of the design to overthrow what
was called the system of Leicester House, which he avowed,
was concerned in circulating a sort of remonstrance entitled
"A Memorial of several Noblemen of rank and fortune," in
which the charge of Jacobitism, and intended treason, was
distinctly brought against the persons who were intrusted
with the education of the future King. The Bedford party
was, however, at this time, neither strong nor popular enough
to exercise any great influence over the public mind, or to
excite the fears of their adversaries.

On a partial change of ministry, at the end of the year
1756, the Duke of Bedford was appointed Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland. This was, perhaps, of all his public employments,
that for which his character and habits best fitted him. He
possessed an uncommon share of firmness, which his enemies
called obstinacy; and as he was besides fond of splendour
and display, and was of a frank, convivial disposition, his
administration was at once useful and popular in a country
proverbially famed for hospitality, and which had long suf-
fered under a deficient and mischievous system of evil
government. The Irish court, during the time he presided
over it, presented an appearance of gaiety and content to
which it had long been unused. During the period of the
Duke's government in Ireland, Thurot, a French pirate, who
had been favoured by the court of Versailles, and whose
depredations had rendered him formidable to the British
merchant shipping, ventured, in the course of one of the
excursions he made with a view of plundering the British
coast, to land at Carrickfergus ; and as the commandant of
the place was wholly unprepared to resist such an attack, he
was compelled, after a short but gallant defence, to capitulate.
The triumph of the French adventurer was, however, as
fleeting as it had been accidental. The whole of the militia
s 2

260 JOHN RUSSELL,

in the neighbouring districts was immediately called out, and
he was compelled to re-embark with the utmost possible
haste, in order to escape their vengeance, He was encoun-
tered in his retreat by Captain Elliott, of the jEolus, and two
other frigates; and coming to an engagement, after a desperate
conflict, Thurot was killed, and his three ships taken.

In 1761, Lord Halifax succeeded the Duke of Bedford in
the government of Ireland, and his Grace was recalled and
appointed Keeper of the Privy Seal. When in 1762 the
treaty of peace with France had been agreed to, the Duke
was commissioned as minister plenipotentiary to the court of
Versailles, for the purpose of concluding and signing the pre-
liminaries. As every article relative to the intended peace
had been agreed to by the English government, his Grace's
office was designed by Lord Bute, who had been the means
of his appointment, to have been little more than nominal,
and his functions confined to the mere operation of subscribing
the treaty which had been concluded. His notorious indif-
ference, and the carelessness of his temper, not less perhaps
than the station he held in the country, had caused him to be
selected for this task ; and, calculating upon his compliance,
the minister ventured to despatch after him a messenger, who
reached him at Calais, with instructions limiting the full
powers he had received at his departure. This intimation
provoked the Duke's indignation ; and he sent back the
messenger on the instant, with a letter in which he insisted
that his former instructions should be restored without any
restriction, or he threatened to prosecute his journey no
further. Lord Bute, alarmed at the failure of his ill-considered
attempt, immediately complied, and the Duke repaired to the
French court. Soon after he arrived, the news of our having
captured the Havannah was received in France ; and upon
this additional advantage to the British interests becoming
known, his Grace demanded some equivalent to be given by
France for the cession of that place. Florida and Porto Rico
were the possessions he required to be ceded : the first was

FOURTH DUKE OF BEDFORD. 261

readily yielded ; but the second, it was said, could not be
complied with unless the court of Madrid would consent ;
and a messenger being despatched thither, the signing the
preliminaries was delayed until his return. This interval
was employed in making an application to the English
government, which succeeded so well, that the Duke shortly
afterwards received positive orders to sign the treaty on
Florida alone being given up. The terms upon which this
peace was concluded excited loud and bitter animadversions
in England. Charges of corruption were liberally heaped, by
the instigators of the popular censure, against Lord Bute who
had planned, and against the Duke of Bedford who had been
the instrument of concluding it. The envenomed acrimony
of the celebrated political writer who used the signature of
"Junius" lent a temporary weight to the basest calumnies
which it suited the purposes of party spirit to circulate, and
from which it would be much easier to defend the Duke than
to excuse him for a too easy compliance with the orders of a
ministry, the honesty as well as the capacity of which he
had abundant reason to doubt.

In April, 1763, Lord Bute retired, and the Granville
administration was formed, in which the Duke of Bedford
held the post of President of the Council. A period of two
years sufficed to make this ministry, which had never been
very popular, generally obnoxious. The silk trade had
declined since the peace ; and the cause of this misfortune
was ascribed to the measures of the existing government, the
members of which were pointed out as victims for the
popular fury. The Duke of Bedford's house was attacked
by a tumultuous assembly of silk-weavers, and the work
of destruction which they had begun was only stopped by
the resolute interference of the military. The opposition of
the ministers to the Regency Bill, which was supposed to
have been instigated by him. had estranged from them the
King's favour ; and at length, in an interview with his
Majesty, his Grace is said to have permitted himself the use

262 JOHN RUSSELL,

of such language as could not be endured, and the govern-
ment of which he formed a part was consequently dissolved.
The Rockingham administration was then constituted, which
shortly afterwards was displaced by that of Lord Chatham ;
and although the Duke was more than once on the point of
coalescing with the latter, the negotiations were broken off.
In June, 1767, the Duke of Grafton's solicitations induced
the Bedford party to separate from their friends ; and on
that occasion the Duke resumed his Presidency of the Privy
Council, which he held until his death, on the fifteenth of
January, 1771.

The important station which he filled exposed the Duke,
during almost the whole period of his public life, to the
animadversions of the organs of the parties to which he
was opposed, and of these the brilliant and unprincipled
calumniator whose name is hidden, probably for ever, under
the appellation of Junius was the foremost. The temper of
the Duke was so much above disguise, that it afforded easy
opportunities to so dexterous a partisan as that writer, whose
chief talent consisted in making "the worse appear the better
reason"— of magnifying small faults into enormous atrocities.
The charges were not believed even amidst the intoxication
that accompanied the excitement during which they were at
first preferred ; and it would be idle now to attempt to rescue
the name of the Duke of Bedford from imputations wholly
without foundation or proof.

With moderate talents, and of habits which did not incline
him to cultivate even those talents very assiduously, he
nevertheless distinguished himself in debate ; while his
naturally good disposition and undaunted . temper gave a
weight to his character. In his friendships he was frank
and zealous, and not less earnest in his enmity. Mr. Fox,
who knew him well, said he was " the most ungovernable
governed man in the world;" an estimate which at once
explains the affection and esteem of his friends, and the
provocations which had excited the rancorous attacks of
his foes.

FOURTH DUKE OF BEDFORD. 263

His Grace was married first, in Oct. 1731, to Lady Diana,
daughter of Charles Spencer, third Earl of Sunderland, who
died, Sept. 1735, without leaving issue. In April, 1737,
he was again married, to Lady Gertrude, eldest daughter of
John, Earl Gower, by whom he had one son, Francis, Marquis
of Tavistock, born Sept. 26, 1739, and who was killed by a
fall from his horse while hunting. That nobleman left three
sons, the eldest of whom, Francis, succeeded to the title and
estates of his grandfather ; and on his death without issue,
they devolved upon his brother John, the sixth Duke of
Bedford of his noble family.

I

D-fl E Kl fffc V [F©^

FIRST LORD HOLLAND

0 B . \ 774 .

HENRY FOX,

FIRST LORD HOLLAND,

WAS second son of Sir Stephen Fox, by his second
marriage with Christian Hope, daughter of the Reverend
Charles Hope, of Naseby, in Lincolnshire.

He was born in September, 1705; and had the misfortune
to lose both his parents before he arrived at years of discre-
tion. His education, however, was not neglected. He was
some years at Eton ; was entered a gentleman commoner at
Christ Church, Oxford, in February, 1721-; and had taken a
degree in that university before he left it in December, 1724.
Though a younger brother, and of a family recently emerged
from obscurity, he seems to have followed the same career as
young men of fortune of that day ; and, when his academical
education was completed, to have embraced no particular
profession, and to have spent much of his time in foreign
travel. It is remarkable, that accident made him pass some
time at Aubigny with the Duchess of Portsmouth, the
mistress of Charles the Second, and then at an advanced
period of life, whose descendant he was many years after-
wards destined to marry. From her own lips he heard what
his son, Mr. Fox, has recorded in his history, that, justly or
unjustly, she was thoroughly persuaded that Charles the
Second had died of poison.

