STANHOPE, Philip (1633-1714)

Anglo-Dutch upbringing, 1633-60

Philip Stanhope’s grandfather, also named Philip Stanhope^†, was a forceful Nottinghamshire landowner who bought the barony of Stanhope of Shelford in 1616 and was further raised to the earldom of Chesterfield in 1628. His grandson, Philip, became heir to the earldom of Chesterfield when his father died only a few months after Philip’s own birth in 1633. In the latter 1630s his widowed mother Katherine, Lady Stanhope, was a figure in the high society of the capital but in 1641 she married a foreigner 15 years her senior, the Dutch diplomat and nobleman Jan van der Kerckhove, lord of Heenvliet, who had come to England to negotiate the marriage between Charles I’s daughter, Mary, and William, prince of Orange. The young Lord Stanhope was raised and educated in the Orangist court where Lady Stanhope served as the governess to the new princess of Orange. He studied at the college at Breda and Leiden University before travelling through France and Italy in 1649. Ibid. ff. 210v-208v. Lord Stanhope’s first marriage ended in November 1654 when his young wife died of smallpox eight days after giving birth to a son, who himself quickly died. Stanhope embarked on another round of travelling in France and Italy, but returned to England when he learned of the illness of his grandfather and the attempts of family members in England, such as his uncle Arthur Stanhope, ‘who at that time was well with the Protector Cromwell’, to make claims on the estate. Ibid. ff. 208v-204v.

Over the next several years the 2nd earl enjoyed the life of a young gallant and he was offered daughters of, in turn, Oliver Cromwell^‡ and Thomas Fairfax^‡, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron [S], in marriage. He was more involved with his liaisons with Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of Thomas Howard, earl of Berkshire, and, most significantly, with the teenage Barbara Villiers, later to achieve notoriety as Charles II’s mistress and as the countess of Castlemaine and duchess of Cleveland in her own right. Ibid. ff. 204v, 8-19, 25-6; Letters of Chesterfield, 77-81, 86-96, 109-16. Despite the sexual competition that this relationship might have engendered, Chesterfield successfully sued for the exiled king’s formal pardon after killing Francis Wolley in a duel arising from a dispute over the price of a horse and fleeing to France in January 1660. Charles II assured him that ‘you may be confident of all that you desire from me, and that I have a just sense of the great affection and zeal you have upon all occasions expressed for the advancement of my service and interest’. Add. 19253, f. 203v; Letters of Chesterfield, 105-9; Pepys Diary, i. 20.

At the court of Charles II, 1660-70

Charles II’s assurance was a reference to the conspicuous royalism that Chesterfield’s branch of the Stanhopes had exhibited during the Civil Wars. Chesterfield’s grandfather, the first earl, had seen three of his sons killed fighting for the king and his estates sequestered, while his daughter-in-law Lady Stanhope expended much energy in recovering those estates for her son. From her position at the court at The Hague she had helped to gather and transmit intelligence and muster foreign support for the royalist cause. For these services after she was widowed for the second time in March 1660, she was created on 29 May 1660 suo jure countess of Chesterfield. Chesterfield himself had been involved in various projects to bring back Charles II, and was imprisoned briefly for his suspected part in the planned insurrection of summer 1659. Thus, after having received his pardon, he could honourably take his place with the royalist retinue which landed in England on 25 May 1660. Add. 19253, f. 203v. He first sat in the House on 1 June, but after that one day only sat a further seven times before the recess, after which he came to 68 per cent of the House’s meetings in the winter months. Throughout the Convention he was named to only three select committees on legislation. He was not present in the House on 18 June when William Paget, 6th Baron Paget, reported from the committee for privileges that the bailiffs of Westminster had committed a breach of Chesterfield’s privilege in seizing and retaining his goods in January 1660 following his flight upon the death of Wolley. PA, HL/PO/DC/CP/1/1, pp. 1, 15, 17, 18. He was present on 13 Sept. to see the king give the royal assent to the bill which naturalized Emma Wilhemine Kerckhove and Charles Henry Kerckhove, Baron Wotton (later earl of Bellomont [I]), an act which would allow these half-siblings of Chesterfield to inherit their mother’s English estates.

He was slightly more assiduous in his attendance during the first session of the Cavalier Parliament in 1661-2 as he came to close to three-fifths of the meetings, mostly in the first part before the summer adjournment, and was named to 11 committees. In the Parliament’s first days, on 11 May 1661, he helped to introduce to the House Thomas Brudenell, as earl of Cardigan and John Granville, as earl of Bath. On 6 Feb. 1662 he voted and protested against the bill of Charles Stanley, 8th earl of Derby, to reclaim land he lost during the Interregnum through legal conveyances. Add. 33589, ff. 220-1. He also leapt to the assistance of his former father-in-law when the earl of Northumberland clashed in the House in January 1662 with George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, over the bill to revive the court of York, offering to be ‘employed’ by Northumberland in any way to defend his honour. Letters of Chesterfield, 124-5; Add. 19253, f. 54.

But this language is suggestive more of a courtier ready to duel for a point of honour than of a serious statesman. During the 1660s Chesterfield took his place at the court of Charles II and continued for a time to live the life of a dissolute rake that he had commenced in the late 1650s. Undoubtedly his marriage in September 1660 to Lady Elizabeth Butler further helped his position at court, as Ormond was able to procure for his son-in-law the position of chamberlain to the new queen, Catherine of Braganza, when she arrived in England in 1662. Letters of Chesterfield, 119-24, 127-30; Add. 19253, ff. 50-52.

