HOLLES, John (1662-1711)

The young Haughton was educated abroad, his father making enquiries for a tutor for ‘his young blade’ in April 1674. Add. 70012, f. 152. Shortly after his return in the mid-1670s, Haughton was marked out as a young man of promise, destined to follow in his father’s footsteps as a defender of the Protestant faith against Catholic machinations. John Dryden, whose anti-Catholic play The Spanish Friar was first performed in November 1680, dedicated its published version in 1681 to Haughton, ‘a Protestant play to a Protestant patron’, of a noble family ‘who have been always eminent in the support and favour of our religion and liberties. And if the promises of your youth, your education at home, and your experience abroad, deceive me not, the principles you have embraced are such as will no way degenerate from your ancestors’. J. Dryden, The Spanish fryar, or the double discovery (1681), sig. A2-A4. Dryden’s characterization was not wrong. Haughton distinguished himself as a Whig and an opponent of James, duke of York, while he was still young. In September 1682 he was one of those who waited on James Scott, duke of Monmouth, in London upon his return from a triumphant tour of the north. CSP Dom. 1682, p. 430.

Haughton fought a duel in February 1687 with Thomas Wharton, later marquess of Wharton, on Wharton’s provocation. He was in touch with William of Orange’s agent Dijkvelt during his trip to England the same year. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk, iii. 381; HMC 8th Rep. pt. 1, 560. According to the later testimony of Robert Molesworth^‡, Dijkvelt travelled to England six weeks before the 1688 invasion to alert William’s supporters, such as Haughton, to be ready. Add. 61639, ff. 3-4. Haughton joined Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), in the seizure of York in December, and acted as an arbitrator in a dispute between Robert Bertie, styled Baron Willoughby de Eresby (later duke of Ancaster), and Richard Lumley, 2nd Viscount Lumley [I] (later earl of Scarbrough). Later that month he was sent by Danby to Nottingham, accompanied Princess Anne to Oxford and then waited on William of Orange, before travelling to London. Reresby Mems. 529; HMC 7th Rep. 420; Eg. 3336, ff. 1-5; Browning, Danby, ii. 144; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 412.

Inheritance of the peerage and consolidation of his estates

Haughton succeeded his father on 16 Jan. 1689, only two days after he had been elected knight of the shire for Nottinghamshire in the Convention. He took his seat in the Lords on 24 January. He marked himself as a committed Williamite, when on 31 Jan. he voted in the committee of the whole to declare William and Mary king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted to agree that James II had ‘abdicated’ and that ‘the throne was vacant’, formally dissenting from the House’s initial rejection of that wording. On 6 Feb. he voted again to use this form of words. The new monarchs bestowed their favour on their young supporter. At the coronation he carried the queen’s sceptre and the cross and about the same time he was made a gentleman of the bedchamber and lord lieutenant of Middlesex, this latter appointment owing to his family’s extensive properties in St Clement Danes. HMC Portland, ii. 161. He was active in this role, rounding up papists and acting to foil rumoured insurrections and invasions throughout 1689-90. Clare last attended the Convention on 26 July, and by the adjournment on 20 Aug. he was at Haughton. On 30 July his proxy was registered with Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, a kinsman through his grandmother, Elizabeth Vere. Clare used the clerk of the peace for Middlesex as his agent in the matter, and the proxy may have been used by Oxford in the Oates case on the 30th. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 542, 561; HMC Portland, ii. 161-64; BIHR, liii. 68. In all he had attended on 98 days of that part of the session, 61 per cent of the total, and been named to 22 committees.

Clare did not attend the second session of the Convention when it resumed in October, spending the autumn and winter on his Midland estates, being at Haughton in both November 1690 and January 1691. HMC Portland, ii. 162. On 28 Oct. 1690 he was listed as absent from a call of the House and on 14 Nov. Dr Phineas Andrews and William Awton attested on oath at the Bar, that Clare was ‘so ill and lame’, that he was not able to travel. The Midlands may have held other attractions, too, namely his forthcoming marriage. A match to one of Newcastle’s daughters had been speculated upon since as early as 1682 and Lady Margaret Cavendish apparently inclined towards Haughton in August 1686. Add. 75360, J. Reresby, to Halifax, 19 July 1682, 9 Aug. 1686. The match was first planned by Clare’s mother Grace (née Pierrepont) and her sister Frances, duchess of Newcastle. UNL, NeL 537. Clare skillfully convinced Newcastle that he would be able to rescue the estate by having a £12,000 mortgage assigned to him and offering Newcastle a further mortgage of £20,000. UNL, Pw1 655. Contemporary reports were even more lavish, a portion of £27,000 and £4,000 p.a. after the duke’s death being one estimate. Clare further ingratiated himself with the duke by willingly accepting securities on the payment of Margaret’s eventual dowry of £20,000. The marriage took place on 1 Mar. 1690, with a post-nuptial settlement being agreed in October. Wood, Life and Times, iii. 324; HMC Portland, ii. 163; UNL, NeD 78-79.

Clare’s marriage may explain his absence from the beginning of the 1690 Parliament, which he first attended on 31 March. On 13 May he protested against the resolution not to allow the City of London more time to make its case against the revocation of its charter under James II. He attended on 42 days of the session, 78 per cent of the total, his highest rate of attendance for any session during his entire parliamentary career and was named to four committees. Around May he was one of those who lent money to the king: £6,000 in his case. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk, v. 438.

Clare now manoeuvred to secure the bulk of the Holles estates, taking advantage of his aged father-in-law. Newcastle was clearly impressed by his son-in-law, telling one of his agents on 19 May 1691:

I will not divide my estate, my daughter Clare shall have it, she shall have Welbeck too. I have given it to her and I would have her give it to my Lord Clare if she have no children and I have left her power to do so… I am more beholden to my Lord Clare then to any man. He will pay all that I owe and he will take my name. I had been seized at York when I was there last but that my Lord Clare opposed it. My Lord Clare is a very prudent and a very great man. UNL, Pw1 302.

In May 1691 Newcastle revised his will accordingly to leave the entirety of the Cavendish estate to his daughter Margaret (following the death of his wife), with the injunction, ‘I do honestly desire my said daughter Clare to give the same to her husband the earl of Clare and his heirs forever’, and the duke also signed over some of his property to the use of his son-in-law. UNL, Pw1 286, 289; O.R.F. Davies, ‘The Wealth and Influence of John Holles duke of Newcastle, 1694-1711’, Renaissance and Modern Studies, ix. 26; HMC Portland, ii. 165; Notts. Arch. DD P6/1/24/2-4. Narcissus Luttrell^‡ estimated his inheritance at £9,000 per annum. One commercially-minded contemporary considered that even with Clare paying certain sums out of it, he had received the estate at the rate of about four-years’ purchase. Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 270; Verney ms mic. 636/45, J. to Sir R. Verney, 4 Aug. 1691.

Newcastle died on 26 July, shortly after revising his will, and with this windfall inheritance of land Clare felt he should also inherit Newcastle’s title. In April Clare had reminded William III of his promise of a dukedom, noting that he had been pressed to write by Newcastle and referring to the humours of his father-in-law ‘whom I am obliged to gratify’ and his own early service during the Revolution. At the end of October Clare wrote to the king again, claiming that his earlier request had ‘proceeded purely because your majesty had since assured me whenever you made any duke I should certainly be one, it being a general received opinion that what honours had been bestowed upon a parent, the heir had the best right to the king’s favour’. HMC Portland, ii. 165-6. He followed this up by a presumptuous verbal request in the bedchamber on 1 Nov. for both Newcastle’s title and his garter. Denied both, he resigned his place in the bedchamber and the lieutenancy of Middlesex in a fit of pique. Collins, Hist. Colls. of the Noble Families of Cavendishe, Hollis, Vere, Harley and Ogle, 179. As Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, explained his decision, Clare’s ‘friends say because he did not like the management and his enemies give out because he was refused a garter and to be a duke.’ Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 301; Add. 70015, f. 240; Portledge Pprs. 124.