During his absence from England, Mr. Fox travelled for
some time with the celebrated Lord Hervey, who had the
hardihood to contend with the formidable satirist Pope, in
virulent lampoons, and to engage with Dr. Middleton, on a
question of historical research with respect to the composition

266 HENRY FOX,

of the Roman senate. The friendship of Mr. Fox with Lord
Hervey, and the causes that led to a subsequent breach of it,
are described, with some severity, by Lord Chesterfield, to
have arisen from adventures and amours, more fit for the
scandalous chronicle than for this work, and not very
creditable to either party. Be that as it may, it is certain,
that, during his connexion with Lord Hervey, he was second
to that nobleman in his duel with Mr. Pulteney, and was
reported to have acted with great propriety and honour in
that affair ; and it may be safely conjectured, that the good
offices of his friend, who was a great favourite of Queen
Caroline, and a staunch supporter of Sir Robert Walpole,
recommended him to the notice of the court, and to the
patronage of that eminent statesman. In truth, if familiarity
with the great, and indulgence in fashionable vices, had
impaired his fortune at an early period of life, there is little
doubt that he had ingratiated himself with many, such as
Mr. Winnington and, more particularly, Lord Sunderland,
afterwards Duke of Marlborough, who assisted him in
repairing it.

To the interest of the latter nobleman he was indebted for
his seat in Parliament ; and the friendship between them
continued without interruption till the death of the Duke, in
Germany, in 1759. Mr. Fox had been his chief adviser in
his marriage, which lost him the favour, and had well nigh
lost him the fortune, of his grandmother, the capricious
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. That splenetic old lady, on
being asked in a public theatre who was that gentleman
opposite, in conversation with her grandson, is reported to
have exclaimed, " Who is he 1 why that is the Fox that has
run away with my Goose."

In Parliament, where he was chosen for Hindon, in 1735,
Mr. Fox devoted himself to the cause of Sir Robert Walpole ;
and was not only admitted, together with his friends,
Mr. Winnington and Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, to
familiar and intimate intercourse with that social minister,

FIRST LORD HOLLAND. 267

but was rewarded by more solid marks of confidence and
gratitude. In 1737, he was appointed Surveyor of the
Board of Works ; and in 1743, on the fall of the ministry
that turned out Sir Robert, he was named, as one of the
friends and partizans of that minister, Commissioner of the
Treasury, when he was re-elected for Windsor, for which
borough, through the interest of the Duke of Marlborough,
he had been elected into the House of Commons in 1741.
He continued to hold this office, and was an active member
of government in Mr. Pelham's administration ; and his
interest and importance were rather strengthened than
impaired by an incident in his private life, which gave
scandal, and created a great sensation in the fashionable
world. This was his clandestine marriage, in 1744, with
Lady Caroline Lennox, eldest daughter of the Duke of
Richmond. Her father and relatives were in the first
instance indignant at an alliance, which, according to the
notions of those days, was deemed derogatory to a great
family ; but the consideration, which his talents and services
rapidly acquired for him at court and in parliament, gradually
reconciled the noble family of his wife to the connexion ;
and the head of it, as well as many of the branches, con-
descended ere long to solicit and accept favours from the son
of the plebeian, Sir Stephen Fox, who no doubt in his turn
found his account in attaching a powerful family to his
interests.

Mr. Fox, who, through the interest of the Duke of Marl-
borough, retained his seat for Windsor, was appointed
Secretary of War soon after the abortive attempt of Lord
Granville to assume the supreme direction of affairs in 1746.
The reputation of Mr. Fox for sterling abilities in business,
and for great skill and readiness in debate, now stood very
high, His spirit in protecting his friends, both in and out of
parliament, from the unjust clamours of the multitude, and
the more secret intrigues of ministers themselves, were not
less conspicuous than in vindicating the measures of govern-

268 . HENRY FOX,

ment ; and this quality ingratiated him with many powerful
noblemen of that day, and, together with his readiness and
felicity in reply, rendered him not altogether an unequal
match to the celebrated and eloquent Mr. Pitt, to whom, as
an orator, he was far inferior. Horace Walpole, in the
language no doubt of partiality, describes his style of speak-
ing, in a paper of the " World," published in 1748, in the
following words : — " In the House of Commons he was for
some time an ungraceful and unpopular speaker, the abun-
dance of his matter overflowing his elocution ; but the force
of his reasoning has prevailed, both over his own defects
and those of his audience. He speaks with a strength and
perspicuity of argument that commands the admiration of an
age apt to be more cheaply pleased, and has been at the idle
labour of making himself fame and honours by pursuing
a steady and regular plan, when art and eloquence would
have carried him to an equal height ; and made those fear
him who now only love him, if a party can love a man who
they see is connected with them by principles, not by pre-
judices." And Lord Waldegrave, who was also his friend,
but whose judgment was less swayed by the prepossession of
the moment, says of him — " As to Fox, few men have been
more unpopular ; yet, when I have asked his bitterest
enemies what crimes they could allege against him, they
always confined themselves to general accusations ; that he
was avaricious, encouraged jobs, had profligate friends, and
dangerous connections ; but never could produce a particular
fact of any weight or consequence." — " He has great parlia-
mentary knowledge, but is rather an able debater than a
complete orator ; his best speeches are neither long nor pre-
meditated ; quick and concise replication is his peculiar
excellence." — " In business he is clear and communicative ;
frank and agreeable in society ; and though he can pay his
court on particular occasions, he has too much pride to
flatter an enemy, or even a friend, where it is necessary."
— " Upon the whole, he has some faults, but more good

FIRST LORD HOLLAND. 269

qualities ; is a man of sense and judgment, notwithstanding
some indiscretion ; and with small allowances for ambition,
party, and politics, is a warm friend, a man of veracity, and
a man of honour."

His office of Secretary at War brought him into continual
contact with the Duke of Cumberland ; and his intrepidity,
which we have alluded to above, in facing clamour and
defying intrigue, secured him the favour of that illustrious
prince, who was not less reprehensible for a haughty and
repulsive contempt of popularity than commendable for a
disdain of all dirty intrigue. Such favour added, no doubt,
to Mr. Fox's importance ; but it was nevertheless among the
causes which defeated the main object of his ambition, to
become the chief minister of the country. From attachment
to the Duke, he arraigned without scruple or reserve those
parts of the Regency Bill, which, in his judgment, deprived
his Royal Highness of the weight and influence due to his
birth and station, and which were in truth the fruits of an
understanding between the ministry and the court of
Leicester House, with a view of propitiating the favour of
the heir-apparent to the former. When George the Second
questioned Mr. Fox upon his speeches on that occasion, he is
reported to have answered — " I said what I did against it,
because all that was said for it was against the Duke." The
King rejoined, " I thank you for that, my affection is with
my son — I assure you I like you the better for wishing well
to him." i

This approbation of the father, however flattering, was, in
a worldly point of view, a sorry substitute for the popularity
he lost by his intemperate zeal for the son. The prejudices
against the Duke were inveterate, and almost universal ; and
Mr. Fox, who combated them most warmly, and never
scrupled to expose the fallacy or malevolence of his
opponents with the most pointed severity, shared the odium
of his royal patron and friend. His faults were exaggerated,
his good qualities suppressed or misrepresented. He was

270 HENRY FOX,

accused of arbitrary principles, suspected of a design to
subvert the constitution, and branded as one of the most
corrupt of the corrupt school of Sir Robert Walpole. Still
he possessed great ascendancy in the House of Commons ;
and if he had not imprudently betrayed his impatience to be
minister, it was the opinion of many men of judgment and
discernment, and among them of Lord Waldegrave, author
of the Memoirs, that he would have attained the great object
of his ambition. But, even during the lifetime of Mr. Pel-
ham, his aspiring views are said to have transpired. Some
of his own party grew jealous of him, and his enemies were
furnished with topics for arraigning his ambition. Nettled
at the notion, founded or unfounded, that Lord Hardwicke,
in the proposal of the famous Marriage Bill, had alluded
with pointed reprehension to the circumstances of his
brother's, Lord Ilchester's, marriage with a minor, he pre-
served no moderation in his resistance to the measure, and
in his invectives and sarcasms against the author of it. The
Chancellor never forgave him ; and the weight of his resent-
ment was felt in all the numerous negociations and party
overtures which occurred during the remaining years of
King George the Second's reign. It is but just, in censuring
the intemperate lengths with which the opposition of Mr.
Fox, still in office, was carried to a measure proposed by the
minister, to observe that the measure itself was liable to
many weighty objections in principle; that in its conse-
quences it has been productive of so many inconveniences
as to have called for a revision, amounting almost to a repeal,
in our own times ; and that as it was originally introduced,
it was full of many harsh and unwarrantable provisions,
which the amendments of Mr. Fox either softened or
removed.

On the death of Mr. Pelham in 1754, Mr. Fox, then Secre-
tary at War, was thought the fittest person to succeed him.
The Duke of Newcastle, who, although he did not love him,
was perfectly aware of his weight in the House, and of his

FIRST LORD HOLLAND. 271

qualifications for the discharge of the duties of office, at first
entertained the intention of agreeing to any terms by which
his co-operation and assistance might be ensured, and
requested Lord Hartington, afterwards the third Duke of
Devonshire, to negociate with him for this purpose. Mr.
Fox named his terms, which were that, as he was to hold
the important station of Leader of the House of Commons,
he should possess the power which had in Mr. Pelham's
hands belonged to that office ; that he should be acquainted
with the disposal of the secret-service money, which was
then notoriously employed in remunerating the members
who voted with the Government ; and that he should have a
voice in the nomination of members to be returned for the
Treasury boroughs in the ensuing elections.

