LOWTHER, John (1655-1700)

Sir John Lowther of Lowther was the heir of an ancient, prominent and wealthy Westmorland family which had long sent representatives to Parliament. He was effectively raised by his redoubtable grandfather Sir John Lowther^‡, after the death in 1668 of his own father, also named John Lowther. In the space of a few short years in 1675–7 he entered fully into his role as leader of the county. In December 1674 he married his own choice for a bride (as he later claimed), Catherine, daughter of Sir Henry Frederick Thynne and sister of Thomas Thynne, later Viscount Weymouth, with a portion of £5,000, and in November 1675 he inherited his grandfather’s baronetcy and estate of £6,000 p.a. (with an additional £7,000 in cash). Verney ms mic M636/31, Wharton to Sir R. Verney, 11 Feb. 1678. Financially secure, he was in 1675, when still not quite of age, placed on the commission of the peace for Westmorland for the first time, and in February 1678 was made custos rotulorum of the county, an office which he maintained, save for a brief period in 1688, for the rest of his life.

Lowther was clearly destined by virtue of his family and inheritance to represent the county in Parliament, especially as one of the sitting members for Westmorland, Sir Thomas Strickland^‡, was a Catholic recusant disqualified from sitting under the terms of the 1673 Test Act. Nevertheless, presumably by a collusive agreement, Strickland did not vacate the seat until Lowther came of age. Lowther was returned at the by-election in March 1677 and continued to represent Westmorland for every subsequent Parliament (except the second Exclusion Parliament) until he was raised to the peerage in May 1696. He quickly became, in the estimation of Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, a ‘worthy’ member of the Commons and he later opposed the measures of James II both in Parliament and out. John Lowther, Mems of the Reign of James II. His star began to rise after he tried to secure the north-west for William of Orange at the Revolution, though he was beaten to it by his local rivals, Sir Christopher Musgrave^‡ and Sir George Fletcher^‡, who captured the important garrison town of Carlisle on 15 Dec. 1688. Eg. 3336, ff. 18–19, 36–37, 48–51, 114; Cumb. RO, D/Lons/L1/1/34/20–27; HMC Lonsdale, 98–99. Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), was impressed by Lowther’s Williamite enthusiasm and became his patron in his quick rise in government, seconded by William III himself, who appears to have taken a personal liking to the young man.

Sworn a privy councillor in February 1689, Lowther was made vice-chamberlain of the household that same year and was also given the governorship of the garrison of Carlisle and lord lieutenancy of Cumberland and Westmorland. Add. 34516, ff. 56v–57; EHR, xxx. 93; HMC Dartmouth, i. 245. In 1695 he claimed that these responsibilities were forced on him ‘without search or solicitation of mine’ and he quickly ‘studied how to obtain a dismission, but finding that could not be had without offending more than I was advised was proper, I thought it better to divest myself by degrees’. He began by resigning from the governorship of Carlisle at the end of 1689, but his escape plans were thwarted by his surprise appointment as first lord of the Treasury on 18 Mar. 1690; ‘thus instead of my wished retirement behold me faster bound than before to my service’. Add. 34516, ff. 55, 57v; EHR, xxx. 91, 94. He was one of the nine councillors advising Queen Mary on the government of the realm during William’s absence in Ireland in the summer of 1690. The author of the satirical poem ‘The Nine Worthies’ described him at this time as:

… An empty piece of misplaced eloquence
With a soft voice and a moss-trooper’s smile,
The widgeon fain, the Commons would beguile.
But he is known and ’tis hard to express
How they deride his northern gentleness
Whilst he lets loose the dull insipid stream
Of his set speeches made up of whipped cream. Bodl. ms Eng. poet. d. 53, f. 55.