Clare had now to defend his inheritance, as Newcastle’s erratic behaviour had provided his other son-in-law, Thomas Tufton, 6th earl of Thanet, with a means to try to invalidate the will on the grounds on insanity. UNL, Pw1 290-311; HMC Portland, ii. 165; Add. 61655, ff. 1-3; Luttrell, iii. 208. Clare spent the years from 1691 to 1694 fighting Thanet (whose wife had been cut out entirely from the will) in the prerogative court of Canterbury and the court of delegates over the will’s validity. TNA, PROB 36/6, DEL 1/251; Eg. 3357, ff. 141-50. Nor was the dispute between the two earls confined to the courtroom. On 13 May 1692 Clare and Thanet wounded each other in a duel in Lincoln’s Inn Fields ‘upon some words arising at a hearing yesterday before the commissioners’ about the Newcastle inheritance. Luttrell, ii. 451; Verney ms mic. 636/45, J. to Sir R. Verney, 14 May 1692; Add. 29574, ff. 45, 49.

Matters became further complicated with the marriage in September 1692 of another of Newcastle’s daughters, the duchess of Albemarle, to Ralph Montagu, earl (later duke) of Montagu. This marriage was thought likely to produce ‘great disorder’ in Clare, because, as Abigail Harley wrote on 13 Sept. Montagu ‘resolves to have a suit of law with my Lord Clare for a share of the duke of Newcastle’s estate’. HMC Finch, iv. 457; Add. 70116, A. to Sir E. Harley, 13 Sept. 1692; Add. 34096, f. 150.

On 12 Oct. 1693 the hearing began before the lord keeper, John Somers, later Baron Somers, and two judges, with depositions being read from ‘those taken for the earl of Thanet to prove the late duke of Newcastle was non compos mentis, and consequently uncapable to make any deed or will by which that estate is conveyed to the earl of Clare’. Add. 72482, ff. 139-40; HMC Downshire, i. 434; Luttrell, iii. 208. Verney commented on what he thought was the third day of the hearing on 18 Oct.: ‘there were 15 counsel of a side, among whom were the eminent common lawyers as well as the Chancery men’, with fees of ‘10 guineas a man.’ Verney ms mic. 636/47, J. to Sir R. Verney, 19 Oct. 1693. In the spring of 1694, the lord keeper and other judges in Chancery dismissed Thanet’s bill, thereby confirming Clare (or more precisely, his wife) in the possession of the Newcastle estate. However, an appeal to the Lords was expected from Thanet. HMC Rutland, ii. 155; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 272-3; SP 105/60, f. 125. A further challenge came from John Campbell^†, Lord Glenorchy, the future 2nd earl of Breadalbane [S], the widower of Newcastle’s daughter, Lady Frances Holles (d. 1690), presumably over her unpaid portion. Much of 1693 was spent in Glenorchy and his father using Thanet’s suit to negotiate for a better settlement, the claim finally being settled in 1702. UNL, Pw1 338-66.

By an indenture of 17 Jan. 1693, Clare obtained the rights over the property his wife had inherited, in return for taking responsibility for discharging her father’s debts. R.A. Kelch, Newcastle. A Duke Without Money, 28. By his own self-assessment, made for the purposes of taxation in September 1689, Clare was already a wealthy man, having a personal estate of £8,000. Chatsworth, Halifax Collection B.9. To the Clare estates he was now able to add Newcastle’s extensive inheritance, albeit one heavily encumbered with debt. At the time of Newcastle’s death it was worth about £10,000 p.a., but his debts were estimated at £72,580, and £4,000 of interest payments were charged on the estate. Nevertheless, his new possessions made Clare the largest and one of the richest landowners in Nottinghamshire with a total rental of £8,500 p.a. Clare signalled his new position in the country by abandoning his plans to rebuild the Holles residence of Haughton and moved into his father-in-law’s rambling mansion of Welbeck Abbey. Davies, 26-27. Furthermore, his only surviving brother, Denzil, died unmarried in August 1692, whereupon some of his claims on the estate set out in their father’s will reverted to the elder brother. UNL, NeA 652-8; Luttrell, ii. 541. The earl enjoyed another windfall by the death in January 1694 of his unmarried and underage second cousin Denzil Holles, 3rd Baron Holles. His estate, consisting of widely dispersed lands in Sussex, Surrey, Wiltshire, Dorset, Hertfordshire, Kent, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire was estimated to be worth about £5,000-£6,000, but the lands were heavily mortgaged and charged with debts totalling about £42,000 with interest payments of nearly £4,000 p.a. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 259; Verney ms mic. 636/47, J. to Sir R. Verney, 26 Jan. 1693[-4]; Davies, 27; Notts. Arch. DD 3P 8/2, 5-12, DD.4P.40/6, 21-31. Through skilful and attentive, almost obsessive, estate management, Clare began to settle the debts on these estates, aided by a private bill in 1697 to enable him to by-pass some of the conditions in the will of Francis Holles, 2nd Baron Holles. He continued to add to his estate, spending an additional £225,000 between 1701 and 1711. Indeed, following the composition of his will, in August 1707, he spent about £100,000, on four estates in Lincolnshire, Otron in Huntingdonshire, Keysoe in Bedfordshire and Wimpole. UNL, Pw2 440-509; Davies, 44; J.H. Habakkuk, Marriage, Debt and the Estate System, 478. Finally, just prior to his death he purchased an estate in Marylebone in June 1711 for £17,000, which was said to be worth £25,000. HMC Portland, v. 15. So by the time of the accession of Anne, Macky could say of him that ‘he hath the best estate in England, and employs most of his time in improving it’. Macky, Mems. of Secret Service, 35.

Service in the Lords 1691-5

Clare missed the opening of the 1690-1 session, first attending on 3 Nov. 1690. He attended on 24 days of the session, approximately a third of the total, and was named to four committees. He was present when the 1691-2 session opened on 22 October 1691. From 8 Jan. 1692 he also held the proxy of his kinsman (first cousin once removed) William Wentworth, 2nd earl of Strafford. He attended on 57 days of the session, 59 per cent of the total and was named to nine committees. He attended the prorogation of 24 May 1692. There were rumours in September that Clare was to be made a duke, but these came to nothing. Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 574. Clare was present on the opening day of the 1692-3 session, 4 November 1692. At around the turn of the year, Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, forecast Clare as a likely supporter of the divorce bill of Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk, and on 2 Jan. 1693 he voted in favour of reading the bill. He supported the place bill, voting both to commit it and then to pass it on 3 January. On 2 Feb. he voted Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. State Trials, xii. 1048-9. He attended on 61 days of the session, 60 per cent of the total and was named to four committees. Clare attended the prorogation on 2 May 1693. In September, as Henry Boyle, the future Baron Carleton, put it, one of the ‘three famous weddings mightily talked of now in town’ was ‘between old Mr [Hugh] Boscawen^‡ and Lady Mary Holles, Lord Clare’s ugly sister’. Add. 75376, ff. 78-79. This would seem to have been a useful alliance between two Whig families, Boscawen being a privy councillor.

Clare was present on the opening day of the 1693-4 session, 7 November 1693. On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted against the motion to reverse Chancery’s dismission in the case Montagu v. Bath. He attended 70 days of the session, 55 per cent of the total, and was named to six committees. By the end of April, with the earl established as a leading magnate in several counties, William III was ready to accede to Clare’s repeated request for a dukedom, and on 14 May he was able to take his father-in-law’s title of duke of Newcastle. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 303. Almost immediately he was named lord lieutenant of Nottinghamshire in place of his local rival at Chatsworth, William Cavendish, duke of Devonshire, who was raised to a dukedom at the same time as Clare. UNL, Pw2 89/1. Clare’s dukedom may also indicate a growing closeness to Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland, as he certainly promoted it along with other claimants. Kenyon, Sunderland, 258.