Upon these proposals being communicated to the Duke
by Lord Hartington, they were distinctly acceded to, and
Mr. Fox considered himself as fixed in the position to which
he had long aspired. The weakness and jealousy of the
Duke of Newcastle, and the intrigues of his enemies, how-
ever, disappointed his hopes. The Princess of Wales, who
exercised no inconsiderable influence over the Duke, hated
Mr. Fox for his attachment to the Duke of Cumberland, and
for the sentiments he had expressed on the Regency Bill.
The Chancellor is suspected of having suggested his appre-
hensions that the Duke of Newcastle would find his intended
colleague troublesome, if not dangerous. Mr. Fox had also
by his unsparing sarcasms upon the Scotch nation, and on
the members of the legal profession, excited the implacable
enmity of those bodies, who added the whole weight of their
opposition to the machinations of his other foes. The Duke
of Newcastle broke off, at the expense of his honour, the
engagement into which he had entered. With a man of
Mr. Fox's temper, it was not difficult to bring this about.
The Duke refused, in an interview which took place between
them, to perform the arrangement which had been agreed
upon as to the secret-service money and the Treasury

272 HENRY FOX,

members. Mr. Fox urged, that it was impossible for him to
lead the House of Commons without the power for which he
had stipulated. The Duke replied it was a power which he
was resolved not to share with any one. He was reminded of
his agreement with Lord Hartington, which he did not deny ;
and gravely alleged, that he had consented to it at a moment
when his distress of mind, occasioned by the loss of his
brother, Mr. Pelham, had so distracted him, that he had not
given the matter sufficient consideration ; in short, that he
was resolved not to fulfil it. Mr. Fox would not abate in
his demands, and in utter disgust refused to take any office
under the new administration. The interference of the King
was resorted to for the purpose of preventing this separation,
or rather perhaps with a view of giving a colour of fairness
to the Duke of Newcastle's proceeding. His Majesty requested
Mr. Fox to accept the office of Secretary of State, but either
did not or would not understand the reasons which influenced
his refusal, and the audience closed by the King's expressing
a resolution never again to obtrude his favours on any one.
Sir Thomas Robinson was appointed Secretary of State, and
Mr. Fox, although he retained his office of Secretary at War,
joined in a sort of opposition.

The death of Mr. Pelham had, in a great degree, broken up
the parties which had united in support of his administration.
The Whigs were divided into clans, and voted under several
leaders. The Pelham party were still large and powerful ;
but Mr. Fox found himself also at the head of a division con-
sisting of many of his personal friends, and of many more
political followers, who, notwithstanding his recent disap-
pointment, had great confidence in his talents, and a strong
belief that he would yet become the Premier. In opposition
his power became daily more formidable. Mr. Pitt who,
though still in the service of the Government, yet more
openly attacked the measures of the Minister, joined Mr. Fox
in his endeavours to weaken and expose the inefficiency of
the persons whom the recent change had raised to power.

FIRST LORD HOLLAND. 273

While he directed the full force of his opposition against the
then Solicitor-General, afterwards Lord Mansfield, Mr. Fox
amused himself by ridiculing Sir Thomas Robinson, and by
provoking that minister to expose his unfitness for the office
from which Mr. Fox had been excluded. The Duke of New-
castle saw that his government could not stand against this
powerful union. He first made overtures, through Mr. Charles
Yorke, to Mr. Pitt, who, believing that the King's want of
confidence in him, which had been openly manifested, was
occasioned by the Duke of Newcastle, refused, until that
proscription, as he called it, was taken off, to enter into any
conversation whatever either with the Duke or with any
other person from him. Foiled in his first attempt, his Grace
was next compelled to endeavour to propitiate the man whom
he had so lately insulted and endeavoured to degrade. The
task was difficult. Mr. Fox's resentment was yet warm, and
the Duke was too insincere and crafty to meet him in the
only way in which it was practicable to close the breach
between them. At length Lord Waldegrave was applied to,
and after some negotiations, in which he has recorded that
Mr. Fox behaved like a man of sense, and that the Duke
was mean and shuffling, he induced each of them to give
way. Mr. Fox gained the main point of his ambition, was
appointed Secretary of State in November, 1755, and with
the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Anson, planned and carried
into effect the warlike operations which ensued.

This triumph, however gratifying it might be at the time
to his pride, added little either to his fame or to his happi-
ness. He expected no great cordiality from the Duke of
Newcastle, who had been forced, against his inclination, to
admit him to a share of his power ; but he was not prepared
for the obstacles which the want of confidence and candour
in his colleague presented to the discharge of his duties.
The interference of the intriguing adherents of the Duke,
who regarded with dismay the rise of so formidable a person,
fomented the Minister's jealousy, and induced him to look at

VII. T

274 HENRY FOX,

every part of Mr. Fox's conduct rather as that of an enemy
whom he feared, than of an ally whose assistance he had
invoked. The behaviour of the King exposed him to still
greater mortifications. The Monarch could not forget that
Sir Thomas Robinson, to whom he was extremely partial,
had been displaced by Mr. Fox ; and, finding the latter less
conversant in foreign affairs than with the business of Parlia-
ment, his Majesty is said to have dropped some ungracious
hints that a man who was a good talker in the House of
Commons might, nevertheless, be a very indifferent Secretary
of State. The painfulness of his position from these causes,
joined to the ill success of the operations of the war, and the
increasing strength of the opposition, from which he antici-
pated a violent attack, in consequence of the disastrous loss
of Minorca, and against which he saw little probability of his
being effectually supported, determined him to avoid the
approaching storm. He solicited an audience with the King,
entered into a frank detail of the grievances of which he had
to complain, and asked permission to resign, which was
granted.

The Duke of Newcastle, now perfectly sensible of the
weakness of the Administration of which he was the head,
and terrified at the public hatred and distrust which his
measures and their results had provoked, obtained the King's
commands to invite Mr. Pitt to take office. A flat refusal to
join with his Grace in any shape was the reply to his over-
tures, and the Duke was consequently obliged to resign. The
formation of a new administration, on his own terms, was
then proposed to Mr. Pitt through the Duke of Devonshire,
with the single stipulation on the part of the King that
Mr. Fox should be retained ; but to this also Mr. Pitt refused
to accede, and in November, 1756, he undertook the manage-
ment of the public business, at the head of an administration
of which he had the sole formation, occupying himself that
post of Secretary of State which Mr. Fox had just before
relinquished. The want of confidence which subsisted

FIRST LORD HOLLAND. 275

between the King and his new servants caused this arrange-
ment to continue only to the April following, when the
Ministry was broken up. Lord Waldegrave was then
employed by the King to form, in conjunction with Mr. Fox,
a new administration ; but the attempt having failed, in con-
sequence of the reluctance of the Duke of Newcastle's
friends to take office without his Grace, his Majesty was
unwillingly compelled to give way to Mr. Pitt and to the
Duke of Newcastle, who had in the meantime coalesced,
stipulating only that Mr. Fox should be Paymaster of the
Forces. This office, which was then a place of great emolu-
ment, he continued to hold till 1765, when he was removed,
as a friend of Lord Bute, by Mr. George Grenville, on the
temporary return of that gentleman to office, after his first
dismissal. Lord Holland, as he had now become, was not
restored by the Rockingham party when they came into
power, as they did within a few weeks ; and from that time
he took little part in public affairs.

In the year 1763 he had been prevailed upon by Lord
Bute, and by the earnest and personal solicitation of His
Majesty George the Third, to undertake, as leader of the
House of Commons, the defence of the Peace of Fontain-
bleau. He discharged this task with greater spirit and suc-
cess than was expected ; but by the line he took on that
occasion, the friendship which had so long subsisted between
him and the Duke of Cumberland was destroyed, and they
were never afterwards entirely reconciled.

On the 6th of May, 1762, his wife was created Baroness
Holland, and on the 36th of April, 1763, he was raised to
the peerage by the title of Lord Holland, Baron of Foxley in
the county of Wilts, which dignity was limited to him and
the heirs male of his body. By his marriage with Lady
Caroline Lennox he had four sons, viz. Stephen, who suc-
ceeded to his title ; Henry, who died in his infancy ; Charles
James, one of the most illustrious and enlightened members
of the House of Commons ; and Henry Edward. His Lord-

T2

276 HENRY FOX, FIRST LORD HOLLAND.

ship was a member of the Privy Council, and held the place
of Clerk of the Pells in Ireland, which was bestowed upon
him in 1757, with the reversion after his death to two of his
sons.

After his successful defence of the peace of Fontainbleau,
his Lordship visited Paris, where he fell into ill health, from
which he never afterwards wholly recovered. On quitting
office, he made an excursion into Italy, passed a winter at
Naples, a second winter at Nice, and did not return to Eng-
land until the autumn of 1768. The latter years of his life
were spent in retirement, between Holland House and Kings-
gate, in the Isle of Thanet, where he built a villa in a some-
what eccentric taste, which provoked the satirical animad-
versions of the poet Gray, and others. From his return to
England his health continued gradually to decline, until the
first of July, 1774, when he died at Holland House, in the
sixty-ninth year of his age.

