YELVERTON, Talbot (1690-1731)

During Longueville’s minority his education was entrusted to his mother and her Talbot relatives, and in the winter of 1706–7 his distant cousin Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury, undertook to find a suitable tutor for the young viscount on his forthcoming grand tour. Eg. 1695, ff. 25, 27-29, 34. An unusually scholarly young man, when Longueville visited the duchess of Shrewsbury at Heythrop in the summer of 1707 he was said to have been ‘so intent on his studies that he would not be prevailed with to stay one night’. Ibid. f. 37. He was also engaged politically. Prior to his travels, he was one of almost 40 notables to attend the election meeting at Northampton in August 1708, possibly in company with his neighbour George Compton, 4th earl of Northampton, whose lands adjoined his own. Northants. RO, Isham mss, IL 5275, diary of Justinian Isham, 9 Aug. 1708; J. Bridges, Northants. ii. 164. The following year Longueville departed for Italy. Add. 4819C, ff. 48–49. There, despite Shrewsbury’s efforts, he suffered continual problems with an unsuitable tutor. Left to ‘govern himself’, he was reported to be travelling back from Rome in August 1711 ‘with a wounded heart, as you know all young men do that that have been long in a place’. Eg. 1695, ff. 47–49; HMC Portland, v. 70.

Longueville returned to England at some point before February 1712, when he was reported as being present at a meeting hosted by Charles Montagu, Baron (later earl of) Halifax, at which were also Robert Harley, earl of Oxford (with whom he was already acquainted), William Henry Bentinck, 2nd earl (later duke) of Portland, Charles Seymour, 6th duke of Somerset, Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, Henry Grey, duke of Kent, Hugh Cholmondeley, earl of Cholmondeley, and Heneage Finch, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford). HMC Portland, v. 70; Staffs. RO, D(W) 1778/v/151. In April he attempted to use his interest on behalf of a neighbour, John Chapman, who had been found in contempt of the ecclesiastical court. Bodl. Tanner 305, f. 215. Although he was associated at this time with the Oxford administration (no doubt through his connection with Shrewsbury), in June Longueville was listed as a doubtful court supporter. He finally took his seat in the House in February 1713 and then proceeded to attend on five further prorogation days prior to the opening of the new session. In March he was listed among those peers thought likely to support the ministry. Longueville took his seat at the opening of the new session on 9 Apr., following which he was present on approximately 83 per cent of all sitting days. His loyalty to the ministry soon proved to be fragile. In May he was listed as one of those to be contacted about the French treaty of commerce, only for Oxford to estimate him as likely to oppose the eighth and ninth articles of the treaty the following month.

In October 1713 Longueville appears to have rejected Shrewsbury’s offer of his interest to acquire him a position at court. Eg. 1695, f. 51. By the following year he appears to have distanced himself from the ministry still further. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 16 Feb. 1714, after which he was present on almost 74 per cent of all sitting days. In March he voted against the government for the first time by supporting Guernsey’s attempt to amend the proclamation offering a reward for the discovery of the author of (Jonathan Swift’s) The Public Spirit of the Whigs. Wentworth Pprs. 360. Voting with Longueville in this division was his cousin Kent, and the two continued to associate closely for the remainder of Longueville’s life. In May Longueville featured on one of Oxford’s memoranda, perhaps indicating a continuing effort to persuade him to support the ministry. Add. 70331, memorandum, 7 May 1714. The same month he was forecast by Nottingham as being likely to oppose the Schism bill and on 15 June he entered his protest at the resolution to pass the measure. Kent registered his proxy in Longueville’s favour on 24 June and the same day Longueville was also entrusted with that of his Northamptonshire neighbour Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland: a clear indication of where Longueville’s loyalties now lay. Both proxies, presumably registered to cover the peers’ absence from the House on the day of the composition of the Lords’ address to the queen (though no division was held), were vacated the following day (25 June). Longueville registered his own proxy with Kent on 2 July, which was vacated by the close of the session.

Longueville took his seat shortly after the opening of the new session on 3 Aug. 1714 and sat for a little over half of the brief final session of the reign of Queen Anne. He attended one day in September and was then active following the dissolution in the elections for Northamptonshire in the Whig interest. Having been encouraged to stand ‘for the sake of preserving peace and good neighbourhood’, the Tory Sir Justinian Isham^‡ appealed to his son to wait on Longueville and other of the county’s peers to seek their support, but he bemoaned Longueville’s ‘betrayal’ when it became apparent that the latter intended to employ his interest on behalf of Isham’s opponent. Isham reassured himself that Longueville’s influence in the county was small and his confidence was proved well founded by his re-election. Northants. RO, IC 1803, Sir J. to J. Isham, 15 Sept. 1714; E.G. Forrester, Northamptonshire County Elections and Electioneering, 37; HP Commons, 1690–1715, iv. 475.

Longueville returned to the House on 17 Mar. 1715 for George I’s opening Parliament. He prospered under the new regime. In 1715 he was appointed master of the horse to the princess of Wales and two years later he was promoted in the peerage as earl of Sussex. Wentworth Pprs. 436. In 1725 he was made a knight of the Bath at the revival of the order and was admitted deputy earl marshal, officiating as earl marshal at the coronation of George II in 1727. Add. 35585, f. 12. The same year he was one of the six peers to support the pall at the funeral of Sir Isaac Newton^‡. Bodl. Rawl. letters 11, f. 121. Details of the latter part of his career will be considered fully in the next part of this work.

Sussex married in 1726 but the marriage, reportedly an extremely happy one, was brief; Lady Sussex died in childbirth in 1730. Although still described as being ‘well’ in November of that year, Sussex’s own health deteriorated soon after and he died at Bath in October 1731 aged 41, ‘a martyr to … the unfashionable love of his wife’. Add. 33085, f. 463. His fidelity earned him a fulsome tribute from John Boyle^†, 2nd Baron Boyle (5th earl of Cork [I]), who proclaimed, ‘Poor Lord Sussex … Such a man, in such an age, would be sainted in any other church but ours.’ HMC Dartmouth, i. 327. In his will, Sussex named his cousin Grey Longueville and his brother-in-law, Thomas Pelham, as executors. He bequeathed the sum of £2,000 to his younger son, Henry Yelverton, and was succeeded in the earldom by his elder son, George Augustus Yelverton^†, aged just four.