As for Chesterfield’s new wife, Anthony Hamilton, chronicler of the affairs of the court of Charles II, was clearly bewitched by her and thought her ‘one of the most agreeable women you could ever see’, with an ‘exquisite shape’ and a fair complexion, though ‘her heart, ever open to tender sentiments, was neither scrupulous in point of constancy, nor nice in point of sincerity’. On the other hand, Hamilton clearly did not like Chesterfield: ‘he had a very agreeable face, a fine head of hair, an indifferent shape, and a worse air; he was not, however, deficient in wit; a long residence in Italy had made him ceremonious in his commerce with men, and jealous in his connection with women; he had been much hated by the king, because he had been much beloved by Lady Castlemaine’. Hamilton’s animus is understandable as Chesterfield, still pining for Castlemaine, had been initially aloof and cruel to his new wife, and in revenge she encouraged the advances of, first, Hamilton himself, and then of James Stuart, duke of York who, according to Samuel Pepys^&Dagger, was ‘smitten in love’ with Lady Chesterfield. Chesterfield told York ‘how much he did apprehend himself wronged in his picking out his lady of the whole court to be the subject of his dishonour’ and in December 1662 he removed her to his country house at Bretby in Derbyshire to preserve her, and his, honour.

Hamilton painted Chesterfield as a tyrannical buffoon and cuckold, whose extreme jealousy of his wife, so out of keeping with the norms of Charles II’s court, he attributed to his ‘bad upbringing’ and his extended stay in Italy where he had imbibed ‘this disgraceful habit of keeping their wives under lock and key’. Pepys Diary, iii. 248; iv. 19; Memoirs of the Comte de Gramont, trans. Quennell (1930), 141, 155-8, 170-85. In around April 1663 the countess gave birth to a daughter, also named Elizabeth, which appears to have gone some way to appeasing Ormond’s anger with Chesterfield for his daughter’s sudden removal from court. The earl’s attempts at reconciliation with both his wife and parents-in-law were cut short in July 1665 when, shortly after Chesterfield had resigned from his post as chamberlain to the queen ‘with intentions to retire and live in the country’, Lady Chesterfield died of the plague; Chesterfield also caught the disease but recovered. Add. 19253, ff. 201v, 55; Letters of Chesterfield, 118-19, 125-6, 131-2.

With these other concerns, it is not surprising that Chesterfield did not devote much attention to Parliament. He attended 20 per cent of the meetings of the session of spring 1663, during which Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, classed him as opposing the impeachment of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, by George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol. A number of friendly letters to the lord chancellor, himself a close colleague of Ormond, do survive in Chesterfield’s correspondence, though mostly from 1665-6 Letters of Chesterfield, 132-5, 138-9.

Chesterfield came to 30 per cent of the sittings in spring 1664, 13 per cent in 1664-5, and none in autumn 1665. He was recovered from his bout of plague sufficiently to attend 56 per cent of the sittings of the 1666-7 session, where he was named to only one committee, that for the bill to establish a judicature for disputes arising from the Great Fire. He dissented on 23 Jan. 1667 from the House’s rejection of the clause in the bill which would allow a right of appeal to the king. He was commissioned a colonel of infantry for the Dutch War in June 1667 and Pepys considered him one of the ‘young Hectors’ who aimed to debauch the country-women around their camp at Harwich. Pepys Diary, viii. 255. Instead Chesterfield fell dangerously ill and ‘was given over by three of the best physicians in London, who plainly told me, that I could not live above two hours’. His ‘good friend’ Gilbert Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury, even ‘came and took me in his arms and gave me his blessing and the last farewell’. His illness appears to have broken on 27 Aug. 1667, when he began to recover shortly after having prepared his will. His estate had recently been greatly augmented by his inheritance of part of the estate of his mother, who had died in April 1667, and he bequeathed the bulk of it to his only surviving child, Elizabeth, and made the duke and duchess of Ormond executors. Add. 19253, f. 200v; Bodl. Carte 22. ff. 272-5; Add. 75366, C. Bates to Sir G. Savile, 27 Aug. 1667.

Retirement to the country, 1670-79

These arrangements and the fate of the young Elizabeth ensured that the Butler family continued to be concerned with Chesterfield’s health, career and estate in the years following Lady Chesterfield’s death. Bretby in Derbyshire was a frequent destination for Ormond on his many journeys between Westminster and Dublin. Letters of Chesterfield, 164-7, 170-2, 185-7 et seq.; Bodl. Carte 49, f. 548; HMC Ormonde, n.s. iii. 305-6. Relations between Chesterfield and Ormond were often fractious, though, especially over the matter of the young Elizabeth’s marriage. Her maintenance and portion were diminished, much to Ormond’s disliking, after Chesterfield’s third marriage in 1670, to Lady Elizabeth Dormer. This new marriage and the string of children which arrived in rapid succession from February 1673 preoccupied him and he largely retired to Bretby from this point and neglected Parliament. Add. 19253, f. 199v. He may have taken some part in local Nottinghamshire administration and commissions, but the evidence is scarce and even in this area he was notably inactive.

He also found himself out of sympathy with the policies pursued following Clarendon’s fall in 1667. He missed the parliamentary attack on Clarendon entirely, not sitting in the House for that session until 10 Feb. 1668. He left on 28 Feb. when he was excused to go to the country and registered his proxy with his friend Thomas Belasyse, 2nd Viscount (later earl of) Fauconberg. This was vacated on 7 May when he returned briefly for a further three sittings before the session was adjourned and ultimately prorogued. He did come to all but three sittings of the short session of October-December 1669 and to just over three-fifths of the long session of 1670-1, where he entered his protest against the second reading of the divorce bill of John Manners, styled Lord Roos (later duke of Rutland) on 17 Mar. 1670. In his own account of the year 1669 Chesterfield claims that he said ‘something in Parliament against the declaration for liberty of conscience that the court disliked’, whereupon ‘I left the paying of my attendance there for some years’. Ibid. f. 199v.

