Leominster succeeded to the peerage while underage, though this did not prevent Sir Thomas Cave‡ from appealing to him to ‘take care of his side’ in the forthcoming elections in Buckinghamshire in the summer of 1713. Verney ms mic. M636/55, Sir T. Cave to Fermanagh, 30 Aug. 1713. He seems early on to have tended towards the Jacobites but a trip to Hanover was thought to have persuaded him ‘to have nothing more to say to them and never to believe what they said more’. Cheshire ALS, Cholmondeley mss, DCH/X/5. His conversion resulted in several marks of favour. He was promoted in the peerage under George I and was awarded significant household and local office under George II. His career will be considered more fully in the second part of this work.