There were rumours upon the king’s return in the autumn of 1690 that Lowther would be further promoted in the king’s favour, either as a secretary of state or even into the peerage, but his lack of success as a speaker for the Treasury or government interest in the Commons, and his own evident dislike of office, brought such plans to nought. Instead he gratefully stepped down a rung to be second lord of the Treasury on 15 Nov. 1690, replaced as first lord by Sidney Godolphin, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin. Add. 70014, ff. 344, 348; Verney ms mic M636/44, J. to Sir R. Verney, 29 Oct. 1690. He retired altogether from the Treasury on 21 Mar. 1692, but ‘the general vogue of the town’ had it that he would be made secretary of state in the place of Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, in November 1693, after Charles Talbot, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, had turned down the office. Add. 72482, f. 148; Verney ms mic M636/47, J. to Sir R. Verney, 8 Nov. 1693. Lowther finally divested himself of his last central office (he remained custos rotulorum and vice-admiral of Cumberland and Westmorland until his death) in February 1694, when he ‘laid down his gold key [as vice chamberlain] upon his own desire, in order to retire into the country’. EHR, xxx. 94, 95–96; Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 150, 372–3, 374, 376; iii. 221–2, 270; HMC 7th Rep. 213.

Lowther was nevertheless still actively involved in the parliamentary elections of 1695 for Westmorland, when he refused to join with Sir Christopher Musgrave in a single ‘Church interest’ against the increasingly powerful Whigs. After a hard-fought campaign, he was returned again for the county with his partner, the nineteen-year-old Sir Richard Sandford^‡. Cumb. RO, D/Lons/L1/1/41/6; HMC 10th Rep. IV, 331–2; HMC Downshire, i. 578. He even saw this electoral victory as a curse, for he wrote to his cousin and namesake Sir John Lowther^‡ of Whitehaven, in October 1695, that ‘I am now absolutely of opinion that I ought to beg an honour of the king’, for ‘I find by the humour of the people that I am condemned, as long as I live, to serve them in Parliament, and both the attendance of the elections and the uneasiness of that house are intolerable’. He even specified that he did not wish to be made a baron because then, as the lowliest, newest peer in the House, he would have to cast his vote first in any judicial trial conducted by the House, another onerous responsibility he wished to avoid. The Correspondence of Sir John Lowther of Whitehaven, ed. D.R. Hainsworth, 241–2. Presumably through the representations of Lowther of Whitehaven, or the duke of Leeds (as Danby had become), the king heeded his requests and on 28 May 1696 raised him to the peerage as Viscount Lonsdale.

Lonsdale was, as could be expected from his comments on public life, an infrequent member of the House and sat only 137 times (31 per cent of the total sittings of the House available to him) until his death in July 1700. The first session of the House for which he was eligible to sit began on 20 Oct. 1696, but Lonsdale did not take his seat until 13 Jan. 1697, when he was introduced in the House between his brother-in-law Weymouth and Basil Fielding, 4th earl of Denbigh. He thus avoided, probably purposely, the controversial and divisive proceedings on the attainder of the conspirator Sir John Fenwick^‡. At the time of Lonsdale’s belated arrival, Fenwick was still desperately trying to find a way to escape his impending execution, and advised his wife Mary to ‘engage Sir John Lowther the new lord who hath more interest than anybody’ to be his advocate for a reprieve. HMC Hamilton, ii. 136.

Lonsdale only sat in a total of 26 meetings of the House in this session, and was named to eight select committees on private bills as well as the large committee to examine the letters in the Fenwick affair delivered to the House by Matthew Smith and that to consider the state of trade. On 21 Jan. he was named by the Williamite army officer George Hastings, styled Lord Hastings (later 8th earl of Huntingdon), as one of his three representatives to arbitrate a settlement with his father, the Jacobite sympathizer, Theophilus Hastings, 7th earl of Huntingdon. He was placed on the committee of 14 assigned on 9 Mar. to draw up reasons for the Lords’ insistence on their amendments to the bill to prohibit the wearing of East Indian silks. That was his last day in the House for the session and the following day he registered his proxy with Thomas Herbert, 8th earl of Pembroke, for the remaining few weeks of the session until its prorogation on 16 April.