In early 1673 Ormond encouraged him to come to the next session of Parliament, as ‘there will be work for all men of honour and interest in this session’. Letters of Chesterfield, 173-4; Add. 19253, f. 78. Chesterfield dutifully came to all but eight of the sittings of the session, but he was becoming increasingly concerned by recent events and, probably in spring 1673, he wrote to his friend, Lord William Russell^‡, lamenting the recent military ventures against the Dutch, ‘which I hear was very much to the advantage of his Majesty’s navy, I cannot say of England, since many judicious persons, who love both their king and country, do apprehend that the ruining of those enemies will prove fatal to ourselves. … in my opinion, things are so laid both at home and abroad, that nothing less than a miracle can long preserve us’. Letters of Chesterfield, 188; Add. 19253, f. 89.

Between October 1673 and June 1675 he came to only 15 meetings, all in January 1674, and he entrusted his proxy to his friend George Savile, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, on 4 Feb. 1674 for the remainder of the session. On 20 Nov. 1675 he was in the House and supported with his vote and protest the address for the dissolution of Parliament. He did not come to a single meeting of any of the turbulent sessions in 1677 or 1678, as his initial concern over his wife’s health and pregnancy in October 1676 was exacerbated by the terrible ‘melancholy’ she fell into after the birth in December and then by her death in October 1677 after miscarrying her fifth child. Add. 19253, f. 199v; Add. 29557, f. 435. Ormond wrote to console Chesterfield of ‘the very uneasy and uncomfortable condition your lady long lived in’ and Chesterfield himself records that ‘after the death of my wife I lived that whole year alone in the country, and in six months never came out of my chamber’. Add. 19253, ff. 199v, 69; HMC Ormonde, n.s. iv. 54, 57, 145, 146, 149. On 1 May 1678, still absent from the House, he registered his proxy with his father-in-law Carnarvon.

Court supporter, 1679-85

Because of these family connections, Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, considered the absent Chesterfield ‘vile’ in spring 1677. Sometime in 1678 Chesterfield wrote to Shaftesbury’s enemy Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), with the hope ‘that the correspondence begun before I left the town is by this time improved to a friendship’. Letters of Chesterfield, 190; Add. 19253, ff. 79, 103. He sent his condolences to Danby upon his commitment to the Tower in early April 1679 and perhaps in response to these well-wishes, Danby, who clearly saw Chesterfield as an ally in the House, wrote to him urging his attendance in Parliament to help defeat the bill for his attainder. Letters of Chesterfield, 192-8; Add. 19253, ff. 104-6, 198v. This time Chesterfield responded and took his seat in the House on 16 Apr. 1679, the first time he had sat since 22 Nov. 1675, but two days too late to vote against the attainder. He remained until the end of the session and on 10 May 1679 voted against the proposed joint committee to consider ways of prosecuting the impeached peers. On the last day of the Parliament, 27 May, he probably supported the right of the bishops to sit in the House during the hearing of capital cases. The duke of York, his former rival for the affections of Lady Elizabeth Butler, also assured Chesterfield at this time that he had heard of the earl’s recent kind words and expressions of loyalty towards him and ‘I could not hinder myself from letting you know how sensible I am of them, and assuring you that, upon all occasions, you shall find me as truly your friend as you deserve’. Letters of Chesterfield, 198-9; Add. 19253, f. 82.

With these increasing moves back to an active support of the court and of the royal brothers, Chesterfield was correspondingly rewarded. When James Scott* , duke of Monmouth, was deprived of all his offices in early December 1679, Thomas Butler, Baron Butler of Moore Park (better known as earl of Ossory [I]), championed his brother-in-law Chesterfield as his replacement for many of them and the earl was appointed chief justice in eyre south of Trent at the end of the year. HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 247, 248-9; Add. 19253, f. 198v, 94-5, 100. He was also placed on the commissions of the peace for Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire, as part of the purge of exclusionists from the county magistracy in 1680. He came to all but 20 of the meetings of the second Exclusion Parliament, and strenuously opposed the exclusion bill on 15 Nov. 1680, arguing in the debate on the bill that it ‘seems to strike at the foundation of the government, for, if the next heir may be debarred the Crown, for being a Roman Catholic, who knows how soon the same arguments may be turned against any king that shall be thought to favour that persuasion?’ Most seriously for Chesterfield,

the blood of the last king has left an eternal stain upon this kingdom, and I hope in God that it will never be revived or made greater, by debarring the same blood, in his son from inheriting the crown, especially without summoning him, hearing him, and appointing him a day to answer for himself. Add. 19253, f. 197v.

He also voted against the establishment of a joint committee to debate the state of the nation and voted that William Howard, Viscount Stafford, was not guilty of treason. The king was evidently pleased with Chesterfield’s support and on 26 Jan. 1681 he was sworn a privy councillor, in a purge from the council of supporters of exclusion. Add. 19253, f. 197v; HMC Ormonde, n.s. v.566.

From as early as January 1681 Danby had enlisted Chesterfield to act as a surety in his petition for bail from the Tower that was to be presented at the Parliament in March. Add. 28043, f. 27; Add. 38849, f. 168. Chesterfield arrived in Oxford by 20 Mar., in the company of his brother-in-law Richard Butler, Baron Butler of Weston (better known as earl of Arran [I]), with whom he lodged during the week-long session. HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 602-3, 616-17; vi. 9. He and his colleagues enlisted by Danby tried to push his petition for bail through the House, but to little avail, partly blocked by Chesterfield’s good friend Halifax. HMC 14th Rep. IX, 423, 426. In the following years, as Chesterfield retreated to the country and rebuilt his house at Bretby (burned in 1680 under suspicious circumstances), he continued his correspondence with Danby in the Tower, in which a principal topic was the likelihood and timing of another Parliament and Chesterfield’s continuing efforts to secure his release. Letters of Chesterfield, 209-14, 240-1; Add. 19253, ff. 98, 107-8v, 110-11; Eg. 3332, f. 84; Eg. 3334, ff. 63-4.