The prominent place which he so long filled, and the
spirit of the times in which he lived, exposed him to the
attacks of those who differed from him in politics, and by
whom he has been painted as a profligate and unprincipled
minister. The testimony of Lord Waldegrave, which we
have quoted above, shows that in the judgment of that acute
observer his virtues greatly preponderated over his vices ;
and that he was one of the most considerable public men of
his time. All contemporary evidence concurs in representing
him in private as sociable, friendly, and affectionate. Per-
haps the most striking proof of his talents is to be found in
the fact that he was for many years the most formidable
rival of one of the greatest of English orators and statesmen.
His public despatches, his poetical effusions, and such of his
private letters as have been preserved, suffice to show that he
could write with vigour, clearness, and ease.

0 B, I 774,

ROBERT, LORD OLIVE.

THE varied and eventful life of Lord Olive is a proof that,
although the age of romance has passed away, the spirit which
animated it, and which gave rise to some of its most stirring
and striking incidents, was not wholly extinguished in the
last century. In other times there have been numerous
instances of men raising themselves by the mere force of
their individual characters and personal exertions, from
obscurity and poverty to wealth and honour ; but the middle
ages could scarcely show among their Condottieri and Free
Companions a more remarkable proof of the marvels which
may be wrought by chance, combined with courage, talents,
and decision, than is presented by the history of Lord Olive's
exploits in India.

He was the eldest son of Richard Olive, Esq., and was
born on the 29th of September, 1725, at Styche, near Market
Drayton, in Shropshire, a seat which had been possessed by
his ancestors from the reign of Henry the Seventh. His
family, though of great respectability, was not very wealthy,
and he was educated with a view to his being engaged in
some active profession. At a very early period he gave
unquestionable indications of a daring and enterprising spirit,
but at the same time of a temper so uncontrollable as to
occasion great apprehensions for his future welfare. It was
probably the difficulty of training him to any more quiet
employment that induced his father to procure for him an
appointment of writer in the service of the East India Com-
pany, in which capacity, at the age of nineteen, he sailed for
Madras.

278 ROBERT, LORD CLIVE.

Accident, which often shapes men's destinies, seems in this
instance to have cast the youthful adventurer upon a theatre
in all respects adapted for the turbulent energy of his dispo-
sition. India was at the period of his arrival marked out by
the French government as a prey worthy of the grasping ambi-
tion which characterized the designs of that monarchy. M.
Dupleix, a fit instrument for the completion of those designs,
had industriously fermented the jealousy and discontent with
which the potentates of India regarded the increasing impor-
tance of the mercantile society whose agents had seated
themselves upon the soil, and had begun to plant the seeds
of that power which was destined afterwards to add a rich
and extensive empire to the possessions of Great Britain. At
the moment of Mr. Olive's arrival, the Company's resources
were so limited, that they could with difficulty maintain
their ground, and they were, as it seemed, wholly unable to
engage in a conflict with the overwhelming hosts that
menaced them. He had not been in India two years when
Madras, being attacked by the French Admiral, M. de la
Bourdonnais, was compelled to surrender, and the whole of
the Company's servants, civil and military, were made pri-
soners, but remained at large upon parole. Some objection
being raised by M. Dupleix, who was chief in command of
the French forces, to the terms of the treaty, he declined to
ratify the capitulation. The English prisoners, indignant at
the injustice of this refusal, resolved to consider the parole
as no longer binding upon them. Several of them, among
whom Mr. Clive was of the foremost, escaped, and, in the
disguise of a native, he reached fort St. David's, about
twenty-one miles to the south of Madras.

In the following year, 1747, tired of his civil employment,
and feeling, perhaps, that a more stirring life was better suited
to his own character and the circumstances into which he was
thrown, he procured an ensign's commission in the military
service, and applied himself to the duties of his new profession
with an ardour and devotion which was the most satisfactory

ROBERT, LORD CLIVE, 279

presage of his future success. Previous to this he had been
engaged in several private quarrels, in which, although per-
haps it was his rashness that had engaged him, he evinced
indisputable bravery and honourable feeling. In an attack
on the French fort of Pondicherry he made his first essay in
arms. The assault was unsuccessful, owing partly to the
unfavourable weather, and more perhaps to the weakness of
the English force, and to the inexperience of Admiral
Boscawen, who commanded in warlike operations by land.
In the hottest part of the engagement, and where the danger
was most imminent, Mr. Clive distinguished himself, and
was amongst the last to retreat when the commanding officer
ordered the troops to fall back to St. David's.

The pacification which was soon after effected between
Great Britain and France did not extend to India. The title
of the reigning Rajah of Tanjore was disputed by his brother,
and the English, in support of the pretensions of the latter,
began to make war upon the Rajah by attacking the fort of
Devi Cottah. The first attempt failed, and the British force
was compelled to retreat to St. David's. Under the com-
mand of Major Stringer Lawrence, an officer of much greater
ability than those who had previously directed the operations
of the English army, the attack was subsequently renewed.
Mr. Clive, then a lieutenant, solicited the command of a
forlorn hope, which was reluctantly granted by Major Law-
rence, and at the head of thirty-four Europeans, and seven
hundred sepoys, he marched upon this desperate enterprise.
They had approached the breach, where they were unex-
pectedly attacked by a party of cavalry. The sepoys fled at
the first onset; the British troops under Mr. Olive's com-
mand were cut to pieces, and he and three others only
escaped. Major Lawrence, seeing this disaster, ordered a
general attack, which was made with such irresistible vigour,
that the fortress was carried. The Rajah then made over-
tures of peace, which were accepted, and the English retained
possession of their conquest.

280 ROBERT, LORD CLIVE.

A short interval of tranquillity ensued, when Mr. Clive
•returned to Madras, and resuming his civil duties, was
appointed Commissary General, an office which was ex-
tremely lucrative, as well as of great importance. At this
period of his life he was attacked by a nervous fever, which,
although he then overcame it, so shattered his constitution that
it left him a prey to that occasional depression of spirits
which embittered his subsequent existence, and at length
caused his death.

In 1751, an opportunity offered which induced him again
to engage in that career which was best suited to his genius
and his ambition. The French general had assisted Chunda
Saib, the actual Nabob of Arcot, with a large force to assist
in the reduction of Trinchinopoly. Mr. Clive, who was now
promoted to the rank of captain, proposed to effect a diver-
sion by taking possession of Arcot. This plan was determined
on ; with a small force he threw himself into the latter
place, and was attacked, as he had expected, by the son of
the Nabob, whom he repulsed with great loss. Being soon
afterwards reinforced, he marched in pursuit of his assailant,
whom, three days afterwards, he signally defeated in a
general engagement in the open country. He followed up
his success with a perseverance for which the foes with
whom he had to cope were not at all prepared. Several
important places surrendered to him ; he retook possession of
Arcot, which, upon his quitting it, had again fallen into the
hands of the Nabob, and joining Major Lawrence delivered
Trinchinopoly. During the rest of the campaign, the army
was composed of two divisions, one of which was placed
under the command of Mr. Clive, although then only a junior
captain, in consequence of the troops refusing to serve under
any other leader. The success of the operations of this army
was so great, that in a short time the whole province of Arcot
was cleared, and the enemy and their French auxiliaries
compelled to sue for peace, which was agreed to, on terms
highly favourable to the interests of the company.

ROBERT, LORD CLIVE. 281

Captain Clive then returned to Madras; and his health
being in an enfeebled state, he embarked for England for the
purpose of recruiting it. He was received with the honour
and applause which his services had merited ; was appointed
to the command of Fort St. David, with the promise of that
of Madras as soon as it should become vacant : and was
promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the army.
The East India Company, to whom his exploits had pro-
duced very substantial advantages, testified their respect by
presenting him with a diamond-hilted sword, which he
refused, until a similar one had been bestowed on Major
Lawrence, whom he stated to be as well entitled as himself
to this distinction.