After receiving his dukedom, Newcastle tried to cement this political alliance by forming a personal one, negotiating a marriage between his only unmarried sister-in-law Arabella, the 2nd duke of Newcastle’s youngest daughter, and Sunderland’s son, Charles, Lord Spencer, the future 3rd earl of Sunderland. Newcastle’s uncle through his Pierrepont mother, George Savile, marquess of Halifax, and his brother-in-law Thomas Pelham, the future Baron Pelham of Laughton, acted as intermediaries between the two families and they may have helped arrange the dowry of £25,000 that Arabella was to bring to the marriage (and which Sunderland frankly admitted he intended to use to pay his debts). It was an unequal marriage in terms of wealth, as Sunderland could barely scrape together a £2,000 jointure and maintenance payments of £2,000 p.a. for his new daughter-in-law, the minimum her sisters had received upon their marriages. HMC Portland, ii. 168-70; UNL, Pw2 53/1, 180-3. In late July Sunderland wrote to thank Halifax for his assistance in the marriage negotiations. In mid-August the negotiations had reached the stage of discussions over ‘present maintenance and jointure’, with Newcastle pressing for £2,000 for Lady Arabella, as her sisters had the same. Add. 75353, Sunderland to [Halifax], 29 July 1694, Newcastle to Sunderland, 13 Aug. 1694. But by late September the arrangements were all made and agreed to and the marriage took place in January 1695. Add. 46527, f. 8; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 372, 427; Kenyon, Sunderland, 264, 267-68.

Newcastle was in the country in September 1694, where he received a visit from Charles Hutchinson^‡ and although he was expected in town on 30 Oct., well in advance of the beginning of the session on 12 Nov., he did not attend for the first time until the 20th when he was introduced into the house as duke of Newcastle by Devonshire and Charles Lennox, duke of Richmond. Add. 70199, C. Hutchinson, to R. Harley, 22 Sept. 1694; HMC Rutland, ii. 157. He attended on 26 days of the session, 22 per cent of the total, and last attended on 16 Feb. 1695, being named to a single committee. He entrusted his proxy to Arthur Herbert, earl of Torrington from 14 Jan. 1695 until he vacated it by his return to the House on 6 February. He then registered it again, this time in favour of Devonshire, from 18 Feb. until the end of the session in May. Towards the end of March he wrote to John White^‡ (and presumably other Nottinghamshire Members) with his ‘well wishes of a speedy period to this sessions’. UNL, Pw2 294. On 31 Aug. Newcastle predicted ‘great stickling between high and low Church’ in the forthcoming elections. Horwitz, Parl. Pol. 157.

Local magnate

By the 1695 election, Newcastle was a great territorial magnate, with attendant political interests, and from then until the end of his life he exercised an important role in elections in many parliamentary constituencies. His influence was based primarily on his extensive estates, backed up by great wealth as well as central and local office.

In Yorkshire, Newcastle combined territorial power with local office, serving as lord lieutenant of the east riding, coupled with the governorship of Hull from 1699, and adding the north riding lieutenancy in 1705. This allowed him a major influence in the county, although always in alliance with other Whigs. In 1706, for example, his earlier advocacy of the candidacy of Conyers Darcy^‡ was dropped for Thomas Fairfax^‡, Lord Fairfax [S]. HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 717-21; HMC Portland, ii. 195-8; UNL, Pw2 191-94; Add. 70202, Monckton to Harley, 15 Oct. 1706. More under Newcastle’s control, and hence used to return his most trusted servants and clients, were the burgage consitutencies of Aldborough and Boroughbridge. By 1703 he owned enough to determine the selection of both seats at Aldborough, which his agents Robert Monckton^‡ and William Jessop^‡ represented in every Parliament from 1702 to 1713, and one seat at Boroughbridge, for which another of Newcastle’s men, Craven Peyton^‡, sat from 1705 to 1713. Nevertheless, Newcastle would not pay too heavy a price for burgages, arguing that ‘the buying little single burgages at such extravagant rates has given the townsmen a handle to enhance their prices beyond measure; for it is certain that a great many boroughs in England may be bought for half the rate that is now at your borough’ In other Yorkshire seats, such as Pontefract, his residual interest never came to much as other interests succeeded in fighting him off. Sir John Bland^‡, 5th bt. wrote in 1708, that the intervention of Newcastle’s ‘myrmidons’, John Bright and Monckton had failed to prevent him topping the poll. Further, his interest at Hull was always exercised with the powerful corporation and a series of uncontested elections ensued. HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 721-30, 732-34, 742.

The old Holles interest in Nottinghamshire enabled Newcastle to exercise some political power in all four constituencies, although only in East Retford and Newark could he claim a significant interest of his own. Indeed, his interest could be endangered by alienating the freeholders, as occurred when his stewardship of the Forest led to the deer damaging local farms. HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 456-67. In counties like Sussex, Newcastle was solicited by his fellow Whig magnate, Charles Seymour, 6th duke of Somerset, to influence his tenants in Ifield (an old Holles property) to vote for the Whig candidates in 1710. HMC Portland, ii. 222. Newcastle owned estates in Derbyshire, but the most imposing magnate in that county was the duke of Devonshire. Newcastle assisted William Cavendish, styled marquess of Hartington, later 2nd duke of Devonshire, in 1695 and at other elections, before again aiding him when he switched to Yorkshire after 1702. Interestingly, in the Staffordshire election of August 1698 (a rare event), Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury, and Newcastle, although they ‘always differ’ from Robert Shirley, Baron (later Earl) Ferrers ‘in their opinions in the House of Peers’, had ‘given their interest’ for his heir, Hon. Robert Shirley against Edward Bagot^‡. HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 128-31, 532.

The traditional Holles influence in Dorchester was revived by the appointment of Newcastle as high steward in 1701, and his candidates Awnsham Churchill^‡ and Denis Bond^‡ recorded some victories in Anne’s reign. In Westminster, his property was backed up briefly by two short spells as lord lieutenant of Middlesex. He apparently backed a court candidate in the by-election of 1691, Sir Henry Dutton Colt^‡ in December 1701, and in 1710 he was asked by Somers to support James Stanhope^†, the future Earl Stanhope. Newcastle’s part guardianship of the duchess of Albemarle, with its attendant influence at Clitheroe, also saw the promotion of a candidate, Ambrose Pudsay^‡, in the 1710 election. HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 161-62, 326-27, 396-97, 400, 402; UNL, Pw2 228/1.

Even in areas where he had no influence, Newcastle might seek to project an influence by virtue of his financial power. Thus, in 1710 he allegedly offered Christopher Vane, Baron Barnard, £1,000 to defray the election expenses of his son Hon. William Vane^‡ (later Viscount Vane [I]) should he stand for Durham; the same year George Whichcot^‡ approached him to help defray the expenses of his campaign for Lincolnshire. HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 176, 356.

In October 1695, in the midst of the elections, William III made a tour of some midland and eastern counties. After leaving Lincoln, the king was met at the border of Nottinghamshire by Newcastle, who escorted him to Welbeck Abbey for a spot of hunting in Sherwood Forest. CSP Dom. 1695, p. 91; HMC Portland, ii. 175, iii. 573; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 537; Verney ms mic. 636/48, A. Nicholas to J. Verney 15 Oct. 1695; HMC 14 Rep. VIII, 114; Add. 17677 PP, ff. 396-97. Newcastle spent lavishly on this royal visit, the bill totalling over £5,600, and making a statement of his arrival as a major political and local power. If his intent was to curry favour for the garter vacant by Strafford’s death, he being seen as a pretender to it, he was unsuccessful. A.S. Turberville, Hist. of Welbeck Abbey and its Owners, i. 242; Lexington Pprs, 139.

