CAPELL, Henry (1638-96)

Capell sat in the Commons throughout the reign of Charles II, becoming an influential figure, office-holder and advocate of exclusion. His support for the 1688 Revolution was also crucial in determining his future conduct. In his will, made in September 1692, he portrayed himself as having ‘steadily endeavoured to assert the true protestant religion, the rights of the crown and those of the people giving entirely my assistance and consent to this revolution as the only means to support the same’.

Having served in the first post-revolution Treasury commission, Capell lost office in March 1690, but his fortunes changed early in 1692. As reported by Robert Harley, the future earl of Oxford, the marriage of his nephew Algernon Capell, 2nd earl of Essex, to the daughter of Hans Willem Bentinck, earl of Portland, on 28 Feb. 1692, was clearly linked to the news which emerged two days later that Capell was to be raised to the peerage. HMC Portland, iii. 490. Capell’s elevation prompted Sir Christopher Musgrave^‡ to comment that the Commons would be deprived of ‘a most useful member’. Add. 70289, f. 5. Capell’s relationship to Portland may also explain why, in May 1692, he was seen as a candidate for the post of treasurer of the chamber, vacated by Sir Rowland Gwynne^‡. Verney ms mic. M636/45, J. to Sir R. Verney, 4 May 1692.

Capell was introduced into the House on 9 Nov. 1692 by James Brydges, 8th Baron Chandos, and Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis. On 29 Dec. he was named to inspect the Journals for precedents concerning whether the resolution of the Commons delivered on the 21st, approving the conduct of Admiral Edward Russell, the future earl of Orford, was according to the usual proceedings in Parliament, and to consider heads of a conference with the Commons. He was then named on 4 Jan. 1693 to manage the actual conference. He voted on 31 Dec. against the committal of the place bill and against the bill’s passage on 3 Jan. 1693. At the end of December or the beginning of January, he was forecast by Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, as likely to support the Norfolk divorce bill.

On 24 Jan. 1693 Capell was named to a committee to draw up a resolution on the book King William and Queen Mary Conquerors, which had been ordered to be burnt, and later in the day he was named to manage a conference about the resultant resolution, and presumably was a manager the following day when another conference was ordered on the matter. Capell’s absence from the Lords on 2 Feb. is perhaps explained by reports that on that day the king dined with him ‘nigh Richmond’, presumably meaning his residence at Kew. Add. 70081, newsletter, 4 Feb. 1693. On 4 Feb. he was one of the minority of 14 peers who voted Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun, guilty of murder, apparently regarding the evidence of the coachman as vital and accepting that since two men attacked a man who died, both of them were guilty of the murder. UNL, PwA 2383–4. On 9 Feb. he put in an answer to an appeal being considered by the Lords in the case of Boevey v. Smith, but only in his role as a trustee for one of the parties. HMC Lords, iv. 277. On 1 and 3 Mar. he was named to manage a conference on the bill to prevent malicious prosecutions. He had attended on a further 45 days of the session of 1691–2, nearly 43 per cent of the total, and been named to a further 13 committees. He also attended the prorogation on 2 May 1693.

Shortly after this, Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, informed Henry Sydney, Viscount Sydney, the lord lieutenant of Ireland, that Capell, Sir Cyril Wyche^‡ and William Duncombe^‡ were to replace him as lords justices. Warrants were issued for their appointment on 19 June. CSP Dom. 1693, pp. 134, 186. Capell had been mentioned as a possible lord lieutenant of Ireland as early as January 1693, following the sudden prorogation of the Irish parliament by Sydney. NAI, Wyche mss, 1/65; Add. 78301, f. 44. Capell was clearly not well, even before his departure, for on 1 June he wrote to John Moore, bishop of Norwich, ‘I am informed that you have the best preparation of steel that is in England. I have taken it lately in substance but with no agreement to my stomach. There is no physic so proper for me’, and asking for some of his cure. Cambs. RO, 17/C1.

With Sydney expected in London at the beginning of July 1693, Capell and Duncombe stayed for his arrival. Add. 70081, newsletter, 4 July 1693. One of the topics of discussion while they waited was the advisability of calling a parliament in Ireland for later in 1693, or the following spring, given the troubles experienced by Sydney in 1692. HMC Finch, v. 183, 188–9. Capell left London on 10 July, departing from Kew on the 11th with a plea to Nottingham that ‘without our credit here in what relates to the public we can have none there’. He arrived in Dublin on the 27th. UNL, PwA 1413; CSP Dom. 1693, pp. 220, 230, 238.