Despite his constant claims that he preferred the life of retirement in the country, Chesterfield appears to have taken seriously his duties as a privy councillor and as a councillor to the queen. He returned to the capital most winters and during the summer was kept informed of events in London by correspondents such as his friend (and Ossory connection) Henry Bennet, earl of Arlington. Letters of Chesterfield, 208-9, 221-6; Add. 19253, ff. 91v-96. Another of Chesterfield’s informants, Sir Charles Sedley^‡, took a cynically detached view of goings-on at court. Remarking on some of the strange alliances and cabals being formed at court in the summer of 1682, especially the return to favour of the disgraced Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland, who had been removed from the Privy Council when Chesterfield had been sworn of it, Sedley could only remark that ‘I believe never was an age so comical as this; and a laugher, where ever he turns himself, will have occasion to hold his sides.’ Chesterfield could only agree that ‘I have long thought this kingdom to be the island of uncertainty’. Letters of Chesterfield, 229-33; Add. 19253, ff. 121v-123.

Chesterfield reached his pinnacle of prominence at court in 1683 when, in the wake of the disgrace of John Sheffield, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham), for his flirtation with Princess Anne, Charles II granted Chesterfield the command of Mulgrave’s old regiment, the 3rd Foot, or ‘Holland’, regiment of guards in November 1682. Add. 19253, f. 196v; Add. 28053, ff. 291-2. Chesterfield was temporarily discomfited when a brother-in-law from his first marriage, Arthur Capell, earl of Essex, and his close friend Lord Russell, were accused of treason in 1683 for their involvement in the conspiracies against the royal brothers. He refused to testify as to Russell’s good character at his trial, claiming that, as a privy councillor, he could not be used against the crown’s case. Add. 19253, ff. 196v-195v, 138v, 139v.

Late in 1683, the duke of York, incensed by Chesterfield’s offer to return the office of chief justice in eyre to Monmouth who was back in favour at court, persuaded Charles II to change the terms of Chesterfield’s commission so that his regiment was no longer a regiment of guards. Dalton, Army Lists, i. 298n. York promised that his ‘Holland’ regiment would not lose its privileged place as the third regiment on the English establishment, but even this promise was abrogated when William Blathwayt^‡ informed Chesterfield that the regiments of Percy Kirke^‡ and George Douglas, earl of Dumbarton [S], recently returned from Tangiers, would take precedence over his. At this further insult, Chesterfield resigned his commission on 26 Jan. 1684. Letters of Chesterfield, 249-60; Add. 19253, f. 127v, 129v-131, 194v; HMC Ormonde, n.s. vii. 183. Ormond thought he had done so ‘inadvisedly and unseasonably’. Relations between Chesterfield and Ormond were uneasy at this point, as the duke was concerned about the small size of the portion the earl was willing to bestow on Lady Elizabeth Stanhope. It had been reduced by a third to £8,000 after the birth of sons by Chesterfield’s third wife, and Ormond was also concerned at the paucity of suitable noblemen the earl was considering for her match. Bodl. Carte 220, ff. 7, 104; Add. 70267, Chesterfield to Ormond, 5 July 1685; Letters of Chesterfield, pp. 280-83; Add. 19253, ff. 140-41, 164-6. Lady Elizabeth was not married until September 1691, after Ormond’s death, to John Lyon, styled Lord Glamis [S], later 4th earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne [S].

At about this same time Chesterfield appears to have been acting as an important mediator between Danby and Halifax. Danby entrusted him in January 1684 with enlisting Halifax’s help in getting him bailed from the Tower, reassuring Halifax through Chesterfield that ‘I shall not desire him to do himself any injury by appearing more publicly for me’. At this point, Halifax was beginning to consider Danby a potential ally at court against the growing influence of Sunderland. He told Chesterfield that he was willing to help, but thought that Danby should be patient until March, when problems in the personnel in king’s bench could be sorted out. Letters of Chesterfield, 270-72; Add. 19253, ff. 134v-135. When Danby was released on 12 Feb. 1684, Chesterfield was one of his sureties, pledging £5,000 for his bail. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 300-1; HMC Portland, iii. 377. Chesterfield appears to have spent the summer of 1684 at court, from where he kept Arlington informed of recent diplomatic developments and expressed a general suspicion of French motives. Letters of Chesterfield, 265-70; Add. 19253, ff. 133-4. He wrote bemusedly to Fauconberg about more changes at court following on the removal of Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, as lord treasurer and his being ‘kicked upstairs’ to be lord president of the council:

I cannot but congratulate the felicity of this age that affords so many persons equally fit for the treasury, secretaries of state, presidents of the council, or what you please. Formerly ’twas thought these required different talents, studies and educations. Methinks it should be comfortable for all, that have any pretences at court, to observe these great employments under so swift a rotation, that every man of merit may hope to taste of them in turn. Letters of Chesterfield, 275-7; Add. 19253, f. 135v.

In December there was even a rumour that Chesterfield would be named lord lieutenant of Derbyshire in the place of the deceased William Cavendish, 3rd earl of Devonshire, but in the even the position went to Nicholas Leke* , 2nd earl of Scarsdale. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk, ii. 502.