Lonsdale was named a commissioner for the seven prorogations of Parliament which took place over the summer months of 1697, while the final terms of the Treaty of Rijswijk were being hammered out. He was not actually present at any of the formal prorogations in Westminster, however, and in the weeks before the beginning of the 1697–8 session he was harangued and encouraged by Sir John Lowther of Whitehaven, Leeds, Godolphin and Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk, to come down from Westmorland for the session. The king’s principal minister, Hans Willem Bentinck, earl of Portland, emphasized that his presence would be needed in a session in which it was predicted that the terms of the peace with France would be attacked and attempts would be made to disband the army. To Portland Lonsdale could only comment on 9 Dec. 1697 that he could not travel because of the high snows in Cumberland and confessed his surprise and disappointment that, ‘after the many obligations of the greatest moment amongst mankind laid upon us by the king, and after the plain necessity there is of securing ourselves by a considerable force … there could be a party sufficient to endanger our happiness’. HMC Lonsdale, 108–9; Cumb. RO, D/Lons/L1/1/36/3; /L1/1/39/1, 2; /L1/1/41/12–14; /W1/16, Sir J. Lowther of Whitehaven to Lonsdale, 6 Nov. 1697; UNL, PwA 826–8.

Despite sending these concerns to William III’s chief minister, Lonsdale did not appear in the House until over a month after its commencement, on 17 Jan. 1698, at which time there were again rumours that he would be appointed either lord chamberlain or secretary of state; he closely monitored the lingering illness of the incumbent secretary Shrewsbury, with both concern for the duke and anxiety for his own ease. Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 44, f. 16; CSP Dom. 1698, p. 36; HMC Le Fleming, 349; Cumb. RO, D/Lons/L1/1/36/4–5. He sat in only 24 meetings of the House in this session, during which he was nominated to five select committees on private legislation, as well as the large committee to consider methods to restrain the expense and length of legal suits and the drafting committee for the address against wearing foreign manufactures. He left the House on 28 Feb. 1698, apparently ‘discontented’, which led one observer to conclude ‘that there is no intention to make any change in the ministry at present’. Add. 61653, f. 48. He did not register a proxy with any peer for the remaining four months before the dissolution of Parliament on 7 July 1698. During his months of absence his former colleague at the Treasury Godolphin kept him informed of political news, and in early June Lonsdale delegated Godolphin to forward in the House the bill to make the Aire and Calder rivers navigable, a project which would be to the advantage of merchants in Cumberland and Westmorland, but was seen as against the interests of many lords in the northeast. Cumb. RO, D/Lons/L1/1/36/6–9; L1/1/41/16; HMC Lonsdale, 110, 111.

Lonsdale retained political importance and influence in his native county, where he was a major landowner with a landed income of £6,387 in 1694–5. He was also a local benefactor, having converted part of his grand Lowther Hall into a private school ‘for none but gentlemen’s sons’, perhaps to rectify some of the deficiencies under which he felt he suffered as the result of his own imperfect gentle education. Lowther, Mems of the Reign of James II, vii–viii; Bodl. Ballard 10, ff. 202–5. In the Westmorland elections in July 1698 he actively supported the return of the sitting members, William Fleming^‡ (his replacement after his elevation to the peerage) and Sir Richard Sandford^‡. Sir Christopher Musgrave had made it known that he did not intend to stand in this election and William Nicolson, archdeacon of Carlisle (later bishop of Carlisle), saw this as an opportunity to relieve the animosity between the Lowthers and Musgraves which had long divided the county, suggesting that Lonsdale could heal the breach by agreeing to support the candidacy of Christopher Musgrave^‡, the son of Sir Christopher, as partner to Fleming. Lonsdale made his political and personal preferences clear by rebuffing the offer, stating that although he was ‘ready and anxious to heal all breaches and will support a Musgrave if there is a vacancy … I cannot turn against the present friendly members’. HMC Le Fleming, 343–4, 350, 351. He also helped his cousin John Lowther of Whitehaven in having his son James Lowther^‡ elected for the Cumberland borough of Carlisle, despite allegations levelled against James that he frequented conventicles. Cumb. RO, D/Lons/W1/17–19, Sir J. Lowther to Lonsdale, 14, 16, 19, 21, 26, 28 and 30 July, 4 Aug., 18 Sept. 1698.