In 1756 he returned to India, and in the beginning of the
following year engaged with Admirals Watson and Pocock in
the attack on Geriah, by which the power of the Angrias,
piratical chieftains, who had long disturbed the commerce of
the Indian Seas, was annihilated. From this exploit he was
recalled to the succour of the English possessions in the pro-
vince of Bengal, which were then exposed to extreme peril
from the warfare which had been commenced against them
by the Surajah al Dowlat. Calcutta had been taken by this
prince, and the English governor, and the other prisoners
who fell into his power, treated with a wanton barbarity
wholly unknown to the customs of European warfare.
Colonel Clive, returning from Geriah, landed at Calcutta, and
proceeded to assault the fort with such impetuosity that,
although it was strongly fortified, and well supplied with
troops and ammunition, it surrendered in less than two
hours. The taking of Hoogley, a city of great commercial
importance higher up the Ganges, followed ; and these
advantages so incensed the Surajah, that he marched with an
almost overwhelming force against the English troops, and
encamped about a mile from the town of Calcutta. Colonel
Clive drew out his little army, and, reinforced by six hundred
sailors furnished by Admiral Watson, forced the enemy to an

282 ROBERT, LORD CLIVE.

engagement, in which the Asiatic troops were so roughly
handled that they retreated in disorder, with the loss of a
thousand men, and treasure and stores of great value. The
Surajah was, by this defeat, compelled to propose a treaty of
peace, which was accepted by Colonel Olive. The subse-
quent conduct of the chieftain proved however that it was
his intention to violate this treaty as soon as he had so rein-
forced his armies that he might safely resume hostilities ;
and, assisted and encouraged by the agents of France, he
shortly after began a series of annoyances against the English
commerce and interests which he knew must be intolerable.
His tyranny and cruelty at the same time created many
enemies among the highest personages at his court, and a
conspiracy was formed against him by Meer Jaffier, his prime
minister, and the commander of his armies, which mainly
contributed to his overthrow. A revolt having taken place,
Colonel Clive, by the advice of that minister, assisted the
rebels. The Surajah marched against them with a force
composed of fifty thousand foot, eighteen thousand horse, and
fifty pieces of cannon, worked by French artillerymen. To
oppose this force, Colonel Clive had three thousand two
hundred men, of whom nine hundred only were Europeans.
On the 23rd of June, 1757, the armies came to an engagement
in the plains near Plassey. The conflict, though violent at
the commencement, was of short duration. The irregular
valour of the Surajah's force was ill matched against the
coolness, intelligence, and activity, of the European com-
mander. The immense army was routed and put to flight,
and the Nabob's camp, baggage, and artillery, fell into the
hands of the victors. For want of cavalry, Colonel Clive
was unable to derive all the advantages which might have
resulted from this battle. He however marched immediately
to Moorshedabad, the capital of the province; and, the
Nabob having been killed in the pursuit, he proclaimed Meer
Jaffier as his successor, and acknowledged him Suba, or
Viceroy, of Bengal, Bahar, and Orixa.

ROBERT, LORD CLIVE. 283

The power of England in the East was more firmly esta-
blished by means of this victory than it had ever before
been ; and, although much remained to be done before they
became masters of the Peninsula, it was owing to the active
and enterprising designs of Colonel Clive, and to the sagacity
with which he made available the advantages he had gained,
that they were indebted for their ultimate triumph. The
government of Calcutta was conferred upon him after this
battle ; and, among the most successful of his subsequent
exploits, was the repulse of the army of the Great Mogul at
the siege of Patna, and the defeat of the troops sent by the
Governor of Batavia under the pretence of assisting the
Dutch Colonies, but for the real purpose of disturbing the
British possessions. Honours, and wealth, to an enormous
amount, crowned his victories : the Court of Delhi conferred
upon him the dignity of Omrah, and the new Nabob testified
his gratitude by granting him an annual revenue of twenty-
eight thousand pounds sterling, besides presents of great
value.

In 1760, he returned to England, and was elected one of
the members for Shrewsbury. In November, 1761, the
dignity of a Baron of Ireland was conferred upon him, by
the title of Baron Clive of Plassey, of the County of Clare, in
Ireland, in consequence of his services in India against the
Surajah al Dowlat. The affairs of India declined during his
absence. The financial circumstances of the government fell
into embarrassment, and the powers of their numerous ene-
mies increased, for want of that prompt and unremitting
vigilance which he had maintained. He was solicited to
resume the command he had relinquished, and again sailed
to India in the post of Governor of the province of Bengal.
He immediately occupied himself in correcting the abuses
which had been permitted to grow up there ; repressed the
exactions to which a thirst for gain had impelled some of the
Europeans to resort ; and rescued the oppressed natives from
the mischievous system which had begun, and which, unless

284 ROBERT, LORD CLIVE.

checked, must have ended in the ruin of the country and the
destruction of the English power. In the year 1767, he
quitted India, and established himself in his native country
for the remainder of his days.

The extent and importance of his achievements may be
best conceived by considering the state of our affairs in India
during his residence there. In 1756, the Company was a
simple society of merchants, struggling to preserve the com-
mercial privileges which had been granted to them, beset by
open enemies, and encumbered with alliances to which they
could not trust. In 1767, when Lord Clive quitted India,
they had acquired a stable power which defied attack, and
had raised their resources and importance to an extent which
had never been paralleled, and could not have been contem-
plated by the most sanguine imagination. To this state of
things the intrepidity and address of Lord Clive had so
eminently contributed, that, giving all the applause which is
due to those who co-operated with him, the greater share of
the glory properly belonged to him.

The task of wielding the power which had been gained
proved however too great for the Company. Regarding their
acquisitions only in the light of mercantile advantages, they
lost sight of the principles by which a vast country, so con-
quered, could alone be preserved. The conduct of their
agents, highly culpable as it was, sprang naturally from the
circumstances in which they were placed, and the govern-
ment of Great Britain found it necessary to interfere, in order
to prevent the destruction of the colony. An inquiry was
instituted in Parliament, to which Lord Clive lent the
readiest and most efficient assistance. In the result it was
found expedient to take the power of governing India out of
the feeble hands into which it had fallen, and a pretext was
found for this measure in the administration of public affairs
there. The subject soon assumed the shape of a party pro-
ceeding, and Lord Clive was marked out as an object for
the censure on which it was to be founded. With little

ROBERT, LORD CLIVE. 285

information on the subject, beyond that which his lordship
had himself voluntarily furnished, General Burgoyne, the
Chairman of the Select Committee, moved a resolution, on
the 21st of February, 1773, to the effect that Lord Clive had
possessed himself of sums amounting to two hundred and
thirty-four thousand pounds, under the denomination of
private gifts, to the dishonour and detriment of the State.

Lord Clive defended himself against this attack upon his
fortune and his honour with great ability and eloquence. To
convince the House of the falsehood of the charge against
him was not difficult. Every action of his life had been
sufficiently public, and perhaps the most triumphant refuta-
tion of the slander was the amount of his wealth, large as it
was. If he had been actuated by such motives as were
imputed to him, his gains, considering the powers and oppor-
tunities he possessed, would have been reckoned by millions.
His vindication consisted of a minute detail of all the circum-
stances connected with the subject under discussion. " If,"
he said, in conclusion, " the resolution proposed should receive
the assent of the House, I shall have nothing left that I can
call my own, except my paternal fortune of eight hundred
pounds a year, and which has been in the family for ages
past. But upon this I am content to live ; and perhaps I
shall find in it more real content of mind and happiness
than in the trembling affluence of an unsettled fortune. But
to be called, after sixteen years have elapsed, to account for
my conduct in this manner, and after an uninterrupted enjoy-
ment of my property, to be questioned, and considered as
having obtained it unwarrantably, is hard indeed, and a treat-
ment of which I should think the British Senate incapable.
Yet, if this should be the case, I have a conscious innocence
within me which tells me, that my conduct is irreproachable ;
— Frangas, non flectes. They may take from me what I
have : — they may, as they think, make me poor, but I will
be happy. Before I sit down, I have but one request to
make to the House, that when they come to decide upon my

286 ROBERT, LORD CLIVE.

honour, they will not forget their own." The frank manli-
ness of his explanation won the confidence of the more candid
portion of the assembly, and shamed the others from the
dishonourable project they had conceived. The House nega-
tived the proposed resolution by a large majority, and not-
withstanding the opposition of the minister, Lord North,
agreed, " that Lord Clive had rendered great and meritorious
services to his country."

From this time, the infirmity to which he had been long
subject, and which was only relieved by the excitement of
some engrossing and active pursuit, increased. At the com-
mencement of hostilities with America, the chief command
of the army destined for that country was offered to him, but
declined on the score of his ill health and failing strength.
His spirits never recovered their tone ; his reason sunk under
the weight of despondency, which disease, and perhaps dis-
appointment, had engendered, and in an access of delirium
his existence terminated on the 22nd of November, 1774.

Possessing a fertile and original genius, and implicit reliance
upon his own resources, he was less indebted for his triumphs
to the assistance of others than most men who have achieved
greatness in the career he pursued. His judgment was correct,
and the firmness and decision of his character fitted him for
command. He is said to have possessed, in a very remarkable
degree, the rare talent of inspiring confidence in those who
acted under him ; and to this may be in some degree ascribed
the rapid success of his exploits in a profession for which he
was not educated, and in which the natural bent of his genius
supplied the want of more regular instruction. In Parliament
he spoke rarely, but never without displaying remarkable
ability. In private life his social qualities made him univer-
sally esteemed ; he was generous and charitable, and, besides
many acts of secret beneficence, he bestowed a sum of seventy
thousand pounds for the support of invalids in the service of
the East India Company.