James II and principled loyalism, 1685-8

Chesterfield was one of the courtiers sent out of the king’s bedchamber as he lay dying, while the duke of York, the earl of Bath and Louis de Duras, 2nd earl of Feversham alone remained behind, ‘which being done’, Chesterfield comments in his own account of his life, ‘it is more than probable that a Romish priest was introduced by a back door that opened by his bed side, and that his Majesty died a Roman Catholic’—a suspicion widely held then and since. Add. 19253, ff. 194v-193v; Morrice, ii. 510-11. Chesterfield was, nevertheless, seen as a leading figure at the new court of James II. William George Richard Stanley, 9th earl of Derby, looked to Chesterfield to introduce him at court, but Chesterfield responded that it was more important to the king that Derby remain in Lancashire where he could use his interest to promote the election of ‘those who are loyal and worthy to be Members of Parliament’. Add. 19253, f. 123v.

Chesterfield himself came to every sitting of the House in James II’s Parliament until it was adjourned in early July. This was by far his busiest and most engaged session to date, as he was nominated to half the select committees established during his days of attendance, and he even held the proxy of William Fielding, 3rd earl of Denbigh, from 13 June 1685 to the end of the session, the only time Chesterfield himself was entrusted with a proxy. It was Chesterfield who on the first day of the Parliament, 19 May 1685, presented to the House Danby’s petition requesting that either his bail be discharged or he brought to trial. In the ensuing debate he argued strongly that Danby should be immediately released from bail, perhaps even with reparations for his long imprisonment, as the five Catholic peers were demanding. Bodl. ms Eng. hist. c. 46, ff. 40-41. After the defeat of Monmouth’s Rebellion, though, Chesterfield wished to retire to the country again, and in October made moves to be excused from Parliament, because of his distaste at the idea of having to sit in judgment on the peers Henry Booth, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), and Thomas Grey, 2nd earl of Stamford. He also was keen to surrender his office of chief justice in eyre, because of the constant pain of gout and the stone. Letters of Chesterfield, 242-3, 292-5; Add. 19253, ff. 125v, 141v-142v; 193v.

Halifax, to whom he entrusted the duty of conveying these excuses to the king, had other concerns at this time, as he was dismissed from his office as lord president on 21 Oct. 1685. Now an opponent of the court, he wrote back to Chesterfield urging him to come down to Westminster for the next sitting of Parliament so that he could help defeat the king’s proposal to repeal the Test Acts. To persuade Chesterfield he insisted that by so voting, and thus displeasing the court, he would be sure to obtain his goal of being dismissed from his burdensome office. He further assured the earl that there were the numbers sufficient to defeat the motion to repeal the Test Acts, even among some previously obedient ‘court lords’, who were now willing to defend ‘the strongest bulwarks of all that is left us’. These arguments fell on deaf ears, as Chesterfield insisted that it would appear ‘more gentle and respectful’ to resign his office while in the country. He hoped instead that Halifax would accept his proxy, a better solution in any case, ‘since I have not the gift of speaking often in the House, [and], I think the sending of my proxy is the same thing as if I were there’. Halifax continued to urge him to attend:

I make very much difference between my Lord of Chesterfield and his proxy. I know of what weight your assistance is in speaking, as well as your countenance in being present; and as for the trials, your friends would so order it that we would get you excused though you were in town, provided we might reserve you for some of those critical debates upon which, to our thinking, everything dependeth. Letters of Chesterfield, 306-9.

Chesterfield still refused to attend and reported to the marquess on 13 Nov. 1685 that he had ordered his servant in London to cause his proxy in favour of Halifax to be entered in the register by the clerk of the House – although there is now no record of this proxy in the registers. Letters of Chesterfield, 295-310; Add. 19253, ff. 142v-7; Add. 75361, Chesterfield to Halifax, 19 Oct., 5, 13 Nov. 1685. After the session collapsed in acrimony, the king relieved Chesterfield of the chief justiceship in eyre and by 15 Dec. 1685 it was being reported that the earl’s local rival, Theophilus Hastings, 7th earl of Huntingdon, then a favourite at court, had replaced him. Add. 70024, f. 304; Add. 72481, ff. 86-7.

The constant prorogations of Parliament in 1686 and 1687 allowed Chesterfield to remain in the country, where he continued a frequent correspondence with Halifax. Halifax continued to urge him to come to London whenever there was the hope (or threat) of another sitting of Parliament, but Chesterfield consistently declined, using the excuse in a letter of 24 July 1686 (with the meeting of 23 Nov. in the distance) that if such illustrious neighbouring protestant peers as Henry Cavendish, 2nd duke of Newcastle, John Manners, 9th earl (later duke) of Rutland, Thomas Thynne, earl of Weymouth and William Pierrepont, 4th earl of Kingston, were not going to attend, as they had told him they were not, what good would his own presence do? Chesterfield was also sure that Parliament would be summoned at a time when people were so ‘incensed’ only so that the king could come up with a pretext to dissolve it and summon a more compliant one. Letters of Chesterfield, 283-6, 289-90, 317-29; Add. 19253, ff. 148-9, 152, 154-8; Add. 75361, Chesterfield to Halifax, 13 Jan., 28 Mar., 17 Apr., 17 May, 24 July, 27 Oct. 1686, 30 Jan., 15 Mar., 31 July 1687, 25 May 1688. This sceptical stance towards James II’s policies led commentators throughout 1687 to regard Chesterfield as an opponent to the court, particularly regarding the repeal of the Test Acts.

It was this attitude that led Chesterfield’s old friend Danby to approach him in late September 1688 to recruit him to the group of midland and northern peers who were preparing for William of Orange’s planned descent. Chesterfield demurred, explaining that ‘I have ever had a natural aversion to the taking arms against my king, which the law justly terms designing the king’s death’. He agreed with Danby that the success of the venture was ‘certain’, but he was afraid that ‘a continual remorse and disquiet would attend my thoughts after such an action’ and he urged Danby to reconsider for the sake of his own conscience. Letters of Chesterfield, 336-9; Add. 19253, ff. 167v-168; Browning, Danby, ii. 135-6. Despite his misgivings, Chesterfield did not reveal the details of the plot to the king or his ministers, so his loyalty to a king of whose policies he disapproved was limited.