Lonsdale himself was once again absent for most of the 1698–9 session of the new Parliament, which began on 6 Dec. 1698. He was not present when on 27 Jan. 1699 Thomas Wybergh of Westmorland brought an appeal before the House requesting the reversal of the dismission by Chancery of his bill against Lonsdale concerning Wybergh family property that, as Lonsdale explained at length to his kinsman William Savile, 2nd marquess of Halifax, when enlisting his support, had been mortgaged to the Lowthers in the 1640s and subsequently occupied by them. HMC Lords, n.s. iii. 282–3; Add. 75370, Lonsdale to Halifax, 1 Feb. 1699. This, and the House’s order of 17 Jan. for Lonsdale’s presence, gave both Godolphin and Portland another reason to urge Lonsdale’s appearance in the House, or at least his speedy response to the House’s request to an answer to the petition within eight days. Cumb. RO, D/Lons/L1/1/36/3; UNL, PwA 830. Lonsdale earned the irritation of the House by failing to submit his response to Wybergh by the deadline and first sat in the House for the session on 25 Mar. 1699, both to obey a peremptory summons to appear for the trial of Edward Rich, 6th earl of Warwick, and to answer Wybergh’s petition, which was eventually dismissed on 4 April. Cumb. RO, D/Lons/L1/1/41/24; HMC Lonsdale, 112–13. He sat to the end of the session on 4 May 1699, but in total came to only just over a quarter of the sittings. In that time he was named to eight select committees and acted as manager for conferences on the bills for Blackwell Market (20 Apr. 1699), for Billingsgate Market (21 Apr. 1699) and for a duty on paper (3 May 1699).

Lonsdale had managed to miss most of the more heated debates early in the session on the disbandment of William’s army and the attacks on the king and his Dutch courtiers. He could not escape politics forever, however, for he had also come down to the capital in March to answer a specific summons of the king. In the face of fierce country opposition in Parliament in 1698–9 William undertook after the session’s end a complex reconstruction of the ministry, by which he wished, in part, to dilute the strong Junto element. He aimed to put the faithful court Tory Lonsdale in the post of lord privy seal in the place of Pembroke, who was moved to the lord presidency of the Council. After much cajoling and flattery from the king, and at one point flashes of royal anger at the viscount’s consistent reluctance to take up office again, Lonsdale eventually accepted. Add. 34516, f. 60; EHR, xxx. 96–97. The seals were given to him on 18 May and at the end of that month he was appointed one of the lord justices of the realm during William’s absence abroad. CSP Dom. 1699–1700, pp. 181, 208. With his new offices came renewed political responsibility, and James Lowther reported to his father that Lonsdale stayed in the capital over the summer and, despite being ‘sometime indisposed … never stayed within any one day while he was in town’. Cumb. RO, D/Lons/W2/2/2, James Lowther to Sir John Lowther, 1 July 1699. As such he was able to be present to preside over two of the prorogations of that summer, on 1 June and 24 Oct. 1699.

Lonsdale had a 70 per cent attendance rate in the House during the session beginning 16 Nov. 1699, his highest in any session in his career in the House. During the first months of 1700, although he was increasingly wracked by illness, he was more than usually active and was named to six select committees on legislation, as well as a committee assigned to consider procedures to be followed in causes heard before the House. On 23 Jan. he subscribed to a protest against the resolution that the judgment be reversed in the writ of error appeal of Williamson v. the Crown. He was an advocate of the proposals for a union with Scotland, and James Vernon^‡ wrote to Shrewsbury on 11 Jan. that ‘My Lord Privy Seal can no sooner hear the word union named, but he runs blindfold into it, and said all he could think of, for pressing it’. Vernon–Shrewsbury Letters, ii. 404; Cumb. RO, D/Lons/W2/2/3, James Lowther to Sir John Lowther, 20 Feb. 1700. On 13 Feb. he was named to the drafting committee for the bill of union, which he twice chaired and where he was concerned to know whether the commissioners to negotiate the union were to be chosen by Parliament or the king. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/6, p. 114. He reported the bill to the House from the committee on 16 Feb. and when it was passed a week later Lonsdale was on the committee assigned to draw up what was to be offered to the Commons when the bill was presented to them in conference. On that same day, 23 Feb. 1700, he also voted in favour of the motion to discuss in a committee of the whole House amendments to the bill to retain the old East India Company as a corporation, which was also passed that day.