In the Lords 1695-1702

Newcastle was absent from the opening of the 1695 Parliament on 22 Nov., first attending on 11 December. This time Torrington registered his proxy with Newcastle on 23 December. On 24 Feb. 1696 Newcastle was appointed to draw up an address following the king’s speech concerning the assassination attempt against him and named to manage the subsequent conference with the Commons on a joint address. He signed the Association on 27 February. Then, on 9 Apr. both Thomas Leigh, 2nd Baron Leigh, and Lewis Watson, 3rd Baron (later earl of) Rockingham, registered their proxies with him. On 24 Apr. he was named to a committee to prepare reasons for the Lords insisting at a conference on their amendments to the bill prohibiting trade with France. Newcastle was present on the last day of the session, 27 Apr. and in all attended on 69 days of the session, 56 per cent of the total, and was named to a further ten committees. He was active in the suppression of the suspected conspiracies in Nottinghamshire during the following summer. HMC Portland, ii. 175-6. He also continued to take a close interest in the Montagu v. Bath case. His papers contain an account of the suit in common pleas in 1696 and also a letter from one of Newcastle’s witnesses in November 1697, informing him that he had heard that ‘when the cause between my Lord [Bath John Granville, earl of Bath] and Montagu was ended they would go on with the old cause again’. Add. 70504, ff. 24-25, 27.

Newcastle was absent from the beginning of the 1696-7 session on 20 October. His absence was noted at a call on 14 Nov. and he was ordered to attend on the 30th. Still absent on that date, he was ordered to attend by 7 Dec. under threat of being taken into custody. He duly attended on 5 December. Newcastle voted for the passage of the bill of attainder against Sir John Fenwick^‡ on 23 Dec. and on 15 Jan. 1697 he was one of ‘twelve or thirteen dissenting lords’, the majority of them Whigs, who voted against committing Charles Mordaunt, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), to the Tower for meddling in the Fenwick affair. HMC Buccleuch, ii. 439. He also looked to his own estate affairs and in February 1697 a bill ‘for the speedy satisfaction of the debts of Francis, Lord Holles’, passed rapidly through both Houses, being managed through the Commons by Edward Harley^‡, the Harleys being distant kinsmen (through their Vere ancestors). This act effectively allowed him to set aside the detailed charges placed on the estate in the 2nd Baron’s will and devote the entirety of the income and sales of the Holles estate to clearing Holles’s debts. UNL, Cavendish mss NeD 91. On 4 Mar. John Ashburnham, Baron Ashburnham, registered his proxy with Newcastle. Newcastle had attended on 49 days of the session, 43 per cent of the total and was named to eight committees. At the end of the session it was reported that he had subscribed £20,000 ‘towards answering the exchequer notes’. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 211.

Newcastle was present on 3 Dec. 1697 when the next session convened. At the end of December, when Sunderland resigned as lord chamberlain, Luttrell and Thomas Hopkins^‡ thought that Newcastle had a good chance of replacing him. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 325; CSP Dom. 1697, p. 534. On 15 Apr. 1698 Sir Cornwall Bradshaw brought into the Lords an appeal against a number of chancery and exchequer decrees ordering him to pay arrears of rent on land he leased in Newcastle’s property in St Clement Danes. On 17 May, upon Bradshaw’s petition, the appeal respecting the chancery causes was dismissed. On 6 June the decree relating to the exchequer was affirmed, but with an amendment. HMC Lords, n.s. iii. 195-200. During 1697-8 Newcastle again sided with the Whigs in the move to punish Charles Duncombe^‡. On 5 Mar. he was named to prepare material for a conference to establish the grounds upon which the Commons were proceeding with their bill for punishing Duncombe for the false endorsement of exchequer bills, being duly named to manage conferences on the matter on 7th and 11th. On 15 Mar. he voted for the commitment of the bill, entering his dissent following its rejection. On 15 June he was named to manage a conference on the trial of John Goudet. He had attended on 89 days of the session, 68 per cent of the total and been named to 13 committees.

In the summer of 1698 Arabella Spencer, who had provided the necessary link between Newcastle and Sunderland, died of smallpox, thus severing the tie. During 1698-9 Newcastle achieved some of the long-term goals and ambitions he had been harbouring since 1691. He had long felt that he deserved to inherit his father-in-law’s many offices and honours, as well as his title and fortune. He made another step in this direction when he was made a Knight of the Garter in the place of the king of Sweden at the end of May 1698, being installed at the start of July. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 386, 388, 400; HMC Bath, iii. 223.

Newcastle was absent when the 1698 Parliament opened on 6 Dec. 1698, first attending on 17 Jan. 1699. He last attended on 4 Apr. having been present on 32 days of the session, just under 40 per cent of the total and been named to five committees. Well before the end of the session (4 May), he wrote to his wife on 18 Apr. ‘I neither go to the House nor do any earthly thing but in order to get out of town’. UNL, Pw2 473.

Newcastle was a beneficiary of the disgrace of the duke of Leeds (as Danby had since become) in the spring of 1699. Leeds had been granted many of the posts of the 2nd duke of Newcastle at the accession of William and Mary, and Newcastle now reclaimed the lieutenancy of the East Riding of Yorkshire and governorship of Hull, Vernon noting in August that Newcastle had ‘shown some inclination to the government’ of them before the king left for the campaign. Vernon-Shrewsbury Letters, ii. 333. Although Newcastle had dined with Leeds at Thorpe Salvin, Yorkshire in August 1698, relations were somewhat frosty two years later when Leeds wrote to Glenorchy that he could not mediate between him and Newcastle because ‘I am one of those (amongst some others) who have no correspondence with his grace although we are now but four miles distant from one another,’ Newcastle presumably then being at Welbeck. Leics. RO, Finch mss DG 7 box 4950 bundle 22, Leeds to [Lady Leominster], 15 Aug. 1698; UNL, Pw1 352. He was also made warden of Sherwood Forest in March 1699, which formed the basis of one of his great interests, stag-hunting in Clumber Park. This made relations with Devonshire somewhat better for at the closely fought election for Derbyshire in January 1701, ‘Mr Wild, the duke of Newcastle’s agent, came to Derby with a body of freeholders for both Lords’ (i.e., Hartington and John Manners, styled Lord Roos, later 2nd duke of Rutland). Further, Newcastle backed Hartington when he switched to Yorkshire in 1702. HMC Cowper, ii. 417; Surr. Hist. Cent. Somers mss 371/14/E22.

Newcastle was absent from the start of the 1699-1700 session on 16 Nov., first attending on 9 Jan. 1700. Already, on the 4th, he had written to Robert Harley asking him to attend at the report from the committee of elections on the petition relating to Newark. HMC Portland, iii. 613. He voted against the motion of 23 Feb. to adjourn into a committee of the whole House to discuss amendments to the bill to continue the East India Company as a corporation. BIHR, lxviii. 313. He attended on 35 days of the session, 44 per cent of the total during which he was named to two committees. At some point after 10 July, his name appears on a marked list, which seemed to indicate that he was a Whig peer and Junto supporter.

Newcastle was absent from the start of the 1701 Parliament on 10 Feb., first attending on 23 April. On 15 Mar. the duke in a letter to his brother-in-law Pelham listed ‘the Harleys’ together with Hugh Boscawen, Henry Paget, later earl of Uxbridge, Sir Thomas Meres^‡ and Francis Gwyn^‡ as Members to be relied upon should his actions in his lieutenancy come under question in the Commons. Add. 33084, f. 165. On 14 June he was added to the managers of a free conference with the Commons about the actions of John Thompson, Baron Haversham, at a previous conference on the 13th relating to the impeachment of the Whig ministers. On 17 and 23 June, respectively, he voted to acquit the former Junto ministers Somers and Edward Russell, earl of Orford, from the articles of impeachment levelled against them. He was present on 32 days of the session, 30 per cent of the total and was named to three committees.

Newcastle did not attend the 1701-2 session until well after the death of William III, first sitting on 24 March 1702. However, he was not averse to writing to Members such as Sir Charles Hotham^‡ on 7 Jan. 1702 to call on them to attend the committee of elections. W.A. Speck, Birth of Britain, 30. He sat on only 11 occasions, 11 per cent of the total and was named to four committees. He served as one of the pallbearers at the king’s funeral on 12 April. The death of William III brought Newcastle uncertainty, particularly concerning his relations with the new ministers. He wrote to Sidney Godolphin, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, in June, seeking reassurance. Godolphin replied that the queen ‘never had the least thought of not continuing you in all your authorities’ and even intended to give the duke further marks of her favour. HMC Portland, ii. 183.