He did not take part in the Revolution until Princess Anne arrived in the company of Henry Compton, bishop of London in Nottingham, close to Chesterfield’s country seat of Bretby, on 2 December. Chesterfield, with his friend and neighbour Robert Shirley, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, ‘and several worthy gentlemen’ went to Nottingham to offer their service to the princess and Chesterfield later assembled a body of above 100 horse to accompany her to Warwick. His rigid conscience and sense of duty as a privy councillor to the still-reigning monarch nevertheless limited his participation in the Revolution. He refused to take part in a council of war at Nottingham that would discuss raising troops that would be ostensibly opposed to the king’s own forces, a decision which the princess and the other peers attending her ‘called a tacit upbraiding them with rebellion’. Nor did he join in signing the ‘association’ calling for the punishment of all papists in England if one of them should kill William of Orange, arguing that ‘all associations were illegal except they were commanded or authorized by Parliament’. When Chesterfield and the princess arrived at Warwick on 12 Dec. they learned of James’s first attempted flight and Anne, deeming herself safe and probably tired of Chesterfield’s unhelpful professions of loyalty to her father and his uncomfortable reminders to her entourage of the disloyalty in which they were engaged, dismissed him from her service, which he gratefully accepted. Letters of Chesterfield, 334-6; Add. 19253, ff. 193v-192, 162.

Country peer under William III, 1689-1700

Chesterfield set out for Westminster from Derbyshire in early January and was present at the Convention on its opening day, 22 Jan. 1689. Letters of Chesterfield, 339-40; Add. 19253, f. 160. His audience with William boded well initially as the prince remembered Chesterfield fondly from his youth, and stated that the earl ‘was the man in the world who he remembered the longest, and therefore he would always look upon me as one of his family’. Add. 19253, f. 192. Chesterfield’s unbending loyalty to the hereditary principle quickly got in the way of any favour he could expect from the prince as in the first month of the Convention—and he only attended its first 56 meetings until 18 Apr.—he supported a regency in the name of James II and consistently opposed William of Orange’s own claim to the throne. He was a manager for the three turbulent conferences on 4-6 Feb. 1689 regarding the wording of the vote that would determine the disposition of the crown. In these meetings, in the committee to draw up arguments to be presented in conference and in his own votes in the House he made clear his opposition to the Commons’ words that the king had ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was ‘vacant’. In his autobiographical account he claims that when,

the question was put whether the prince of Orange should be elected king of England … I not only gave my negative, but often spoke against it, telling them and proving that there was no abdication, nor no vacancy in the throne, for the crown being hereditary the prince of Orange could not legally be elected king. Ibid. f. 192.

In his memoirs Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, suggests that through a ‘conference of several hours’ he was responsible in part for confirming and strengthening ‘that most worthy lord and my good friend and kinsman the earl of Chesterfield’ in his ‘reasons why he could not enter into that resolution that the king had either abdicated or deserted’. When Chesterfield was called upon by the House to name the lord with whom he had consulted on this matter, he was ‘in great perplexity’, and Ailesbury, to remove Chesterfield from his embarrassment, volunteered himself as the responsible party. Ailesbury Mems, 233.

Chesterfield’s involvement in these debates, however, was more ambiguous than he or even Ailesbury cared to remember for, although present in the House on 6 Feb. to be selected to take part in the conference on the word ‘abdicated’, he abstained on the crucial vote of that day in which the House finally accepted that term. Clarendon Corresp. ii. 261. Even after this vote he was involved in conferences regarding the establishment of the new regime – on 8 Feb. on the proclamation of William and Mary as king and queen and on 5 Mar. for the address pledging Parliament’s assistance to the king &ndash and in these he probably continued to stress fruitlessly his opposition to the legal basis of the deposition of James II. On 14 Mar. he was a teller in a division on whether to commit the comprehension bill to a committee of the whole, and a week later he entered his protest against the rejection of the clause repealing the sacramental test in the bill to abrogate the oaths. Between 8 and 17 Apr. he represented the House in three conferences concerning the bill to remove papists from the capital. His final stroke was assigning his proxy on 17 Apr. 1689 to one of the former king’s principal courtiers, the Tory earl of Mulgrave. This caused great consternation among many of his old friends who had themselves attained honours and positions in the new regime – Halifax (now lord privy seal), Danby (now marquess of Carmarthen) and Fauconberg (now earl of Fauconberg). To justify his choice to them Chesterfield argued that Mulgrave, apart from being a man of sense, was ‘a good courtier, and, by consequence, one who having much to be forgiven, would not return to oppose the present powers’ and finally, he was ‘a person who never loves to part with anything, and therefore would be sure to keep the privileges of the House of Lords, in a time when I thought they were likely to be invaded by the Commons’. Letters of Chesterfield, 346-7, 364-5; Add. 19253, ff. 160v, 162v-163.