He married, in India, in 1753, Margaret, daughter of

ROBERT, LORD CLIVE. 287

Edmund Maskelyne, Esq., of Purton, in Wiltshire, and sister
of the celebrated astronomer of that name, by whom he had
nine children, the eldest of whom, Edward, succeeded him in
his title and estates, and, having married the heir general of
the then lately extinct Earls of Powis, was in 1804 elevated
to that dignity ; Richard, and Robert, who died young and
unmarried ; another Robert, in the army ; Rebecca, wife of
John Robinson, of Denston Hall, in Suffolk ; Margaret, mar-
ried to Lieutenant Colonel Lambert Theodore Walpole ; Jane,
Charlotte, and Elizabeth, who died unmarried.

WD [LlLO^Rftl [POTT

EAKL.OT CHATHAM

, OB, 1778,

WILLIAM PITT,

FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM.

THE existing condition of society precludes men who devote
themselves to public business from encountering those acci-
dents and from engaging in those adventures which at more
remote periods of history have often shed the colours of
romance over the realities of their lives. They are seldom
distinguished by any remarkable events, personal to them-
selves, from their contemporaries ; and when the public
measures in which they have taken part, and the result of
the national councils which they have directed shall have
been described, the lives of most modern statesmen will have
been written.

William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham, was the second son of
Robert Pitt, Esquire, of Boconnock, in Cornwall, the eldest
son of Governor Pitt, the purchaser of the celebrated Pitt
diamond, the largest then known to be in existence. His
family was of respectable but not illustrious origin, and had
been long settled in Dorsetshire. He was born at West-
minster on the fifteenth of November, 1708 ; was educated
at Eton ; and was matriculated of Trinity College, Oxford, in
January, 1726. The frequent and painful attacks of an here-
ditary gout which assailed him in his boyhood, and from
which he suffered acutely during the whole of his life, pre-
vented him from so applying himself to study as to acquire
any distinguished academical honours. The abundant leisure,
however, which the frequent confinements occasioned by his
malady afforded him, was not neglected. He perused with

VII. U

290 WILLIAM PITT,

all the ardour of a congenial spirit the productions of the
orators and historians of Greece and Rome, and imbibed from
them that lofty and impassioned tone which first served to
distinguish him in the British senate.

After making the tour of France and part of Italy, he re-
turned to England, and the scantiness of his paternal fortune
making it incumbent upon him to choose some professional
pursuit, a cornetcy in the Blues was purchased for him.

In 1735 he was returned to Parliament for the borough of
Old Sarum, which had been represented by his father and
grandfather, and by this accident, or rather, as we may,
without superstition, believe, by one of those arrangements
which allot to human beings the posts in which they can
most usefully exert the talents that have been bestowed upon
them, he entered upon the career in which of all others he
was most fitted to shine. The House of Commons was then
under the management of Sir Robert Walpole, who had been
too long used to the exercise of power to brook opposition
where he thought he had the strength to crush it. Mr. Pitt
having joined the ranks of opposition, was marked by the
minister as an object of his vengeance, while the ability and
talent which the young member had displayed hastened the
blow. In accordance with the spirit of those times, when an
opposition to the measures of government on the part of a
military officer was looked upon as a species of insubordina-
tion, if not mutiny, Mr. Pitt was dismissed from his Majesty's
service. The other engines by which Walpole maintained
his influence were set at work to effect his object of humbling,
and, as he perhaps hoped, of silencing an opponent, the sin
of whose intractability was increased by his youth and the
boldness with which he had avowed his opinions. In pro-
portion as he was decried by one party, he became the idol
of the other, and by these means, aided by the fierce indigna-
tion to which he had been roused by his undeserved persecu-
tion, he gained the first portion of that popular applause
the love of which was the infatuation that beset his whole

FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM. 291

political life. The misunderstanding between the Prince of
Wales and his father George the Second, which had been long
smothered, burst out in the year 1737 into an open and scanda-
lous breach, and on some of the officers of the Prince's house-
hold throwing up their places, they were filled by the more
distinguished members of the opposition. In this change,
several of Mr. Pitt's friends openly proclaimed themselves
the adherents of the heir-apparent, and Mr. Pitt accepted the
post of His Royal Highness's Groom of the Bedchamber.

From this moment, if not at an earlier period, he must be
looked upon as having committed himself entirely to the
stormy sea of politics. Diligent and earnest in his attendance
at the House of Commons, he frequently distinguished him-
self in the debates, and displayed a firmness of purpose as
well as a facility of speech and readiness of reply which
made him equally serviceable to the cause of which he was
the adherent, and formidable to those who had provoked his
enmity. In 1738, the position of this country with respect
to Spain excited the liveliest interest. A convention had
been entered into of which the preliminaries were definitively
signed in the beginning of 1739. Against this treaty the
warmest opposition was directed, and among the most vehe-
ment supporters of that opposition was Mr. Pitt. The
versions of such of his speeches during this period as remain
can only be received as representations of the general effect
of what they were intended to convey. The greater part of
them were written by Dr. Johnson for a periodical publica-
tion of the time, and bear marks of his peculiar style. Still
it is unquestionable that the future statesman had established
a reputation for eloquence which no man of his years had
previously gained in Parliament, and he had at the same
time, .by his intrepid denunciation of measures which he
thought objectionable on the part of the government, or inju-
rious to the interests of the nation, gained a large party
among those classes of the community in which public
opinion is always most loudly uttered.
u2

292 WILLIAM PITT,

The parliamentary session of 1741 convinced Walpole
that it was impossible for him much longer to withstand the
general dissatisfaction he had excited. In the Parliament
which ensued, his defeat upon several occasions rendered this
still more evident. He resigned — a new administration was
formed, the constitution of which being repugnant to the
principles of which he approved, Mr. Pitt continued with
untiring energy to oppose their measures. A substantial
testimony of approbation of his public conduct was rendered
about this time by an individual who, with no mean powers
of judgment, had been long a close observer of the political
affairs of this country — Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, who
in 1744 bequeathed to him a legacy of .£10,000, "upon
account of his merit in the noble defence he had made for
the support of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin
of his country."

The exertions which had ensured to him so large a share
of the public approbation had, however, operated with a
directly contrary effect upon the sources from which office
and advancement flow. His strenuous opposition to the
measures by which England was made to bear a burthensome
share in continental warfare, for the sake of the King's
favourite possession, Hanover, had so exasperated George the
Second, that he unhesitatingly expressed his dislike of him,
and refused to admit him into any share of the administra-
tion; nor was it until February, 1746, when ministers
resorted to the hazardous expedient of a general resignation,
that his Majesty's determination could be shaken. Then it
was, and under the pressure of the embarrassment into which
the conduct of his advisers had cast him, that he bestowed
upon Mr. Pitt the office of Vice-treasurer of Ireland, and in
the May following that of Paymaster-General.

The possession of office worked no change in Mr. Pitt's
public conduct. While he used the authority with which
he was now invested to give effect to the principles he had
ever advocated, his uncompromising hatred of all that was

FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM. 293

unjust or base betrayed him into such a haughtiness of
demeanour, an error to which his temper was prone, as
estranged many and incensed some of his colleagues, and
added to that spirit of disunion which had long pervaded the
cabinet, The King's dislike of him, which the Monarch
hardly took the pains to conceal, wounded his pride ; and the
conviction that it was permitted, if not fomented, by the
Duke of Newcastle, exasperated Mr. Pitt to that degree, that
he was not unwilling to find an opportunity for quitting a
ministry, the head of which he cordially detested and had
almost openly insulted. During the sessions of 1753 and
1754, he took the least possible share in the debates in
Parliament, and in that of 1755, his opposition to a subsidiary
treaty which the King had concluded with Russia, and by
which that power was to receive a large sum of money from
Great Britain for providing a force for the general defence,
brought about his dismissal from office.

The measures of the new administration were not of a
nature calculated to endure the severe inspection and vigorous
opposition which Mr. Pitt now openly carried on against
them. ^ The war had been unsuccessful ; and the disgrace
and loss to which the nation's honour and interests had been
exposed, drew down the loudest animadversions on the
government, whose internal discords wholly incapacitated
them from encountering the storm they had raised. A sense
of their danger led them to listen to the general wish, that
Mr. Pitt should be called upon to repair the consequences of
their feeble counsels, and in October, 1756, the Duke of
Newcastle, humbled and discomfited, made overtures to him
to join the ministry, and assured him of that which they both
knew was untrue, that the King would be well pleased to
have him in his service. Mr. Pitt answered shortly, that he
would accept of no office under the Duke. Upon this explicit
refusal being communicated to the King, he authorized the
Duke of Devonshire to offer to Mr. Pitt the formation of
a new administration on his own terms, with the single

294 WILLIAM PITT,

condition, that Mr. Fox should be retained in it ; and this
offer also Mr. Pitt declined to accept. He was then asked to
name his conditions, and having done so, they were imme-
diately accepted ; and in November, 1756, he entered upon
the management of the public business as principal Secretary
of State.