In early April 1700, following the initial instruction of the king his master, Lonsdale was one of the leading opponents of the Commons ‘Tack’ on the land tax bill which provided for the resumption of William III’s Irish land grants. Vernon informed Shrewsbury that Lonsdale, though not as extreme as John Thompson, Baron Haversham, who wanted to throw the bill out in its entirety, was, with Thomas Wharton, 4th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, one of ‘the great instruments in stirring up the lords to make the amendments in the bill’. Vernon singled out Lonsdale as the author of one of these controversial amendments which were the source of the acrimonious dispute between the two Houses. Vernon–Shrewsbury Letters, iii. 4, 9. Lonsdale was a manager in the three conferences over 9–10 Apr. at which these amendments were fiercely argued. Even when William III himself wished the Lords to back down from their insistence on the amendments so that the necessary revenue from the land tax could go through, Lonsdale refused, ‘mightily zealous for the insisting upon them’, and on 10 Apr. he signed the protest against the House’s eventual decision not to stand by them. Cumb. RO, D/Lons/W2/2/3, James Lowther to Sir John Lowther, 9 Apr. 1700. The following day, in the wake of the animosity fuelled by the amendments, Parliament was prorogued. Lonsdale never sat in the House again.

Throughout the proceedings on the Irish land resumption bill in April 1700, Lonsdale had been noticeably ill. During late April and early May Portland, having himself resigned from William’s service, wrote anxious letters to his friend, solicitous of his health. Lonsdale confessed to him that he felt ‘suffocated’ in the capital and he went first to Richmond and then to Bath to recuperate. Cumb. RO, D/Lons/L1/1/39/4–7; UNL, PwA 833–4. Neither of these succeeded and on 23 May William III allowed him to take the seals back with him to Westmorland to recover (as he had done in the summer of the previous year), but was insistent that Lonsdale not even consider resigning the office. HMC Lonsdale, 114–15; Cumb. RO, D/Lons/L1/1/40/4–6; Add. 72517, ff. 55–56. The absent Lonsdale was still appointed a lord justice of the realm on 30 June, but he died only a few days after, on 10 July 1700. HMC Lonsdale, 116; HMC Le Fleming, 355. His death may have saved him from the ignominy of impeachment, as Portland was later to tell the Commons that Lonsdale as lord privy seal was one of the few ministers who had been informed in January 1700 of the terms of the secret second partition treaty. Burnet, iv. 469; Correspondentie, I.ii. 689–90 (no. 612).

At the time of Lonsdale’s death his heir, Richard Lowther, who became 2nd Viscount Lonsdale, and most of his other surviving eight children were underage. He left his wife, Catherine, as their tutor and guardian, as well as executor of the will, to be assisted by her brother Weymouth and his cousin Lowther of Whitehaven. He also bequeathed to his widow his electoral influence in Westmorland and specific instructions on whom she should support. HMC 10th Rep. IV, 335. Her patronage was heavily solicited by all parties and she was not hesitant to use it during the controversial elections of 1701–2 and thereafter during the minority of her son the 2nd viscount, despite the advice of her brother to remain politically neutral. Cumbria RO, D/Lons/L1/1/44–46, W1/20, Sir J. Lowther to dowager Viscountess Lonsdale, 29 Aug., 19 Sept., 7, 18 Nov. 1700, W2/2/3, James Lowther to Sir John Lowther, 29 Aug., 3, 17 Sept. 1700.

Lonsdale was held in high esteem, as evidenced by the continuing favour bestowed on him by William III despite his reluctance to accept office. However imperfect his political skills may have been, his honour and probity were often remarked on and earned him respect from all parties. HMC 7th Rep. 213. On 13 July 1700, on hearing of Lonsdale’s fatal illness, James Brydges, later duke of Chandos, wrote that

if he dies his party will lose one of the greatest supports they have, since he was certainly a man very eminent for many great qualities which, joined with the opinion the world had of his integrity, could not fail to add very great strength to the side he was of. HMC Cowper, ii. 400.