MANSELL, Thomas (1667-1723)

Mansell was a long-time friend and ally of Robert Harley, the future earl of Oxford. After joining Harley in office in 1704, Mansell resigned with him in February 1708 and remained a close confederate during the 1708 Parliament. NLW, L648, Harley to Mansell, 30 Sept. 1709. When Harley emerged as the leading minister in 1710, Mansell was given a seat on the treasury board which included Harley. When Harley was ennobled and became lord treasurer, Mansell returned to his old post as comptroller of the household.

When Oxford needed an influx of reliable supporters into the Lords to ensure the passage of his peace policy in 1711-12, Mansell was an obvious choice as one of the dozen so created. He was widely seen as possessing sufficient social status and wealth to merit the award of a peerage. According to the later testimony of Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, about 1703, Mansell was one of the ‘overgrown commoners of vast estates and men of worth that would have done honour to the peerage’. Ailesbury Mems. 562. As early as March 1705 rumours were current that he would be raised to the peerage, along with Thomas Foley, the future Baron Foley, and Sir Michael Warton^‡. PH, xxiv. (supp.), 16. Thereafter his wealth had increased by the life interest he acquired in the Briton Ferry estate of his cousin, Thomas, and the death of his own father. E.P. Statham, Fam. of Mansell, ii. 686; Jenkins, 149. In 1707 there were again rumours of a peerage, as there were in April 1711. HP Commons 1690-1715, iv. 756; Letterbooks of John Hervey, i. 289.

He was created Baron Mansell on 1 Jan. 1712, and that very day it was reported that he would replace Hugh Chomondeley, earl of Cholmondeley, as treasurer of the household, and in turn be replaced as comptroller by Sir Thomas Hanmer^‡, but this turned out to be mere speculation. NLW, Ottley mss 2447, E. Kingdon to A. Ottley, 1 Jan. 1711/12. On 2 Jan. he was introduced into the Lords by William Berkeley, 4th Baron of Berkeley of Stratton and Francis Seymour Conway, Baron Conway. He attended on 82 days (78 per cent) of the session (having been created a peer on the 13th day of the session).

One of Mansell’s main strengths was his extensive electoral interest, which stretched beyond Glamorgan. On 10 Jan. 1712 Henry Somerset, 2nd duke of Beaufort, informed James Gunter^‡ that ‘I have been likewise with my Lord Mansell who will despatch letters this post to his servants to secure you what voices are about him’, for a by-election for Monmouthshire. Badminton House, Beaufort mss, Beaufort’s out letters 1710-14. It was in this capacity with Members of the Commons that he acted as one of Oxford’s canvassers before the vote against John Churchill, duke of Marlborough, on 24 Jan. 1712. Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 183.

On 25 Feb. 1712 Mansell registered his proxy with Samuel Masham, Baron Masham, another of the recent peerage creations and an ally of Oxford. Somewhat oddly, given the requirements of the Test Act, Mansell did not take the requisite oaths until 24 May. On 28 May Mansell voted with the ministry against an address to the queen asking her to send orders to Ormond to act offensively against France in concert with her allies in order to obtain a safe and honourable peace, in other words to take off the ‘restraining orders’ sent to James Butler, 2nd duke of Ormond.

Towards the end of the session, on 17 June 1712, L’Hermitage reported that John Berkeley^‡, 4th Baron Fitzhardinge [I], and John Smith^‡, ‘both tellers of the exchequer, have been dismissed and replaced by’ Mansell and Heneage Finch, Baron Guernsey, later earl of Aylesford. Add. 17677 FFF, ff. 249-250. This was premature, but on 2 July Thomas Bateman reported that Mansell would be a teller, taking Smith’s post, which was officially granted him on 23 July. Add. 72500, ff. 110-11; Sainty, Officers of the Exchequer, 241. Mansell’s removal to this plumb sinecure allowed George Granville, Baron Lansdown, to succeed to the comptroller’s post and in turn enabled Sir William Wyndham^‡ to take up the post of secretary of war.

Mansell was obviously perceived to be of some influence, probably because of his closeness to Oxford. Abraham Stanyan^‡, writing from Milan in February 1712, requested his help in obtaining his ‘removal from Switzerland to some other court’. NLW, L725, Stanyan to Mansell, 20 Feb. 1712 n.s. Penry Williams thought it worthwhile to approach Mansell that December to get his brother-in-law, George Bowen of Wolfsdale, excused from being chosen as sheriff for Pembrokeshire, and with apparent success, for he did not serve in that post. NLW, L757, Williams to Mansell, 8 Dec. 1712. Mansell was wealthy enough to have been a creditor of some note. On 30 May the same year Thomas Osborne, duke of Leeds received a letter from Mr. Gibson, a scrivener, giving notice that £7,000 ‘lent long since on my daughter [-in-law] Carmarthen’s estate did now belong to the Lord Mansell's children’, who wanted repayment. Add. 28041, f. 35.

Although Mansell attended the prorogation on 8 July 1712, he was absent from the subsequent prorogation on 31 July, arriving that very day at Margam having ‘rode from the waterside home in one day, being 48 miles’. HMC Portland, v. 210. A local cleric added that there was ‘good wine and noble venison’ awaiting at Margam, if Oxford’s son, Edward Harley^†, styled Lord Harley, the future 2nd earl of Oxford, and his son-in-law George Hay*, Baron Hay (better known as Viscount Dupplin [S]), should care to ‘vouchsafe to honour this country with your company and bright conversations.’ Add. 70029, f. 249. Mansell seems to have remained at Margam for some time, writing from there to Oxford on 23 Oct. that ‘when you have any commands for me your secretary may transmit them and I shall obey, without them I shall not be in town till Xmas.’ Add. 70248, Mansell to Oxford, 1 Sept., 23 Oct. 1712.