The plans of the new administration were better calculated
to satisfy the public opinion which had been instrumental in
its formation, than the particular views of the Monarch, who
had been compelled to resort to it against his inclination.
Mr. Pitt was not less willing than the King himself to enter
vigorously upon the prosecution of a war with France ; but
they differed equally in their notions of the manner in which
it should be conducted, and respecting the end to which it
should subserve. Mr. Pitt's policy was to humble the power
of France, whose continental encroachments he had long
observed with the utmost jealousy, and to secure the pros-
perity of England by maintaining a due balance of power in
the European states-, but he was inflexibly resolved not to
sanction the enormous sacrifices which the King was willing
to make for the mere protection of Hanover. An army had
been prepared to act under the command of the Duke of
Cumberland, in Germany, and a supply of money being
demanded for this service, with which Mr. Pitt and his
colleague, Mr. Legge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
explicitly refused to comply, they were, in April, 1757,
ordered to resign their offices. The Duke of Cumberland set
out upon his ill-omened expedition, which in less than half
a year terminated in the disgraceful capitulation of Kloster-
Seven.

No similar event had at any period of English history
produced so powerful a sensation upon the public mind as
the dismissal of Mr. Pitt. Addresses of thanks were tendered
to him from all quarters, and the freedoms of the principal
corporations of the kingdom were unanimously voted to him
in the most flattering terms. Those persons even who had

FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM. 295

been opposed to him and his measures looked with dismay at
the consequences of his being withdrawn from the public
service under such circumstances as had accompanied his
dismissal, and at a time when his knowledge and promptitude
of action rendered his assistance more than ever indispensable.
The Duke of Newcastle was among the first to implore the
King to recall him. The Monarch complied, with a reluc-
tance which the exigency of the juncture made deeply painful
and humiliating, and in June, 1757, Mr. Pitt again took office,
not only without the recommendation of any of those power-
ful connections which commonly lead to such distinction, but
directly against the wish of the King, whose counsels he was
called upon to direct. He owed his elevation solely to the
general belief that the nation was cast into a state of difficulty
and danger, from which he was, of all public men, if not the
only one, the most capable of extricating it. Again he had
the formation of the ministry ; but grown wiser from expe-
rience, he now included in it the Duke of Newcastle, whose
influence in the House of Commons he had found was useful,
if not necessary, for carrying on the public business.

The task which lay before him was a most arduous one.
The King's obstinate prejudices and the ill-conceived opera-
tions of those ministers who had too readily favoured them,
had involved the nation in difficulties from which it required
the utmost energy and activity to rescue it. Mr. Pitt entered
upon his office with vigour and determination ; but his first
measures were so unsuccessful, that they would have dis-
couraged a less constant spirit than his. A marine expedi-
tion, which he had directed against Rochefort, returned
without having effected its object. In America, the French
arms were decidedly victorious ; while the condition of the
King of Prussia, pressed on every side, excited reasonable
alarms that the British interests on the Continent must yield
to the predominance of the same hostile powers. It was to
avert this danger that Mr. Pitt's most earnest efforts had been
at all times directed, and he now saw that, by supporting

296 WILLIAM PITT,

Frederic of Prussia, he should be able to accomplish the
object for which he had always so strenuously laboured, and
to carry into effect his plan, which was contained in the
prophetic expression, that " America must be conquered in
Germany," the truth of which was afterwards so clearly
evinced. The affairs of the country soon resumed a more
promising aspect ; and the signal victory obtained by Frederic,
at the battle of Rosbach, over the French and Austrian
armies, afforded an opportunity by which England was
enabled, at a comparatively small charge, to maintain her
own continental possessions, and to keep in effectual check
her most formidable enemy. This event at once convinced
George the Second of the profoundness and accuracy of his
minister's views and won from him that confidence which he
had been tardy in bestowing, but which he never afterwards
withdrew. The punctuality, the talent, and the inflexible
probity of Mr. Pitt in the discharge of his duty as a public
servant, had mainly contributed to bring about this fortunate
aspect of affairs. To trace the events of the seven years'
war which continued during this pail of Mr. Pitt's adminis-
tration would here be superfluous ; but it may with indisput-
able truth be stated, that in every quarter of the globe the
British arms were triumphant, and that while they ensured
the respect of all foreign nations, the same spirit which had
produced that result had been equally fortunate in bringing
the domestic and internal concerns of the empire to a flourish-
ing and prosperous state.

The death of George the Second put an end to all the
happy prospects which had begun to dawn upon the country.
The influence of Lord Bute — more fatal and pernicious from
the secrecy with which it was often exercised — began to
shed itself over the public councils. France, humbled and
weakened by the war to the last degree, had proposed to
enter upon a treaty ; and the negociations had been begun,
but proceeded tardily, when Mr. Pitt received from Lord
Marischal, the King of Prussia's minister at Madrid, infor-

FIBST EARL OF CHATHAM. 297

mation which convinced him of the dishonesty of the French
Cabinet, and of an intended treachery on the part of the
Spanish government. Acting upon the knowledge he had
thus obtained, he proposed an immediate attack upon Spain
by intercepting the supplies of specie then on their way from
America, and for the receipt of which she was waiting only
to make public the arrangement that had been entered into.
The reception which this proposition met with in the council
convinced him of the impracticability of attempting to carry
on the government with such colleagues as the cabinet was
now composed of. He urged the measure with all the force
of his eloquence, and all his powers of reasoning, but in
vain ; Lord Bute openly opposed it, and many of the other
ministers thought so important a measure required great
deliberation. At a time when moments were of the utmost
importance to the success of the measure, to deliberate was
to reject it. Mr. Pitt and Lord Temple gave their advice to
the King in writing to recall the English minister from
Madrid ; and this advice being rejected, they resigned on the
5th of October, 1761. Three months afterwards, the English
cabinet declared war against Spain, when the opportunity of
doing so with effect had passed away ; when the gross and
repeated insults of the court of Spain had left them no
alternative, and had deprived them of the credit as well
as advantage which would have been gained by adopting
Mr. Pitt's advice.

Mr. Pitt's resignation was accepted by the King, not
without regret, as his Majesty said, although this expression
was unaccompanied by any desire that he should continue in
office. The interview which took place on this occasion
between the King and the minister is said to have been
creditable to the feelings of both. His Majesty, acknow-
ledging the services which the latter had rendered to his
country, requested him to name any recompense it was in
the power of the Crown to grant; and Mr. Pitt, whose
emotion at first prevented him from replying, having

298 WILLIAM PITT,

expressed a desire that his wife should be raised to the
peerage, His Majesty directed a warrant to be prepared for
creating her Baroness of Chatham, with a limitation of the
title to her heirs male: and added to it the grant of a
pension of ,£3000 per annum to Mr. Pitt for his own life,
that of his lady, and of their eldest son. Although such
a reward will not now be considered to have exceeded the
merits in respect of which it was bestowed, it exposed
Mr. Pitt at the time to the rancorous abuse of the hirelings
of the party by which he had been defeated ; while the
public applause, and the satisfaction of his own conscience,
were at least enough to console him for the undeserved
charges of apostacy and desertion which were plentifully
brought against him.

The war was carried on with indifferent success until the
latter part of 1762, when on the meeting of Parliament
in November, the terms of a treaty of peace with France
and Spain were submitted to the House. Mr. Pitt, though
suffering from so acute an attack of gout that he was unable
to stand, opposed the preliminaries, on the ground that they
fell short of what the country had a right to demand. His
illness compelled him to close his address, one of the most
powerful and elaborate he ever delivered in parliament,
before he had exhausted the subject on which he was
speaking, and to leave the House before the division.

From this period, as often as his health permitted, he took
part in the debates of the House of Commons, maintaining
upon all occasions that consistency of opinion for which he
was most remarkable, and which was never shaken. The
death of Lord Egremont, in August, 1763, opened the way
to a negotiation for his again assuming office, and having
consented to some treaty with Lord Bute, he had an interview
with the King, by his Majesty's command, in which his
advice for the formation of an administration, of which he
was to be the head, was tendered by him, and received by
the King with unequivocal marks of approbation. This

FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM. 299

interview was followed by another a few days afterwards, in
which Mr. Pitt found that the secret influence which he had
often before experienced had been exerted, and that whatever
might at first have induced the King to request his advice, he
had since determined not to adopt it. The causes by which
this change of intention had been effected remain as deeply
secret as many other state intrigues ; but the King's behaviour
on the occasion induced Mr. Pitt to say, that his Majesty
was the greatest courtier of his court.

The parliamentary proceedings of 1763 were rendered
memorable by the debates on the question of privilege raised
by Mr. Wilkes's publication of a celebrated number of the
North Briton. Mr. Pitt on this occasion made an admirable
speech, in which he condemned in terms of the bitterest
censure and scorn the scandalous libels of Wilkes, which he
called illiberal, unmanly, and detestable ; but at the same
time he insisted that, while the courts of justice possessed
the power to punish such an offender, the House sacrificed
its own honour and safety, and the interests of the people,
by undertaking to pronounce a sentence upon him. In the
ensuing session, he supported with great ability the motion
for declaring general warrants illegal. Although these efforts
had no more fortunate results than commonly attend the
labours of the opposition against such a government as then
existed, the fame which he had acquired in the country was
by no means diminished by his want of success. His name
was constantly referred to as a patriot whose ability and
virtue all men recognized. Flattering marks of the estima-
tion in which he was held, even by persons who knew him
only as a public man, were frequently bestowed upon him,
the most remarkable of which was, a bequest made to him
by Sir William Pynsent, of Burton Pynsent, in Somerset-
shire, of an estate of nearly .£3000 per annum.