That his brother Essex had served as lord lieutenant to general approbation in the 1670s induced optimism in some Irish politicians. Capell’s whiggery was also seen as a positive attribute, especially as the king was beginning to turn to the emerging Whig Junto to form the backbone of his ministry in England. That Capell was clearly seen as an associate of the forces shaping the administration was shown by the comment of Henry Boyle^†, the future Baron Carleton, on 6 Sept. 1693 upon his own departure to Ireland: ‘I suppose it will not be long before we know what our great statesmen have agreed upon at Althorp. I am sure my Lord Capell is too wise to tell me, if he knows’ – a reference to the conclave held there in late August. HMC Portland, iii. 542. Capell was critical of the refusal of Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury, to accept the secretaryship after Nottingham’s removal, noting to Russell in terms which indicate a shared outlook,

we have often been blamed as men contented with nothing: and if the church, the law, the fleet, the army (in regard to [Thomas] Tollemarche’s^‡ great station), and the offering of both seals to be in the hands of our friends (the obstacle to common safety, my Lord Nottingham, being removed), will not give content, what must, nay, what will the world say of us? Dalrymple Mems., iii, pt. 3, p. 57.

While in Ireland, Capell was granted leave of absence from Parliament on 14 Nov. 1693 and 26 Nov. 1694, being noted on both occasions as out of the country. He did not register his proxy while abroad, nor was he keen to allow Irish peers to vote by proxy in the Irish House of Lords, fearing that it would reduce royal influence. UNL, PwA 258/1–2, 259, 262. In February 1694 he was too ill to sign letters with his fellow lords justices. However, by the end of the month it was being reported that he had recovered from his indisposition. CSP Dom. 1694–5, p. 34; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 279. On 14 Mar., upon receiving notification of Shrewsbury’s reappointment as secretary of state, he wrote to James Vernon^‡, ‘if we lose the king a second time, I think I may say our friends are bunglers in politics as well as in court behaviour’. CSP Dom. 1694–5, p. 60. Capell and Shrewsbury were soon in discussions as to the merits of calling an Irish parliament, the latter suggesting in April 1694 that Capell’s ‘prudence and popularity’ would enable him to manage affairs in order to avoid the ‘heats’ of the previous session. Certainly, there was a political affinity between the two men, Shrewsbury referring to ‘that principle which you and I have been ready to own’. HMC Buccleuch, ii. 63, 97.

At the end of May 1694, news reached Whitehall that ‘Lord Capell is dead, which gains the more belief because our last advices from Ireland said he was very ill.’ Add. 72482, f. 150. This proved not to be the case, but news of his illness had also reached the Dutch envoy, L’Hermitage, who wrote on 25 May that Capel was ‘very ill and in great danger’. Add. 17677 OO, f. 262. Common reports suggested that he had dropsy. Bodl. Carte 79, f. 519. He had recovered by the beginning of July. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 339.

Following his recovery, it became clear that Capell differed from his two fellow lords justices in advocating the calling of a new parliament in Ireland. CSP Dom. 1694–5, p. 236; Shrewsbury Corresp. 61–62. Unlike Wyche and Duncombe, Capell exuded optimism, expressing the view that ‘all heats will be laid aside’, albeit with the caveat that ‘no man can be sure what a parliament [will] or will not do, when they come together’. In the event, an Irish parliament was delayed because of the desire to avoid the simultaneous sitting of both the English and the Irish parliaments. Capell remained committed to an Irish parliament, seeking an acknowledgment in October 1694 that it would meet in order to facilitate work on the bills to be sent to the Privy Council in England, and also ‘considering the business of Ireland has seldom a quick dispatch there, there must be allowed several months for a perfect dispatch of all bills, besides other necessaries to be done before the opening of a parliament, wherein the king’s pleasure must be known’. HMC Buccleuch, ii. 100, 106, 112, 150.

Meanwhile, Capell was negotiating with the leaders of the opposition in the Irish parliament of 1692, to ensure a smooth parliamentary session. A compromise began to emerge whereby the crown would gain a supply by sending over just one minor piece of financial legislation, which the Irish Commons would allow, and thereby preserve the royal prerogative. The leaders of the Commons would no longer insist on their ‘sole right’ to initiate financial legislation, but would provide for most of the crown’s supply by producing heads of bills for transmission to London. In return the crown would allow the Commons to legislate for the security of the Protestant interest with a series of penal laws against Catholics. There was also a change in personnel, with many of the opposition of 1692 being given office and some of the judiciary replaced. EHR, cxix. 598–607. As early as 15 Nov. 1694 Capell had outlined to Shrewsbury the changes he thought necessary, and most of them had been agreed before Capell’s appointment as lord deputy on 5 May 1695, the appropriate warrants being ordered a few days later. HMC Buccleuch, ii. 159–61; CSP Dom. 1694–5, pp. 372, 460, 462, 469, 472–3, 481–2.