All this activity entailed that ‘the major part of the Convention were much offended with me’, but William himself still held out hope of bringing Chesterfield around and sent various delegates—first Charles Mordaunt, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), then Fauconberg, then Charles Gerard, earl of Macclesfield—‘to tell me, that he forgave me what I had said in the Convention because he thought that I had no malice to his person’ and ‘to let [me], know how good an opinion he had of me, and how kind he intended to be to me’. Add. 19253, ff. 192-191v. William’s regard for Chesterfield and his abilities must have been strong, for throughout 1689 he continued to offer the earl prominent posts in his government, all of which Chesterfield rejected. Halifax recorded in his notebook that Chesterfield had told him that ‘he was pressed to have some place at court, at King William’s first coming’ and that he had been offered the treasurership of the navy, which post Halifax told him was beneath his dignity. Chatsworth, ‘Devonshire House Notebook’, section C, f. 4r. William delegated Carmarthen, now lord president of the council, to offer Chesterfield a place on the new Privy Council or as gentleman of the bedchamber. Chesterfield turned both down, thus ending his tenure on the council, where he had sat since 1681. Add. 19253, f. 191v. In November 1689 the secretary of state Charles Talbot, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, used Chesterfield’s uncle, Alexander Stanhope, recently appointed ambassador to Spain through Chesterfield’s interest, to convey the king’s wishes that Chesterfield would serve as plenipotentiary at the peace conference about to be convened at The Hague. Chesterfield excused himself owing to his age and illness, which made him incapable of a long winter’s journey. Almost immediately afterwards in December 1689, as rumours were swirling that Halifax would be removed as lord privy seal, Danby, on the advice of the king, approached Chesterfield to be the marquess’s replacement. The earl once again refused it on account of illness, age, and incapacity. Letters of Chesterfield, 341-3, 348-50, 355-8, 361-4; Add. 19253, f. 191, 169v-171, 172v-174; Kent HLC (CKS) U1590/C7/19, Chesterfield to A. Stanhope, 13 Nov. 1689. In February 1691 Carmarthen put forward Chesterfield’s name as a candidate for the difficult post of lord lieutenant of war-torn Ireland. Browning, Danby, ii. 195-6. As late as 1695, Chesterfield recorded that the king, about to embark for the continent, ‘asked me publicly (when I took my leave of him) what he could do for me or my family’. Add. 19253, f. 190v. Chesterfield also stood high in James II’s estimation for his work in his defence in the Convention, and Chesterfield claimed that sometime in 1689 he, Weymouth, Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and William Sancroft, the non-juring archbishop of Canterbury, received commissions from the court of St Germain constituting them regents in England until the exiled king could reclaim his throne. Chesterfield, out of consideration of his own safety as well as political principle, was able to convince the other ‘regents’ that the commissions should be burned. Ibid. f. 191v.

On 10 Jan. 1690 Chesterfield assigned his proxy to Halifax for the remainder of the second session of the Convention, which snub apparently angered his former proxy recipient Mulgrave. Chesterfield did not attend the House again until 16 Nov. 1691 and during this period of absence he took some offence from the repeated summonses to the House he received from the Speaker and from his own friends. His regular correspondence with Halifax throughout 1689-91 suggests that he did regularly visit the capital, without necessarily attending Parliament. Letters of Chesterfield, 341-6, 352-5, 359-60, 365-8; Add. 19253, ff. 161, 163v-4, 168v-169, 173-5; Add. 75361, Chesterfield to Halifax, 6 Nov. 1689, 5, 7 Jan., 9 Feb., 30 May, 20 July, 19 Aug., 15 Sept., 7 Oct. 1690, 6 Jan., 22 Mar. 1691.

Chesterfield had returned to the House of Lords after his long absence in November 1691. His attendance of 68 per cent in the session of 1691-2 showed a renewed level of engagement with the House. He showed support for the divorce bill of Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk, and signed the protest of 16 Feb. 1692 against the decision that proxies could not be used in the proceedings on the bill. Chesterfield’s attendance may have had something to do with the marriage in February 1692 of Chesterfield’s eldest son Philip Stanhope, styled Lord Stanhope (later 3rd earl of Chesterfield), and Halifax’s daughter Lady Elizabeth Savile, which should have cemented Chesterfield’s long friendship with Halifax. For this marriage Chesterfield introduced a bill in the House on 19 Jan. 1692 which would allow him and the underage Stanhope to make settlements and a jointure. It was passed by the House only three days after its first reading and received the royal assent on 24 Feb. 1692. Chesterfield and Halifax were still conversing together about politics in the summer of 1692, according to Halifax’s notes of his conversations with his peers. Chatsworth, ‘Holland House Notebook’, section C, fol. 2r. But this long friendship ended abruptly, and somewhat mysteriously, sometime in 1694 when Chesterfield, then in London, fell into an argument with Halifax at dinner, which concluded with Chesterfield angrily telling Halifax ‘that I had rather be a plain honest country gentleman than a cunning, false court knave’, after which ‘I never spoke more to his lordship nor he to me till his death which happened the next year’. Add. 19253, f. 191-190v. He was still on good enough terms with Halifax’s heir, William Savile, who before his succession as 2nd marquess was styled Lord Eland, to ask him in November 1696 to convey his reasons for his absence to the House, after Chesterfield had received another peremptory order to attend the House for the proceedings against Sir John Fenwick^‡, with the threat of otherwise being brought to Westminster in custody. Letters of Chesterfield, 372-5; Add. 19253, ff. 177v-178v; Add. 75370, Chesterfield to Halifax, 21, 30 Nov. 1696.

Chesterfield had continued to be involved in Lords business in the session of 1692-3 following the marriage of his son, attending for 45 per cent of the sittings. He voted for reading the duke of Norfolk’s divorce bill on 2 Jan. 1693 and about the same time was active in trying to get the place bill through the House, voting both for its commitment and its passage. Later he voted for the acquittal of Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun. He came to only one meeting during the sessions of 1693-4 and 1694-5, but this lack of interest changed in the winter of 1695-6. Chesterfield first sat in the House that session on 25 Nov. 1695. In the first week of January 1696 he represented the House in two conferences on the amendment to the bill for regulating silver coinage and on 24 Feb. 1696 was a manager for the conference on the address in response to the king’s speech in which he had given details of the failed assassination attempt.