The reign of Anne

Newcastle was absent from the opening of the 1702 Parliament on 20 Oct., first attending on 15 Dec., although he signed the resolution of 9 Dec. against tacking as unparliamentary and tending towards the destruction of the constitution. According to the analysis of Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, Newcastle was expected to oppose the occasional conformity bill in January 1703. In keeping with this view, he voted on 16 Feb. in favour of adhering to the Lords’ wrecking amendment to the penalty clause of the bill. He was present on 23 days of the session, 27 per cent of the total and was named to five committees.

Newcastle missed the first month of the 1703-4 session, first attending on 8 December 1703. In about November Sunderland had forecast Newcastle likely to oppose the occasional conformity bill, and at the end of the month he confirmed this analysis. He duly voted against the bill on 14 December. On 17 Dec. he attended a large gathering of the Whig Junto and their adherents at Sunderland’s house in St James’s Square. He attended further dinners hosted by Henry Herbert, Baron Herbert of Chirbury (11 Feb. 1704), and at the Westminster townhouse of the 3rd earl of Sunderland (13 Feb. 1704), where ‘tea drunk and our discourse was only about the Scotch Plot’ and the papers on it before the Lords. PH, x. 170-71; TNA, C 104/116, pt. 1 (Ossulston’s diary, 11, 13 Feb. 1704). On 15 Feb. he was one of two dukes, the other being Charles Powlett, 2nd duke of Bolton, delegated to present the queen with an address asking that more papers concerning the Scotch Plot be laid before Parliament. He attended on 25 days of the session, but after 24 Feb. on only one day (9 Mar.) until the end of the session, 26 per cent of the total. He was named to seven committees.

Despite Newcastle’s whiggery, Harley was keen to include him in the ministry. In April 1704, Harley proposed that Newcastle should follow Edward Villiers, earl of Jersey, as lord chamberlain, and hold the office till he could succeed John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham, as lord privy seal. On 27 Apr. Godolphin waited on Newcastle ‘at his own house’, and explained ‘it was not possible for me to answer when the thing he seemed to pitch upon would be ready to receive him’, but that he would endeavour to ‘dispatch it’. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 284, 290. On 5 Sept. 1704 Harley wrote to Newcastle that ‘I have been long of opinion how necessary your grace is to the support of the government’ and assuring him on 21 Oct. of Godolphin’s agreement in this project. On 2 Dec. Harley, now increasingly disgruntled with the Tories in Parliament, continued to encourage Newcastle, and also recognized the best way in which the duke could be useful to the ministry, in ensuring ‘that the succeeding Parliament may consist of men in the public interest of the nation’. Newcastle ‘must be the corner stone of this fabric, and therefore I hope you will let your thoughts descend to particulars as to persons as well as things, how matters should be modelled here, and what is to be done in order to elections’. HMC Portland, ii. 186-8. When the subject was being mooted again prior to the 1704-5 session, John Churchill, duke of Marlborough, recounted his view that Newcastle was ‘too much of a party man’, although Newcastle’s advocate on this occasion, Anthony Guidott, said that he would be ‘everything that the queen would have him’. To which Marlborough noted, if the queen were assured of this, ‘his estate is so very great, that he would certainly be of use’. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 392.

Newcastle registered his proxy with Sunderland on 26 Oct. 1704, two days after the beginning of the 1704-5 session, and only vacated it when he finally arrived in the House on 6 December. On 15 Nov. he was at Welbeck, amidst preparations for his journey to London, which was ‘fixed’ for 27 November. HMC Portland, iv. 150. He may well have arrived in London on that date, for in a letter, probably of 29 Nov. Godolphin told Harley, ‘I am to see the duke of Newcastle tomorrow, and will try to please him’. Longleat, Portland misc. f. 136. A few days after Newcastle’s arrival, the duke of Devonshire entrusted him with his proxy for the four days of 14-18 December. On 27 Feb. 1705 he was named to manage a conference on the Aylesbury case. He sat on 35 days of the session, 35 per cent of the total and was named to 10 committees.

Around about the time of Parliament’s prorogation, on 14 Mar. 1705, Newcastle was classed as a Hanoverian in an analysis of the peerage in relation to the Succession. On 28 Mar. he was summoned to attend the queen on the following day, when he was sworn into the Privy Council and a warrant ordered for his appointment as lord privy seal. CSP Dom. 1704-5, pp. 225, 228. The appointment, as Harley’s letter suggested, may have also been with an eye towards harnessing Newcastle’s electoral interest in the service of the new government. On 11 Apr. Newcastle complained to Harley about the inconvenience he was suffering over the delay to his lieutenancy of the North Riding, a matter of some significance with an election due, and one of his successful candidates, Robert Molesworth, recorded on 12 Apr. that he had been kept up by the duke until half-past twelve while at Clerkenwell. Add. 70242, Newcastle to Harley, Wed. [11 Apr. 1705]; HMC Var. viii. 233. It is likely that Newcastle had more influence in the elections of 1705 than in any other previous election. Indeed, it has been estimated that in the last two sessions of the 1705 Parliament he ‘controlled’ a tight personal following of at least ten members of the Commons who owed their election wholly or in large part to his efforts, a figure maintained after the 1708 election. Pols. in Age of Anne, 225n.

In May 1705 it was reported that Newcastle had bought Powis House in Lincoln’s Inn Fields for £7,000, designing it for a London residence and a place to execute his office of lord privy seal. Luttrell, Brief Relation, v. 547-48. On 4 July Newcastle was at Welbeck, much afflicted: ‘my rheum does still so affect me and particularly in my eyes that I hope you will forgive me this not being all in my own hand’, but hopeful that he would soon be able to fit up Powis House, if Wright was replaced as lord keeper. By 23 July he had moved on to Haughton, from whence he wrote to Harley about a pamphlet reflecting upon Marlborough and defending his right of appointment in the privy seal office. Add. 70022, ff. 206, 221.; HMC Portland, iv. 201.

On 1 Aug. 1705 Newcastle wished for confirmation that Parliament would sit at the beginning of November, ‘the certainty of which I am desirous to know, because I would be up before they meet. It is always most for her majesty‘s service’. On 18 Aug. Somers urged Newcastle to ‘leave the divisions and the business of the country’ and come up to London, asking that he ‘absolutely require all your friends to be present the first day at the choice of the Speaker’. On 25 Aug. Newcastle was ‘in such pain by a bile [boil] which was unskillfully lanced before it was ripe that he is not able either to sit or go’. Add. 70022, f. 229; 70501, ff. 169-70; 70242, Wenman to Lewis, 25 Aug. 1705. He was still at Haughton on 10 Sept. when he thanked Harley for ‘diverting from me a troublesome embassy’ to protest against the recalcitrance of the Dutch generals. HMC Portland, iv. 243. Although in March Newcastle had originally backed lord chief justice, Thomas Trevor, the future Baron Trevor, a friend of Harley’s, he seems to have been happy with the appointment of William Cowper, later Earl Cowper, as lord keeper. HMC Portland, ii. 189-90. When term began in October, Newcastle showed his political credentials by accompanying Cowper to Westminster. Luttrell, Brief Relation, v. 604; Add. 70075, newsletter, 23 Oct. 1705; Private Diary of William, first earl Cowper (Roxburghe Club 49), 6-7.

Newcastle was present on the first day of the Parliament on 25 Oct. 1705 when he received the proxy of Scarbrough (formerly Lumley), which he held until Scarbrough’s return to the House on 11 December. On 31 Oct. he reported from committee the address on the Queen’s Speech, and was duly directed to ask her when the House should wait upon her with it. On 26 Nov. the secretary of state, Sir Charles Hedges^‡ sent Newcastle several translations of letters mentioned in the queen’s speech on that date, relating to the Spanish campaign, which the duke laid before the House on the 27th. CSP Dom. 1705-6, p. 11. Newcastle voted on 6 Dec. that the Church was not in danger under the current administration. He was named to prepare for a conference with the Commons on a joint address, and appointed on the 7th, 12th, 14th and 17th to manage a number of conferences on the matter. On 13 Dec. Godolphin wrote to him about the crisis surrounding the Tory invitation to Electress Sophia to come to England, warning Newcastle of the need ‘to prepare ourselves with some defences against’ Haversham’s ‘great guns tomorrow’. Godolphin suggested that the duke meet with Charles Powlett, 2nd duke of Bolton, ‘whose house lies in your way’ and other lords before the session the next day to concert means of deflecting the attack – a letter being necessary ‘because as I remember you said last night you did not intend to come to the House today.’ Add. 70501, ff. 177-8. He was present on 40 days of the session, 42 per cent of the total and was named to a further eight committees.

