Grey succeeded to the earldom shortly before his sixth birthday. His father had supported Parliament in the early stages of the Civil War and had acted as Speaker of the House of Lords in 1645 and again between 1647 and the abolition of the House in 1649, but he opposed the trial and execution of Charles I in 1649. Despite his parliamentarian political heritage the 11th earl’s marriage at the age of 17 to Mary Lucas suggests that his own sympathies (or perhaps those of his trustees) were very different. The Lucas family had been prominent supporters of the king and Mary Lucas’s uncle, executed by the parliamentarians after the siege of Colchester, was regarded as a royalist martyr. For the early part of his career, Kent appears to have followed his father-in-law’s lead fairly closely. Although described by Complete Peerage as a Tory, Kent, like Lucas, was associated with the ‘country’ opposition to the government during the latter part of Charles II’s reign. It was only after the fall of James II that his activities in Parliament became more obviously aligned with the Tories.
Kent’s marriage was certainly advantageous: Mary’s wealthy father appears to have settled his estates, which included lands in Northamptonshire and Wiltshire, so that they would descend to his only child rather than pass with his title to his direct male heirs. Kent was thus able to join these estates to his own in Herefordshire, where he exercised considerable political interest, and in Bedfordshire, where his principal seat was located.
Kent may have possessed a title of considerable antiquity, but he was nevertheless comparatively impoverished. His grandfather, the 9th earl, was an elderly clergyman when he inherited the title in 1639. He represented a cadet branch of the family, and was said to be worth only £500 a year. A contemporary commented that he had ‘divers daughters, some married to farmers, and some to mercers, who will be much troubled to know how to carry themselves like ladies.’
Although a peer of first creation, Lord Lucas was proud of his family and, perhaps in the knowledge that his name and title were likely to die out, ensured that they would be preserved through his daughter. Shortly after her marriage she was given a title in her own right as Baroness Lucas of Crudwell. The letters patent contained an unusual remainder ensuring that the title should never fall into abeyance. Since Kent was a minor at the time of his marriage, a private act of Parliament was required to authorize the couple’s marriage settlement. This was steered through the Lords by Lucas and through the Commons by his brother-in-law, Sir Edmund Pye‡. The act included additional clauses ratifying and confirming the special remainder for the barony of Lucas of Crudwell.
In 1665, in company with his father-in-law, Lord Lucas, and several other noblemen, Kent greeted James, duke of York, on his progress through the Midlands.
Kent attended one day of the brief adjourned session of July 1667 before taking his seat once more one day into the new October session. Although his attendance remained high for the first part of the session, he failed to attend after March 1668 (he had been granted leave of absence for a few days on 26 Mar.) and was consequently present overall on just 38 per cent of the whole. On 26 Oct. he was noted one of those present at a meeting of the committee concerning Scots trade.
Lucas’s death in the summer of 1671 presented Kent and his countess with the prospect of a significant boost to their interest as she came into possession of, according to Sir Ralph Verney‡, ‘all his land and all his money’.
Kent was one of the peers nominated to try Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, in June 1676. In common with the majority he found Cornwallis not guilty.
Besides his interest in the great national disputes of that session, Kent also took the opportunity to promote the cause which had already been raised by his late father-in-law some years earlier. Conscious of the dignity due to his family and their ancient nobility, on the death of Baroness Grey of Ruthin in February 1677, Kent readied himself to prevent her (underage) son from claiming that title. The barony of Grey of Ruthin had previously been held by the earls of Kent but had devolved on the heir general following the death without direct heirs of Henry Grey†, 8th earl of Kent. In March Kent objected to the roll of peers, thereby ensuring a saving of his right to the title of de Grey despite the assumption of the peerage of Grey of Ruthin by Charles Yelverton, in right of his mother. At the same time he proposed a clause to the bill for religion in order to ensure that clergymen should be subject to the Test.
Kent took his seat once more on 23 May 1678, after which he was present on just under three-quarters of all sitting days. Following the brief interval between sessions that year, he took his place at the opening of the new session on 21 Oct. and was again assiduous in his attendance, being present on 85 per cent of the whole. On 15 Nov. he voted in favour of putting the declaration against transubstantiation under the same penalty as the oaths. On 20 Dec. he subscribed two protests against agreeing to amendments to the bill for disbanding the army and on 26 Dec. voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendments to that bill and protested when the resolution in favour of insistence was carried. Then, on 27 Dec., he voted in favour of the committal of Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds).