Capell’s appointment as lord deputy was also essential for the scheme to work. He had been beset by doubts about the security of his position as he was a long way from London and the centre of political power. His relationship with Shrewsbury survived a minor scare in late October 1694, when Capell came to believe that the latter was intent on supplanting him, but Shrewsbury was able to use their mutual friends, John Somers, Baron Somers, and Ralph Montagu, earl of Montagu, to assuage his fears. HMC Buccleuch, ii. 152–4. Similarly, Portland reassured him on 20 Nov. 1694 that Thomas Coningsby^†, the future Baron Coningsby, and a former Irish lord justice, had not threatened his position while in Holland with the king. UNL, PwA 230. More to the point was the need to defeat plans to join another justice with him in the government. As Capell wrote to Shrewsbury in late December 1694, this threatened his tacit agreement with some of the parliamentary leaders, who were

contented to waive the sole right, yet they did it in hopes of a lasting settlement and good laws, which they expected from me, in whom they had a confidence, but if this hope was taken away, and another added to me, they did not think it reasonable I should expect they should continue in the compliance I had brought them to, when … it may not be in my power … to make the returns they assured themselves of. HMC Buccleuch, ii. 168–9.

Capell was able to succeed in his plans because of support from the emerging Whig Junto and also at court, where he was backed by Portland and Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland. On 21 May 1695, the lords justices in England asked Capell to begin preparing bills for consideration in an Irish parliament, and to send them over to England. CSP Dom. 1694–5, p. 475. This was the start of a legislative programme which resulted in a financial settlement for the crown and a series of penal laws to enhance Protestant security, namely the bills ‘for disarming Irish papists, for preventing them from keeping horses … [and] for restraining foreign education’, as Capell had characterized them as early as July 1694 when he sent the secretary of state, Sir John Trenchard^‡, a putative legislative programme. On 18 June 1695 he informed Shrewsbury that he had sent over to England the first tranche of bills, with a long exposition as to how to maintain the king’s prerogative over the ‘sole’ right by sending over only one money bill to be tendered in turn to the Irish Commons. HMC Buccleuch, ii. 99, 193. Capell’s scheme was for a bill for an additional excise (which would raise only £14,000) to retain the king’s right to initiate financial legislation, and for the Commons to produce heads of bills to raise the remaining funds. The Irish lord chancellor, Sir Charles Porter^‡, feared that this scheme depended upon no opposition being raised, which, if it touched on the question of ‘sole right’ would hamstring the session. HMC Downshire, i. 496–8.

Capell still worried about the English political situation, support in England being important for his chances of success. On 15 Aug. 1695 he wrote to Vernon of his concern about Russell’s replacement by Sir George Rooke^‡: ‘I apprehend it is the beginning of breaking that chain of ministry that is now reasonably in the possession of the Whigs.’ CSP Dom. 1695, p. 45. Once the Irish parliament met on 27 Aug. 1695 there followed a stream of upbeat assessments of progress from Capell to Shrewsbury. When the Irish Commons considered the state of the nation, there was some criticism of the previous regime, but Capell made efforts to keep Sydney (now earl of Romney) and Coningsby off ‘the stage’, while suggesting that Porter’s supporters were strong enough to protect him, which eventually proved to be the case, despite several of Capell’s managers being involved in the attempts to impeach him. HMC Buccleuch, ii. 219–20, 229, 233–4.

Capell would have liked to engineer the removal of Porter, not least because of a differing political outlook, and to assuage his allies in the Irish parliament. On 6 Oct. 1695, while reporting some success in limiting the ‘heats’ against Romney and Coningsby, he offered the comment that ‘the most considerable gentlemen … as to estates and credit in the country, vote against him [Porter], looking upon him as a man of no integrity, being verily persuaded he is not true to the king’s interest’. Indeed, Capell thought that giving vent to the Commons’ hostility to Porter had actually helped to facilitate supply. HMC Buccleuch, ii. 235–6. Nevertheless, Capell would not move openly against Porter: ‘I keep myself unconcerned, refusing my lord chancellor to be of his side, but giving a freedom to everyone to vote as they please.’ Surr. Hist. Cent., 371/14/F7. Porter viewed his stance differently, noting at the end of October that Capell had ‘concerned himself against me’ and that this had increased the numbers voting for his impeachment, which was rejected by 122 votes to 77. HMC Downshire, i. 574–7. Others, such as John Freke, agreed, believing that ‘the lord deputy is content to appease the rage of the Irish gentlemen by suffering the chancellor [Porter] to be a sacrifice and thereby save the other two [Romney and Coningsby]’. HMC Portland, iii. 570. Meanwhile, on 1 Oct. Capell wrote to Portland in an attempt to get the king to prevent Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, and Richard Savage, 4th Earl Rivers, setting up the Irish chancellor, Philip Savage, ‘a person that really lies so across the King’s affairs that I do not see any man like him in the House of Commons here’ for Colchester. UNL, PwA 247.