In 1765 the utter inefficiency of the existing ministry was
so sensibly felt that Lord Bute, whose influence with the
Monarch was at this time paramount, prevailed upon him to

300 WILLIAM PITT,

authorise overtures being made by the Duke of Cumberland,
first to Lord Temple, and afterwards to Mr. Pitt, for their
joining the administration. A stipulation was however pro-
posed by the Duke, that the Earl of Northumberland should
be at the head of the Treasury, to which Mr. Pitt not agree-
ing, the negociation broke off. In the same year the King
himself attempted that which his uncle had failed to effect,
but with no better success ; and at length a new ministry
was formed, of which the Duke of Newcastle and the Mar-
quis of Rockingham were the chiefs.

The ensuing Parliament introduced a subject of deep
moment, and fraught with consequences to which it is im-
possible now to look back without sincere regret. The
quarrel between England and America had commenced,
which afterwards terminated so disastrously. Mr. Pitt
exerted himself strenuously, but unsuccessfully, to lay down
the principles upon which England had a right to exercise
authority over her flourishing colony, and the limits by which
that authority ought to be circumscribed.

In 1766 it became apparent that Lord Rockingham was
unable to carry on the administration, and through Lord
Northington, then Lord Chanceller, Mr. Pitt was applied to,
and, after some negociation, received full powers to form an
administration. His conduct upon this occasion displayed
less sagacity than almost any event of his public life. The
first step which he made was one of ill omen, for he quar-
relled with his early and fast friend Lord Temple, who
thought he was disposed to arrogate to himself a greater
share of authority than he had a right to possess. Some of his
appointments were bestowed upon men who were unqualified
by their talents, and of whose fidelity and co-operation he had
no reason to be assured ; while many of his friends, and many
more whom he might have made his friends, were chagrined
and disgusted by the unconciliating and even haughty man-
ner in which he gave or offered them places. Having chosen
for himself the office of Privy Seal, he was created a peer

FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM. 301

in July, 1766, by the title of Viscount Pitt, of Burton Pyn-
sent, in the county of Somerset, and Earl of Chatham, in
Kent. His administration was marked by no portion of
that success which had made his former possession of power
advantageous to the country and glorious to himself. The
increasing infirmities which had grown upon him with
years incapacitated him for very active exertions; while
the conviction that he could neither rely with certainty on
the approbation of the Monarch, nor on the support of his
colleagues, disinclined him from making the efforts of which
he was still capable. The determination which had been
evinced to adopt a course towards America the very reverse
of that he had counselled, soon left him no choice but to quit
an office which he could no longer hold with comfort or credit
to himself ; and on the appointment of Lord Hillsborough,
in the latter part of 1768, to the post of Secretary of State
for the Colonies, he sent the privy seal to the King by Lord
Camden.

The opening of Parliament in 1770 found him once more in
the list of the opposition ; and here a great portion of that
energy which had marked his earlier efforts seemed again to
raise him above the effects of the old age which had come
upon him, and the constant illness which made his years
doubly burthensome. He opposed the right of the House of
Commons to expel Mr. Wilkes after his re-election with
great power, and with eloquence which would have graced
a better cause. From this period until 1774 he appeared
but little in Parliament ; the quarrel with America had then
assumed a more serious aspect, and he again raised his
warning voice in the hope of preventing the disasters which
he saw must ensue if some conciliatory measures were not
adopted. His advice was unheeded; and a bill which he
submitted to the House in the following year for quieting the
troubles in America was at once rejected. Not discouraged
by their ill-success, he continued his exertions upon this
subject, and when, in 1777, the Duke of Grafton resigned

302 WILLIAM PITT,

his office of Lord Privy Seal, because he could not conscien-
tiously support the measures in contemplation against that
colony, Lord Chatham moved an address to the King for
putting a stop to hostilities. He pointed out to the govern-
ment that France and Spain were watching to take advan-
tage of the errors committed by the English government.
His fears were treated as visionary and groundless ; but soon
after his motion was negatived, the justice of his views was
manifested by the treaty which the court of Versailles
entered into with the revolted colonies.

To this subject every subsequent effort of his life was
directed, and it was ended in the support of that cause in
which he believed his country's welfare was most deeply
concerned. Worn out by bodily pain and mental anxiety,
he appeared on the 7th of April, 1778, in the House of
Lords, when a motion was made by the Duke of Richmond
for an address on the state of the nation, in which the
necessity of admitting the independence of America was
suggested. Although he had counselled with sincerity and
indefatigable perseverance the adoption of such measures as
were just on the part of this country towards the colony,
the idea of yielding up the sovereignty of America was too
painful and humiliating to be endured by him whose best
energies had been spent in the endeavour to uphold the
glory of the nation and to defeat her enemies. He conjured
the House to do any thing rather than encounter the disgrace
of the measure proposed by the address, and at least to
make one becoming effort, so that if they should fall, they
would fall like men. His suffering here compelled him to
sit down ; and Lord Temple, with whom he had then for
some years been reconciled, reminded him that he had not
submitted to the House that plan of pacification which they
had discussed in conversation. He replied that he would
do it by and by. At a later period of the evening he
attempted to rise again, but after two or three ineffectual
efforts to stand, he fainted and fell down on his seat. The

FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM. 303

hand of death was upon him. The House was cleared,
medical assistance procured, and after a short time he was
conveyed to his seat at Hayes, where he lingered until the
llth of May following, when he expired.

Lord Chatham was married in 1754 to Hesther, only
daughter of Richard Grenville, Esquire, and sister to Lord
Temple, who has been before mentioned. At his death he
left three sons, John, who succeeded him ; William, who
with better fortune achieved a reputation not less glorious
than his father's ; and Charles, who died unmarried at
Barbadoes, in 1780. His Lordship left also two daughters,
of whom Lady Hesther was married, in 1774, to Earl
Stanhope ; and Lady Harriot, who in 1785 married the Hon.
Edward James Eliot, eldest son of the first Lord Eliot.

His death having extinguished all party feeling, both
Houses of Parliament testified in the warmest terms the
respect they bore to his unstained virtues and rare talents.
A public funeral, and a monument in Westminster Abbey,
were decreed to him ; and a grant of an annuity of «£400Q
to his eldest son and his heirs-male, Earls of Chatham, with
the sum of .£'20,000 for the payment of his debts, were
unanimously voted by Parliament, and sanctioned by the
King.

His reputation as a statesman will ever rank him among
the greatest men in whom England glories. The principles
of the politics which he advocated may be concisely stated.
An ardent lover of freedom, he vindicated, on all occasions,
the liberty of the subject, and the free institutions of the
country ; and although he coveted power, and spent his life
in honest endeavours to attain it, his labours were neither
for the purpose of enriching himself nor his friends, but for
the advancement of the honour and prosperity of the nation,
and for the humiliation and destruction of its foes. Nature,
who had bestowed upon him that fluent eloquence which
qualified him better than any of his contemporaries for the
station he filled, had gifted him with a temperament that

304 WILLIAM PITT, FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM.

added all the force of true feeling and lofty passion to the
expression of his opinions, and commanded the respect and
attention of all who heard him. His features were of a
noble and highly intellectual character, and his eagle eye
gave irresistible power and animation to them. His voice,
powerful, and of a commanding tone at all times, is said to
have assumed an almost terrific sound when he uttered those
torrents of indignant censure, or withering sarcasm, which
the conduct of his antagonists sometimes provoked. In
private life he was gentle and amiable ; punctual in the
discharge of all social offices ; but strict only to himself, he
was indulgent and considerate to others. In the fulfilment
of his public duties, his application was intensely laborious,
and his probity without the slightest blemish or imputa-
tion ; but these estimable qualities were accompanied by a
haughtiness of manner, an impatience of contradiction, and
a love of domination, which, although they could not deprive
him of the admiration due to his character and conduct, pre-
vented him from gaining as many friends as his virtues and
his station would otherwise have surrounded him with. The
only excuse that can be offered for the faults which it was
his lot to bear is expressed in the estimate given of him by
Frederic of Prussia, one of the most sharp-sighted observers
of the characters of men in his own times. Speaking of
Lord Chatham, the Monarch says. " II avait I'ame elevee,
et 1'esprit capable de grands projets. Doue d'une fermete
inflexible, il ne renoncait pas a ses opinions, parce qu'il les
croyait avantageuses a sa patrie, qui etait son idole."

LODGE, EDMUND.

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Portraits of illustrious .L6
personages, vol. 7 v.7

LODGE, EDMUND.

Portraits of illustrious
personages, vol. 7

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