On 16 Dec. 1712, one of Mansell’s clerks in the tellership office reported that Mansell would arrive in London that week. Add. 70199, L. Herne to G. Tollet, 16 Dec. 1712. He was in plenty of time for the parliamentary session, the opening of which was in any case delayed. He attended the seven prorogations between 13 Jan. and 26 Mar. 1713. On Jonathan Swift’s list compiled in mid March to early April, and amended by Oxford, Mansell was listed as being expected to support the ministry. He attended the opening day of the session, 9 April. He acted as a teller for the ministry in opposition to John Hervey, Baron Hervey (later earl of Bristol), in favour of retaining the words ‘and to congratulate her majesty upon the success of her endeavours for a general peace; and for what her Majesty has done to secure the protestant succession’ in the Lords’ address on the queen’s speech.

On 29 Jan. 1713 he had been informed by Sackville Gwynne that by the recent death of John Vaughan, 2nd Baron Vaughan and 3rd earl of Carbery [I], the stewardships of several lordships had become vacant, which, he suggested, Mansell might like to ‘secure’ to himself. NLW, L763, Gwynne to Mansell, 29 Jan. 1713. Mansell was carefully considering how to consolidate and extend his local power; a note in Oxford’s papers around this date records that ‘Lord Mansell desires only the offices of vice admiral and chamberlain. His Lordship would not have the government of Milford.’ Jenkins, 151; Add. 70248, note, n.d.

On 9 May 1713 Edward Harley^‡ advised his brother, Oxford, that Lords Mansell and Lansdown should speak to their friends in the Commons, as part of the lobbying campaign against tacking the provisions of the place bill to the malt tax, which threatened to disrupt the ministry’s supply legislation. Add. 70236, E. Harley to Oxford, [9 May 1713]. About 13 June Oxford listed Mansell as likely to support the bill confirming the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty. All in all Mansell attended on 57 days (86 per cent) of the session. On 1 Aug. he rather cryptically wrote to Oxford:

I dare say your Lordship will excuse my attendance at the instalment [presumably as a knight of the Garter], when I tell you that I dare not be there for reasons I need not name. I am now very uneasy at being longer here and it would grieve me very much not to have the honour to see you before I go, therefore if you would admit me this afternoon for quarter of an hour to wait on you. Add. 70248, Mansell to Oxford, 1 Aug. 1713.

No doubt Mansell’s perceived connections with Oxford explain why on 15 Aug. he received a letter in favour of Marshall Bridges, a canon of Wells, seeking preferment to a vacant see, presumably that of John Robinson, bishop of Bristol, who had just been nominated to London. NLW, L779, M. Stephens, to Mansell, 15 Aug. 1713. Mansell was at Margam on 3 Sept., when he wrote to congratulate Oxford on Lord Harley’s marriage and was still there on 26 Nov., when he wrote to condole with Oxford upon receiving a letter (of 21 Nov.) containing news of the death of the latter’s daughter, Lady Carmarthen, on the 20th: ‘the contents of it truly surprised and grieved my heart being sensible how near it has touched yours who are with so much reason tender of all your children.’ Add. 70248, Mansell to Oxford, 3 Sept., 26 Nov. 1713.

Mansell attended the opening day of the 1714 session, 16 Feb., when he joined with Henry Paget, 8th Baron Paget (later earl of Uxbridge), in introducing Robert Benson, Baron Bingley, into the Lords. On 19 Mar. he acted as a teller, again in opposition to Hervey, on the question of appointing the following Monday for further consideration of the queen’s speech. This division was lost 66-44, and the long adjournment until 31 Mar. favoured by the ministry was ordered instead. On 12 Apr. and 20 Apr. the proxy of Oxford’s son-in-law, Hay, was registered with Mansell. At the end of May and beginning of June, he was forecast by Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, as being in favour of the schism bill. On 4 June Mansell was one of four Harleyite peers who voted with the Whigs against the rejection of a petition from Dissenters asking to be heard by counsel on the schism bill, and presumably he helped to secure amendments to the bill. Boyer, Anne Hist. 705; Jones, Party and Management, 142. As an Oxford loyalist, on 25 June Mansell attended a dinner at the home of Thomas Harley^‡ to celebrate the previous day’s success in imposing a reward of £100,000 on the capture of the Pretender. Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 412. On 7 July he acted as a teller in opposition to William North, 6th Baron North, on the committal of the bill for the examination of public accounts. All in all, he attended on 68 days (92 per cent) of the session.

Following the death of Queen Anne on 1 Aug. 1714, Mansell attended the Lords on 3 August. In all he attended on four days of the session of August 1714, including the last day, the 25th, when Parliament was prorogued. On 25 Oct. Bateman reported that Lords Dupplin and Mansell ‘are removed from their tellers’ offices. Add. 72502, f. 14. Mansell remained active as a supporter of Oxford until the 1720-1 session. He died on 10 Dec. 1723.

Mansell’s significance for contemporaries can perhaps be summed up by Swift’s comment that he was ‘of good nature but a very moderate capacity’, which made him a congenial dinner companion. Swift Works ed. Davis et al. v. 260. In William Shippen’s Moderation Displayed (1704) he was ‘a fluttering empty fop’ known for his ‘sprightly converse’ and wit. POAS, vii. 32. He was one of the few Welsh ‘ministerial politicians of the second rank’, but he owed this to his relationship with Harley. P.D.G. Thomas, Politics in 18th Cent. Wales, 10. Thomas Coningsby^†, the future earl of Coningsby recognized this when in 1720 he referred to Glamorganshire as ‘a county under the influence of my Lord Mansell, who is directed absolutely by Lord Oxford.’ Add. 61494, ff. 132-6.