Following the adjournment of the Irish parliamentary session on 28 Oct. 1695, Capell faced the possibility that the attack on Porter would be transferred to Westminster, no doubt to the annoyance of the king, who did not want anything to disrupt the forthcoming parliamentary session. HMC Buccleuch, ii. 266. On 17 Nov. he wrote to Somers regarding Porter: ‘I have had great difficulty to bring the gentlemen not to prosecute this business in the Parliament of England. But I think they will not break their words with me, and therefore this and your Parliament in England will be quiet this session.’ Surr. Hist. Cent., 371/14/F14. Soon after the Irish parliament reconvened, Capell wrote an assessment of its proceedings to Henry Hyde, 2nd earl of Clarendon: ‘they soon fell into measures necessary for their own preservation and what was legally due to the crown in the business of the sole right’, and a supply of £163,000 had been granted. He had also prevented the attempt to renew the impeachment of Lord Chancellor Porter in England. CCSP, v. 692–3.

The end of the session in Ireland on 14 Dec. 1695 did not end the sniping between Capell and Porter. On 11 Jan. 1696 Capell wrote to Shrewsbury of his own civility towards the lord chancellor and the fact that he ‘never interposed to his prejudice’ during the parliamentary session. He went on to question Porter’s proceedings towards him and his loyalty to the government. Needless to say, the discovery of the Assassination Plot presented Capell with an opportunity to reassert this point, in the hope that it would make the king consider whether he should continue to employ ‘persons who are esteemed dubious to your interest, and easy to be reconciled to the late king’s’. HMC Buccleuch, ii. 288–9, 312.

By April 1696 Capell was ill again. Porter wrote on 22 Apr. that he could not get out of his chair

without the help of two men, nor can he walk when he is up without being supported … his voice is very much sunk, his legs wasted to skin and bone and he has no stomach, nor has he the benefit of nature without the help of the apothecary. And yet he seems not sensible that he is in any danger. PRO NI, 638/18/65.

By the end of the month, Capell had come round to the need to appoint lords justices to administer the kingdom until he had recovered and, having retired out of Dublin to Chapelizod, he wrote on 3 May naming Murrough Boyle, Viscount Blessington [I], and Brigadier William Wolseley ‘justices during my sickness’. PRO NI, 638/18/66; HMC Buccleuch, ii. 328. John Ellis^‡ wrote to Sir William Trumbull^‡ of Capell’s ‘strange illness’ and of his surprise at the nomination of Blessington and Wolseley, and the ‘wonder’ at the fact that ‘so many of the nobility, as well as my lord chancellor [Porter], who is first in commission here’, had been passed over. He expected Porter to challenge the nominations. Add. 72486, ff. 35–37.

On 14 May 1696 it was reported that Capell ‘was yesterday pretty well, and abroad both in the morning and afternoon in the garden to take the air, but last night presently after he went to bed he fell ill, and had two convulsion fits, he is come again to himself, but there is little hopes of his recovery’. Beinecke Lib. Osborn Collection, Blathwayt mss, box 3, R. Aldworth to ?Blathwayt, 14 May 1696. This assessment proved to be accurate: Capell died at Chapelizod on the evening of 30 May. CSP Dom. 1696, p. 208. Ironically, the Irish Privy Council then chose Porter as one of the lords justices until the king’s further pleasure was known. HMC Buccleuch, ii. 344. When Thomas Wharton, 5th Baron Wharton, was mooted as a successor, he was described as bearing the character ‘of a hot, loose, lewd man, a temper very remote from that of Lord Capell’s’. UNL, PwA 2522. After his death, Capell’s body was brought back from Ireland, for burial at Hadham, as directed in his will (the codicil about being buried in Ireland was ignored), in a vault which would hopefully be made for his father ‘so loyal and great a man’. Bodl. Tanner 24, f. 195; TNA, PROB 11/436. Capell was finally buried at Little Hadham on 8 Sept. 1696.

As if to confirm Capell’s party identity, Shrewsbury wrote on 23 June 1696 that if both Lord Chancellor Porter and the earl of Drogheda [I] were named to a commission of three lord justices, ‘it will put the party that was Lord Capell’s into more despair and rage, than may be advisable in the circumstances of that kingdom’. CSP Dom. 1696, p. 239. Indeed, in July 1697 John Methuen^‡ wrote to Shrewsbury of ‘my Lord Capell’s friends, as they are still called’, and repeated the phrase in August. HMC Buccleuch, ii. 490, 519. Capell’s widow was left a handsome jointure by his death, as was reported on her death in June 1721, the ultimate beneficiary being her nephew William Capell, 3rd earl of Essex. Add. 61465, f. 47.