This address led ultimately to the framing of the Association, but when it came time to affirm that he would sign it, Chesterfield ‘did absolutely refuse it, and gave reasons against it, after which several other lords refused it likewise’. Chesterfield successfully argued in the House against that part of the bill which stated that all those who refused to sign it should forfeit their hereditary offices, such as his own as warden of the chase of Thorny Woods, and he (by his own account) managed to have that clause thrown out. His objections were, however, more fundamental and ‘finding that his Majesty king William looked coldly upon me’, he presented to the king in person a memorandum of his several arguments against the Association. His central thrust was that another oath was not going to make William’s subjects more loyal, as long experience had shown that people would willingly take oaths to ‘the power that was predominant’, and just as quickly repudiate them with the advent of a new government. The constant imposing of new oaths, he argued, was a sign of weakness of a regime, ‘like new batteries to old walls, they were fain to be added to strengthen and support it only for a little time’. Loyal subjects were already bound by the oath of allegiance and a new Association was not going to make those who had already refused the previous oath bind themselves to William. It was instead more likely to make many of the ‘thousand sober and conscientious persons, who are desirous to live quietly under your government, provided that new oaths and Associations may not be imposed upon them contrary to their conscience … so uneasy that they will embrace any change of government’. Certainly Chesterfield himself felt that ‘I have already taken the oath of allegiance, and if that cannot bind me I am sure that no other oath will, but besides I have a greater aversion against the taking of solemn oaths, than many other men have’. He requested that if William insisted on his subscribing to the Association he would be able to leave to retire to a foreign country instead. Add. 19253, ff. 190v-189v.

Chesterfield confirmed his opposition to the regime’s attempts to persecute followers of James II in the 1696-7 session when he opposed the attainder proceedings against Sir John Fenwick. On 15 Dec. 1696 he signed the protest against the resolution to hear the information of Charles Goodman and three days later he subscribed to the protest against the second reading of the attainder bill. He left the House on 22 Dec., thus avoiding the onus of voting on the passage of the attainder the following day and his name does not appear in the protest of that day. In February 1697 he further stood bail for £5,000 for the 2nd earl of Ailesbury, who had been imprisoned in the same sweep of Jacobites as Fenwick. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 183. He came to only 18 sittings of the 1697-8 session, managed an attendance level of 53 per cent in 1698-9 and was in the House for one-fifth of the meetings in 1699-1700, his final session. His final days in the House were occupied with consideration of the controversial bill on the resumption of William’s Irish land forfeitures. Chesterfield was a manager for three conferences on this bill on the last day of the session, and his last day in the House, 10 Apr. 1700.

Last years, 1700-14

Chesterfield’s final years were preoccupied with his own illness and family matters. In early 1698 the 2nd earl’s daughter Mary married John Coke^‡ of Melbourne, Derbyshire, with a portion of £8,000. Add. 19253, f. 189v. In the many parliamentary elections thereafter Chesterfield put his territorial interest and reputation behind the election of his son-in-law for the county of Derbyshire. He also maintained his steady diet of news and opinion through his correspondence with Coke, from which it is clear that even after he had given up attending Parliament Chesterfield spent time each year in London and was even a frequent attender at court. He was able to give Coke advance warning of the election of December 1700, and news of the Swedes’ victory over the Russians, after having waited on William III at Kensington, while in November 1701 he complained that ‘I never saw the town at this time of the year so dull and so empty, but the return of his Majesty … will soon fill it with Parliament men’. HMC Cowper, ii. 411-12, 413-14, 427, 437, 439-40; iv. 34, 38, 73. He recounted to his daughter Mary his audience with Anne on her accession, from which he came away with the opinion that ‘if her Majesty would have no favourites, but choose a wise council, and rely upon a Parliament, she might have so happy a reign as to eclipse that of Queen Elizabeth’. HMC Cowper, iii. 1. Perhaps because of, or despite, his treatment of the queen when she was a fugitive princess in Nottingham in 1688, there were rumours in March 1702 that she would raise him to a duke. Verney ms mic, M636/51, E. Adams to Sir J. Verney, 28 Mar. 1702.

Once again Chesterfield defeated any opportunity for favour from the Crown when he refused to take the abjuration oath, for the same reasons which had led him to object to the Association, and he asked the queen’s leave to retire into the country before her coronation. Add. 19253, f. 189. This refusal put a definite end to Chesterfield’s political life. Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, judging that the earl was ‘very subtle and cunning’, felt that his refusal to cooperate with ‘the measures of King William’ meant that he never would ‘make any great appearance in any other reign’. CP, iii. 181n. A commentator in 1705 went so far as to term him a Jacobite. Chesterfield’s support throughout Anne’s reign for his cousin, the military leader General James Stanhope^† (later Earl Stanhope) and his joy at the news about Allied victories (at least in the early part of the war) belies this latter assessment. Kent HLC (CKS), U1590/C9/8; HMC Cowper, iii. 38.

Having complained for almost his whole adult life of constant illness, come near to death on several occasions, and seen three wives and several children die before him, Chesterfield managed to hang on to life until he was 80 years old, dying on 28 Jan. 1714. The last decade of his life had begun with the death of two of his adult children, Mary, wife of John Coke, and Charles, who in 1683 had changed his surname from Stanhope to Wotton in order to inherit the estate of his uncle, Chesterfield’s half-brother, Baron Wotton and earl of Bellamont [I]. Add. 19253, f. 188v; HMC Cowper, iii. 29. At Charles Wotton’s death in 1704 that portion of the countess of Chesterfield’s estate that had been conveyed by testament in 1667 to Baron Wotton, the larger share of her estate including the grand house of Belsize Manor in Hampstead, passed to Chesterfield. With this enlarged estate Chesterfield revised his will on 17 Dec. 1713, giving extensively detailed bequests to his two surviving daughters and numerous grandchildren. The title and bulk of the estate went to his sickly and ‘extremely deaf’ son Philip, Lord Stanhope (whose own wife, Lady Elizabeth Savile, had recently died), the father of the more celebrated Philip Dormer Stanhope^†, 4th earl of Chesterfield.