Kent attended six days of the abortive March session of the new Parliament before taking his seat once more at the opening of the Exclusion Parliament on 15 March. He was thereafter present on 97 per cent of all sitting days. In March and April 1679 he was consistently listed as an opponent of Danby, and voted in favour of the bill of attainder against him. On 2 May his decision to protest over the loss of an amendment to the bill to remove popish inhabitants from London and Westminster provides an insight into his sympathy for dissenters and hatred of Catholics. He also supported moves to try the five lords impeached as a result of allegations about their involvement in the Popish Plot, and on 13 and 27 May opposed the resolution that permitted the bishops to be present during the trial of capital cases.
The dissolution in no way diminished his active prosecution of the cause of the plot. In November he accompanied Shaftesbury, William Howard, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, James Brydges, 3rd Baron Chandos, Charles North, 5th Baron North and Grey, Ford Grey, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke (later earl of Tankerville), Theophilus Hastings, 7th earl of Huntingdon, and Henry Herbert, 4th Baron Herbert of Chirbury, to the trial of Knox and Lane in what was effectively a statement of confidence in Titus Oates’s credibility. William Denton noted that Oates, bolstered by such support, came off ‘with flying colours’.
The same group of peers formed a weekly dining club at the Swan in Fish Street to plan for a mass petitioning movement to demand that Parliament be recalled. On 4 Dec. 1679 Kent was one of a similar group of around ten peers, of whom Shaftesbury was another, dining with the lord mayor. Also present was Chief Justice Scroggs, whose role in the Wakeman trial they deplored, and the result was an open and unpleasant quarrel which deteriorated into ‘a great scuffle’.
Kent attended the two prorogation days of 26 Jan. and 15 Apr. 1680 before taking his place once more at the beginning of the new session on 21 October. In November he supported the exclusion bill and the resolution for a committee of both Houses to consider the state of the kingdom. The following month he voted to find William Howard, Viscount Stafford, guilty. On 7 Jan. 1681 he supported the impeachment of Scroggs.
Kent was one of 16 peers to subscribe a petition to the king requesting that the ensuing Parliament meet at Westminster as usual and not in Oxford.
Although he was not named as one of the Rye House conspirators, Kent may have felt uncomfortably close to them. Shortly after the discovery of the plot, he was reported to have been at court and to have kissed the hands of the king and York in company with Charles Gerard, earl of Macclesfield, and James Howard, 3rd earl of Suffolk.
Kent took the opportunity provided by the ceremonial of the new reign to renew his pretensions to the title of Grey of Ruthin and also to press for the right to bear the spurs at the coronation. Kent was granted the latter, a success that John Fell, bishop of Oxford, a friend of the Yelverton family, hoped might satisfy him and release pressure on the dispute over the Grey of Ruthin title, now held by Henry Yelverton, later Viscount Longueville.
Kent’s disappointment over the barony of Grey was soon overshadowed by greater national concerns. During 1687 he was consistently listed as an opponent both of the repeal of the Test Acts and of James II’s policies in general, and in the spring of that year it was rumoured that he was to quit the country and travel overseas.
Following the Dutch invasion, Kent joined a number of peers assembling in the council chamber at Whitehall on 12 and 13 Dec. for meetings of the provisional government. After James had fled for the second time, Kent was again to be found in the hastily convened sessions first in the queen’s presence chamber at St James’s and latterly back in the Lords.
As well as matters relating to the House Kent was also the focus of interest in local politics. In the Marcher areas where he possessed an interest a lively campaign was waged over the appointment of a new president of the Council of Wales. Macclesfield ‘vigorously defended’ his claim (in which he was ultimately successful), but it was reported that local interests in Herefordshire favoured a peer with land in the county and were keen to see Kent named to the post.
High politics apart, Kent again had his own reasons for attending Parliament in 1689 since he had an interest in securing a proviso to the Wye and Lugg navigation bill.
In advance of the elections for the new Parliament Kent promised his support in Herefordshire to Sir Edward Harley‡, one of the sitting Members. As early as the opening of the Convention, Harley’s son, Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, had warned his father of developing opposition in the county against which he had hoped Sir Edward would ‘fix the interest’ of Kent and other influential peers in the area. Kent was said to have ‘expressed himself with great kindness and civility’ in his assurances on Harley’s behalf but a meeting of the local freeholders revealed that Kent was eager to ensure that no one would be returned who was sympathetic to the Wye navigation bill. This was not an area in which Kent and Harley saw eye to eye but in the event Harley appears to have been squeezed out by an Anglican backlash represented by the pairing of Sir John Morgan‡ and Sir Herbert Croft‡.