In January 1706 it was reported that Newcastle had subscribed £12,000 towards a loan for the Emperor, although by March this had become £2,000. Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 9, 24; Add. 61602, ff. 3-4. On 30 Apr. Sir William Simpson recorded the common opinion that Somerset and Newcastle were ‘out of the cabal and set up for patrons of the virtuous Whigs such as Molesworth and Stanhope’. Further Newcastle had declared his support for Harley, thereby ensuring that the Junto was not able to remove him and install Sunderland as secretary. KSRL, Methuen-Simpson corresp. C163, Simpson to Methuen, 30 Apr. 1706. Newcastle was an absentee commissioner in the negotiations for the Union with Scotland. Riley, Union, 177-9, 189. On 12 June he was at Haughton, concerned that ‘the rheum which I feared was coming upon me before I came out of town is now so much increased in my eyes by stirring so violently in my journey, that it prevents me writing all in my own hand.’ Still at Haughton on 17 June, he expressed surprise at the generous representation accorded to the Scots in the Commons, attributing it to Junto hopes of steering the new Members. On 1 July he was stag-hunting, but this caused a relapse in his condition, although by the 3rd he was writing more thoughts on the Union and hoping to have the articles sent into the country for him to sign. Add. 70242, Newcastle to Harley, 12 June 1706; 70023, f. 219; HMC Portland, iv. 313, 314-5. On 6 July he sent to Harley an address from Welbeck from the corporation of Hull, ‘which I desire you will present to her majesty and be pleased to let it be inserted in the Gazette that it was sent up by me’. Although he was ‘not fond of seeing my name in print’, the town of Hull ‘will expect to see it, as I know all that send their addresses to me do. The address is well meant but you will easily perceive by the wording of it I never saw it, till after it was brought me.’ Add. 70242, Newcastle to Harley, 6 July 1706. Indeed, in July it took some urgent letters to ensure that he came to the capital to sign the articles, rather than have the treaty dispatched to Welbeck. HMC Portland, ii. 194-5. Newcastle wrote on 13 July that he hoped to be in London, the latter end of the next week, ‘tho very unfit thro my indisposition for such a journey’. Add. 70242, Newcastle to Harley, 13 July [1706]. He duly signed the Union articles on 22 July. He then retreated back north and was at Welbeck on 21 Sept. and 5 October. On 13 Nov. he wrote to Harley that ‘when I don’t exercise I find I am much out of order, which that, as well as a great deal of my affairs that I am to set straight before I come up’, meant he was unlikely to be in London before the first week in December, ‘tho I don’t doubt but that will be early enough for any business of moment the Parliament will go upon.’ LJ xviii. 212; HMC Portland, iv. 330, 337; Add. 70242, Newcastle to Harley, 13 Nov. [1706].

Newcastle missed most of the opening month of the 1706-7 session, writing on 16 Nov. that he still hoped to have finished his country business by the first week in December, but that the floods were so bad that the Trent was impassable. HMC Portland, iv. 351. He crossed the Trent at Newark, and was at Orton on 1 Dec., where he intended to stay ‘to receive my letters that come out of town by Tuesday’s post [3rd] and then set forward for Lincoln’s Inn Fields.’ Add. 70242, Newcastle to Harley, 1 Dec. 1706. He first attended on 31 December. On 14 Mar. 1707, perhaps in the context of the debates on the Union, he received Barnard’s proxy, and from 28 Mar. he again held Scarbrough’s proxy. On the last day of the session (8 Apr.) he was named as a manager of a conference on the bill against vagrants. He attended on 26 days of the session, 30 per cent of the total and was named to a further two committees. Newcastle then attended on four of the nine days of the short session of April 1707.

On 24 June 1707 Newcastle wrote to thank John Moore, Bishop of Norwich, for his prescription of lozenges and drops, adding that the queen had been so ‘indulgent in my short stay, that she has been pleased to excuse my attendance at Windsor’ on the 30th, although Lord Chancellor Cowper had desired that he ‘would stay two or three days longer in town to pass a new commission for the prince and lord treasurer etc’, post Union. Camb. RO, 17/C1. By 25 July Newcastle was at Welbeck. Add. 61164, ff. 177-8. On 11 Aug. he was at Haughton, commenting on the design of a new, post-Union privy seal. On 18 Aug. Newcastle was back at Welbeck from where he announced his intention of being in London before the beginning of the next session, and also made a bid for the office of chief justice in eyre north of the Trent, which had been in his family since the Restoration, until given to Devonshire (who was on his deathbed). HMC Portland, iv. 433-4. While at Welbeck Newcastle made a new will, prompted by having the previous day a ‘violent fit of an apoplexy and that by the violence thereof his face was turned black and his head and tongue much swelled and he lay and continued speechless for some time and was looked on to be in great danger of death or as a dying man’. TNA, DEL 1/459, ff. 226-7. Controversy was to erupt over this will after his death.

Certainly, his illness was known about, for on 6 Sept. 1707 Molesworth recorded getting ready to go from Edlinton to visit Newcastle, who had ‘lately had a fit like an apoplectic one’. HMC Various, viii. 238. On 17 Sept. Newcastle himself recounted his ill-health to Harley and his decision to have ‘two issues made in my shoulders’, after he arrived in town, which he expected to be ‘a little before’ 23 Oct., the expected start of the session. Add. 70024, f. 217. It seems likely then that ill health caused Newcastle to miss the opening month of the 1707-8 session, as he first sat on 24 November. Newcastle then acquired further importance as one of a number of Whigs (along with Devonshire, Somerset, John Poulett, 4th Baron and later Earl Poulett, John Smith^‡, Henry Boyle, Spencer Compton^†, later earl of Wilmington, and Robert Walpole^†, later earl of Orford), who would not join with the Junto and the Tories in pressing the queen over the admiralty and the Spanish campaign and thereby helped to preserve the ministry. HEHL, Stowe mss ST 57 (2), pp. 5-7. Nevertheless, when the crisis of February 1708 came to a head, Newcastle was one of the members of the Cabinet that refused to sit to do business with Harley, in the absence of Marlborough, apparently at last pressing the queen to part with him. Addison Letters, 95; G. Holmes, Pols. Relig. and Soc. 80; TNA, PRO 30/24/20/11, Sir J. Cropley to Shaftesbury, Tuesday [10 Feb. 1708] 9 at night. He was present on the last day of the session, 1 Apr. 1708, having attended on 36 days, just over a third of the total and been named to a further two committees. However, by the 6th Henry Boyle was reporting that Newcastle was still in town, though ‘not well enough to stir abroad’. Add. 61128, f. 9.

Newcastle was now an integral part of the Junto’s campaign to force their way into office. Arthur Maynwaring^‡ referred to ‘the dukes’, namely Newcastle and Devonshire, as having seen the queen on 21 Apr. about the need to employ Somers, even if merely as a member of the Cabinet without office. Add. 61459, ff. 32-34; Add. 61101, f.111; Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 958-9. Marlborough revealed the strategy of the Whigs when he replied to the queen’s letter informing him of the visit; she should ‘consider what may be the consequences of refusing the request of’ Newcastle and Devonshire, ‘since it will be a demonstration, not only to them, but to everybody’ that Godolphin and himself had ‘no credit with your majesty but that you are guided by the insinuation of Mr Harley.’ Add. 61101, ff. 113-14. In about May 1708, he was classed as a Whig, with an additional marking, the meaning of which cannot be determined.

Before he left London, Newcastle joined Halifax and Wharton in standing bail for James Hamilton, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], thereby helping to forge the alliance between the Squadrone and Hamilton which the Whigs hoped would dominate the Scottish peerage elections. W.A. Speck, Tory and Whig, 143-44. Newcastle having recently departed for the country, on 27 May Sunderland wrote to him on behalf of Devonshire, Somers and Halifax about the patent creating James Douglas, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S], duke of Dover, which Newcastle had objected to, and which Sunderland felt should not be passed without a further written representation from Newcastle to protect himself from future parliamentary proceedings. Trevelyan, England Under Q. Anne, ii. 441. Writing from Haughton on 29 May, Newcastle informed Sunderland that he had already affixed the privy seal to Queensberry’s patent, ‘your Lordship agreeing as well as all others that after I had said my thoughts before the queen I should be under a necessity of passing it when it came to me, all concluding that there was nothing in the letter of the articles of Union against it, and looking upon it as my duty to do so, I accordingly passed it’. Further, he solicited a visit from the Whig lords should they travel northwards during the summer, because ‘tho at all times that company is extremely pleasing to me, yet before the meeting of this new Parliament, I hope it would not be time misspent’. Add. 61596, f. 39. On 9 Aug. Sunderland wrote to Newcastle at Welbeck of the ‘accidents’ which had prevented Somers, Halifax and himself waiting upon him to discuss ‘the present posture of our affairs, which tho they are very fortunately and unexpectedly mended abroad... yet seem to grow worse and worse every day at home’. That being the case he wished ‘to conjure’ Newcastle

not to defer coming to town too long, till just [before] the Parliament meets, for whatever is proper to be done must be concerted beforehand and that cannot be done without your presence and influence. I know you are very averse to coming to town before your time, but three weeks or a month sooner or later I hope will break no squares.

On 19 Oct. Sunderland outlined to the absent Newcastle, Whig plans, endorsed by eight Whigs beside himself, to attack the admiralty and force changes to the ministry. This consisted chiefly of installing Thomas Herbert, 8th earl of Pembroke, at the admiralty and Somers as lord president. On 26 Oct. Sunderland wrote again to chivvy Newcastle to London and to enlist his help in getting Members to support Sir Peter King^†, later Baron King, in opposition to the ministry’s choice of Sir Richard Onslow^‡, to which end they solicited his instructions to William Jessop^‡, Robert Monckton^‡ and Craven Peyton^‡. Trevelyan, ii. 442-45. On 16 Nov. Horatio Walpole^‡ wrote that although Newcastle, Devonshire and Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, had left the Junto last year in some questions, ‘now they had joined with them in the ‘new scheme’ of opposing Onslow for speaker unless changes were made to the ministry, which the death of Prince George had facilitated. Kent HLC (CKS), Stanhope mss U1590/0138/29, H. Walpole to J. Stanhope, 16 Nov. 1708. Now that these changes had occurred, on 4 Nov. Sunderland wrote to inform him that the planned assault on the speakership was laid aside. Trevelyan, ii. 445-46. When Molesworth used Newcastle in an approach to Godolphin in December 1708, he suggested that if the lord treasurer favoured him it would be ‘against their minds’, implying, perhaps, that Newcastle was not subordinate to the Junto, but an independent magnate. HMC Var. viii. 240.

Newcastle was present at the opening of the 1708 Parliament on 16 November. On 11 Dec. he attended a great meeting of Whigs and the Squadrone about Scottish matters before Parliament. PH, xvi. 210; NLS, Yester mss 14415, ff. 168-69. On 23 Dec. he reported from committee an address on the reduction of Ghent. On 11 Jan. 1709 Newcastle was present at Devonshire’s with a ‘great many other Lords to consult about the Scotch election’. TNA, C 104/113, pt. 2, Ossulston’s diary, 11 Jan. 1709. He voted in the division on 21 Jan. against the right of Scottish peers, who also had British titles, to vote in the election of Scottish representative peers. SHR, lviii. 173. On 3 Feb. Newcastle joined John Sharp, archbishop of York, Sir George Savile^‡, 7th bt. and William Pennington in petitioning for a bill in which lands in the vicarage of Walesby in Nottinghamshire would be vested in him and his heirs in lieu of payment of an annual rent of £10 payable to the vicar. The petition was referred to the judges, who reported favourably on the request on 10 Feb. and the bill that was introduced the following day, passed rapidly through the House and was returned by the Commons without amendment on 24 March. On 28 Feb. Newcastle hosted a dinner with Ossulston, Scrope Howe^‡, Baron Howe [I], Henry Paget and Sir John Guise^‡, 3rd bt. ‘and several other parliament men who I did not know’, possibly about the papers before the Commons about the Scottish invasion. TNA, C 104/113, pt. 2, 28 Feb. 1709. He attended until 20 Apr., the penultimate day of the session, having sat on 41 days, 45 per cent of the total, and been named to a further four committees.

The death of the duke of Montagu in March 1709 led to ‘great contending who shall have the keeping of the duchess of Albermarle’, it lying between Thanet and Newcastle, whose wives were the sisters of the ‘mad duchess’. Add. 31143, f. 311. That same month it was reported that Newcastle and Thanet had obtained a commission to inspect the dowager duchess of Albemarle and Montagu for lunacy, the aim being to set up a trust to control her extensive estates. Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 420; Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 1232n. Indeed, on 29 Mar. Glenorchy approached Newcastle, asking for control of the duchess of Albemarle’s affairs. HMC Portland,, ii. 206. Newcastle, Thanet and Sunderland (on behalf of his daughter) applied for a lunacy commission, and were duly granted one in April. The matter even came up at the cabinet attended by Newcastle on 3 April. By October 1709 Newcastle’s agents were at work organizing the local government of Clitheroe, although agreement was necessary with the agents of Thanet and Sunderland. The three peers, Newcastle, Thanet and Sunderland jointly answered a chancery on her behalf in February 1710. Add. 61619, ff. 45-48; 61499, f. 169; 70504, f. 62; UNL, Pw2 638; C 9/201/20.

At the end of April 1709, Newcastle was being mentioned as a possible plenipotentiary for the peace congress. NLS, Yester Pprs. 7021, f. 175. However, on 3 May James Johnston^‡ informed Sir William Trumbull^‡ that Newcastle was one of the men who had refused to be involved in the peace negotiations being conducted by Townshend. Add. 72488, ff. 62-63. On 4 June Marlborough noted that the preliminaries being sent over, ‘there ought to be no great need of the duke of Newcastle’s hand, or anybody else, to make this peace be liked’. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 1263-4. Newcastle seemed to be keeping a watching brief, telling Henry Paget on 6 Aug., ‘I am afraid the Peace is not so near a conclusion as is talked’. On 28 Nov. Newcastle informed Paget that his wife’s ‘great illness’ had ‘prevented my coming up sooner yet I hope to wait upon you in town in a very little time’. Add. 61830, ff. 47, 49. In the event he did not attend the 1709-10 session until 9 Jan. 1710.

In the crisis of January 1710, Newcastle was not involved in the initial discussions of the Whig leaders on the morning of 16 Jan. but was summoned to a meeting in the afternoon. Maynwaring reported that Newcastle was very zealous for supporting Marlborough, although he also noted that the Lords were of different opinions about sending an ultimatum to the queen, demanding the dismissal of Abigail Masham. Add. 61460, ff. 154-57. On 20 Mar. Newcastle voted Dr Sacheverell guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours. He last sat on the penultimate day of the session (4 Apr.) having been present on 37 days of the session, 40 per cent of the total and been named to two committees.

By the end of the session, Newcastle was being cultivated by his old friend Harley to engage in a new ministerial scheme. Harley very much needed Whigs such as Newcastle to remain in office in order to avoid being overly dependent on the Tories, and as Joseph Addison^‡ noted in August, Newcastle was ‘very well with Mr Harley, for whom, they say, he has formerly a great friendship and esteem’. Addison Letters, 233. Thus, on 11 May Newcastle met with Shrewsbury for three hours. Godolphin imagined the ‘chief drift of this meeting’ was for Shrewsbury to convince Newcastle of his sincerity to Marlborough and the difficulty in keeping the queen from ‘running headlong’ into the Tories. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 1494.