Kent took his place at the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690 and was again present for the opening of the subsequent session on 2 October. He was then absent from the chamber for almost six weeks but ensured that his voice was not lost by giving his proxy to Carmarthen. The proxy was vacated by his return to the House on 17 November. Concerns over the progress over the Wye navigation bill, which had divided opinion in the county, also continued to exercise Kent at this time. He was reported to have reneged on an understanding reached with the Harleys whereby he would accept compensation of £3,000 in return for allowing the measure to proceed. According to Robert Harley, writing on 22 Nov., Kent was no longer willing to compromise and had resolved to obstruct the bill. Kent’s disinclination to support the measure was no doubt in part owing to unwillingness to part with valuable bankside land but also perhaps on account of efforts that he and other Herefordshire magnates had made in the early 1680s to repair and protect the area by developing a causeway for use during winter.
Kent’s stern protestant identity (or perhaps more correctly that of his countess) revealed itself again at this time in his letters to his heir, Henry Grey, styled Lord Ruthyn (later duke of Kent), who was engaged in travel on the continent. While Kent was willing to allow his son to travel through Italy on his way to Germany he forbade him absolutely from taking in Rome, ‘it being (as you very well know) very much against my wife’s inclination and contrary to the promise both you and I made to her at your departure’.
Kent took his place once more at the opening of the new session on 22 Oct. 1691, but proceeded to attend just 22 days (just under 23 per cent of the whole). His attendance for the subsequent session of November 1692 improved markedly with him present on not far short of three-quarters of the whole session (73 per cent). In December he voted for the place bill, but the following month, after an intensive court campaign against its provisions, he was listed as one of the supporters of the bill who had abstained. Kent’s earlier inability (or unwillingness) to secure Sir Edward Harley’s election was echoed by his half-hearted objection to Harley’s candidacy at the by-election triggered by the death of Sir John Morgan in early 1693. The session had witnessed renewed struggles over the Wye navigation bill which had again brought to the fore the differences between Kent and Harley. Kent was also said to have resented Harley’s behaviour towards him because ‘he had met him and did not pull off his hat to him’. By the end of January Harley was informed of the arrival of the writ for the election and that as yet no opposition had been declared by Kent. Harley was accordingly returned unopposed just over a week later.
Kent returned to the House just under a month into the session of November 1693. In 1694 he voted against dismissing the decree of the court of chancery in the notorious case of Montagu v. Bath. His attendance of the final session of the Parliament demonstrated similar half-hearted interest with him present on approximately 42 per cent of the whole.
The October elections raised once again the ongoing tensions in Herefordshire over the Wye navigation. Paul Foley‡ was warned that an interest was being made against his re-election at Hereford stirred up by Henry Gorges‡ and Kent’s steward. In spite of this, Foley was returned unopposed with Gorges leaving the field clear for Sir John Morgan.
Kent took his seat a few days after the opening of the new session of October 1696, which was dominated by the aftermath of the Assassination Plot. The same day he registered his proxy with Leeds (as Carmarthen had since become) which was vacated by his return to the House two days later. In December he consistently opposed the attainder of Sir John Fenwick‡, voting against the passage of the bill on 23 December. On 15 Mar. 1697 he was entrusted with the proxy of Thomas Crew, 2nd Baron Crew (father-in-law of Kent’s heir, Lord Grey).
Kent was again present shortly after the opening of the new session of December 1697. In February 1698 he acted in defence of his privilege when he learned that his bailiff had been arrested.
Kent avoided the opening day of the new Parliament in August 1698 and delayed taking his place until 20 December. He continued to attend 37 per cent of all sitting days. His level attendance remained similar in the subsequent session (35 per cent).
For all his declining attendance of the House Kent appears to have been eager to exercise his interest. In 1699 he approached John Somers, Baron Somers, about appointing Dr. Hickman to the parish of St James’s, understanding that it had been vacated by William Wake, later archbishop of Canterbury, on his advancement to the bishopric of Oxford. Somers demurred, reluctant to promise a post so close to the court without being certain of the king’s approbation.
The new Parliament of 1701 found Kent present once again at its opening. He continued to attend over 60 per cent of its sittings, and in March 1701 he protested against the decision to reject the proposal for a joint address to the crown on the subject of the partition treaty. The following month, on 16 Apr., he supported the Commons attempt to secure the punishment of the impeached lords before trial. He returned to the House at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 December. Present on 55 per cent of all sitting days, he was present for the final day of the session on 25 May which also coincided with his last appearance in the chamber.
Kent died unexpectedly a little over a month after the dissolution while playing bowls at Tunbridge Wells (not, as the Daily Courant reported, at Bath).
Cary Gardiner thought his loss sad but noted that his heir ‘much transcends him in parts’.