On 12 May, when there were rumours of Sunderland’s impending dismissal, Godolphin told Maynwaring that Shrewsbury felt a coldness in the Whigs towards him and that Newcastle was meeting Shrewsbury that day about it. Maynwaring distrusted Newcastle, not thinking him ‘a good man to treat with’ Shrewsbury about the Whigs ‘because I know he has a correspondence with’ Harley who had ‘made all the professions imaginable to’ Newcastle and Somerset ‘at the time he was betraying’ Marlborough, presumably in 1708. Add. 61461, ff. 39-42. Possibly on 24 May Maynwaring wrote ‘I am just now come from’ Newcastle’s, ‘where was the same company that dined at Lord Halifax’s on Saturday [?20 May], but I heard nothing of any consequence’. Ibid. ff. 54-55. On 29 May Godolphin thought that the Whigs were making applications to Harley and using Newcastle to reach both Harley and Shrewsbury. On the same day Newcastle ‘had a great deal of talk’ with Harley, Shrewsbury and Poulett, about the queen’s determination to dismiss Sunderland. Newcastle opposed this, but was chiefly successful only in derailing the chosen successor, John Annesley, 4th earl of Anglesey. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 1510, 1512. By 1 June the duchess of Marlborough had concluded that Shrewsbury, Halifax, Newcastle and Harley ‘are pretty near of one mind’, while Poulett was equally sceptical for the Tories, reminding Harley on 7 June that Newcastle once ‘quietly parted with you in danger and disgrace’ (in 1708), and questioned ‘is not he so much above his place as to be beneath it, are not his great riches golden chains to him, has he now for 50 years ever once exerted himself for a friend or the public’? Add. 61461, ff. 58-59; HMC Portland, iv. 543.

By 1710 Newcastle had over £4,000 of Bank stock, so he was an obvious point of contact for Bank directors with the ministry. Eg. 3359. Early in June, the Bank directors, Sir Gilbert Heathcote^‡, William Scawen^‡, John Eyles^‡ and Nathaniel Gould^‡ approached Devonshire to convey to the queen their opposition to any changes in the ministry. When Devonshire fell ill, Newcastle delivered their petition on 13 June. The queen then ordered Newcastle to bring them to her on the 15th, but they were reluctant, Sunderland having been put out the day before. Newcastle reminded them that ‘they were obliged in honour to go, and his honour was concern[ed]’, so he duly introduced them on 15 June. HMC Portland, iv. 545; Bodl. Ballard 31, f. 84. In between times, on 14 June, Newcastle was a signatory to the letter from leading Whigs asking Marlborough not to resign over Sunderland’s dismissal. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 1528; Add. 61134, ff. 202-3.

Newcastle was back in the country by 5 July, when he wrote to Halifax. HMC Portland, ii. 211. On 2 Aug. Newcastle wrote from Welbeck to Cowper, of his disappointment that ‘some who call themselves Whigs should fall into intrigues for bringing in Tories when they find their own particular persons are become unacceptable by their own behaviour; and the Tories could not have the least hopes of prevailing without the underhand assistance of those infatuated Whigs.’ Herts. ALS, DE/P/F55, Newcastle to Cowper, 2 Aug. 1710. On 10 Aug. when Marlborough was considering the merits of the Whigs quitting en masse, he did not expect Newcastle to join them, ‘believing he will for some little time be imposed upon’. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 1601. A fortnight later, though, Sunderland expressed his confidence to Marlborough that Newcastle would join his fellow Whigs in opposition to the new ministry, ‘tho a place of £3,000 a year is a temptation to his inclinations’. Add. 61127, ff. 111-13. Meanwhile, Monckton on 21 Aug. was still urging Harley to follow Newcastle’s advice to include more Whigs in his scheme, especially Cowper. HMC Portland, iv. 571.

Still at Welbeck on 9 Sept. Newcastle again wrote to Cowper from Welbeck that he was ‘so vain to make the comparison betwixt your lordship and myself that you would not do anything in office which you would not do the same if you was out’, and of his sorrow when ‘men of such noble principles of integrity are removed’ and hoping that Cowper will not contribute towards it. Herts. ALS, DE/P/F55, Newcastle to Cowper, 2 Sept. 1710. On 19 Sept. Cowper recorded that Monckton had been sent to him from Harley to persuade him to remain as chancellor. He ‘pressed me vehemently, used all arguments over again said he had undertaken for me; that the D[uke] of Newcastle depended on’t; that he knew not what the D[uke] of Newcastle w[oul]d do at this rate; that he could not shew himself, if I failed; that he must do as Mr Temple did, throw himself into the Thames’. Private Diary of William, first earl Cowper (Roxburghe Club 49), 45. Newcastle refrained from such precipitous action, although at the beginning of November he told Cowper he could not ‘forbear acquainting you how all good Englishmen here are concerned at your resigning’. Herts ALS, DE/P/F55, Newcastle to Cowper, 1 Nov. 1710. On 23 Sept. Newcastle was out hunting, noting the views of his Tory fellow huntsmen that ‘they all seemed to be pleased with one of your great offices but all cried out of the other and wondered what use could be made of him’, perhaps a reference to the appointments of Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, and Buckingham on the 21st. HMC Portland, iv. 599. Marlborough was thus not surprised at Newcastle continuing in office, although he noted that same day (23 Sept.) ‘I can’t but think when he comes to Parliament he will act so as not to please them, for he is a sordid honest man’. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 1639. Despite much pressure from the Whigs to come up to London, Newcastle found a plausible excuse for staying in the country, citing concern for the protection of his electoral interests. He explained, ‘should I come up to town for ever so short a time there would be such tricks played, every election being attacked, that it could not be retrieved’. Somers accepted this excuse: ‘I can see no greater usefulness than that of taking care of elections’. By late September, after the resignations of Cowper and Orford, Newcastle was the only Whig still in office, and Halifax looked to him to ‘keep the little footing we had now you are left alone’. HMC Portland, ii. 214, 216-17, 221.

Not that by staying in office, Newcastle wished to forgo the accumulation of important local offices. On 30 Sept. he again outlined his case to be chief justice in eyre and his view that ‘all sides should come into the queen’s interest and to make her and her administration easy.’ Add. 70026, ff. 190-1. Further to that although he had been ‘unfortunate not to succeed with some of the leaders by my being at so great a distance I hope to do it better in the beginning of the winter with many of the party which will be chosen’. Despite some rumours, the office did not fall into his grasp until May 1711. HMC Portland, iv. 604; Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 635; Sainty, Justices in Eyre.

On 3 Oct. 1710, in his analysis of English Lords, Harley classed Newcastle along with the Court Whigs and other doubtfuls. On 18 Nov. Newcastle promised Harley that he intended to set out for London on the 20th. He anticipated breaking his journey at Wimpole and leaving there on Saturday 25 November. As soon as he arrived in town he would ‘send to your house the moment I arrive that I may have the happiness to see you without being troubled with other company’. Add. 70242, Newcastle to Harley, 18 Nov. [1710]. He was absent from the opening of the 1710 Parliament on 25 Nov., first attending on 4 December. His attendance at cabinet and committees of the cabinet was also somewhat irregular. TRHS (ser. 5), vii. 144. Nor was his position deemed secure by all observers. On 21 Dec. both Peter Wentworth and Mungo Graham^‡ thought that Newcastle would be replaced by Nottingham. The former believed that the defeat of two of his Members, who were thrown out of the Commons, now meant ‘his interest in that House is judged very small’, referring to the committee of elections proceedings on the East Retford petition, which were confirmed by the Commons on 11 Jan. 1711. Wentworth Pprs. 167; NAS, Montrose mss GD220/5/807/8; Luttrell, vi. 667. There is some evidence that following the Lords’ vote of censure on Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], and Stanhope on 11 Jan. 1711, when on 12 Jan. they censured the council for their advice on the Spanish campaign, Newcastle joined the opposition (having been a member of the council at the time). Clavering Corresp. (Surtees Soc. clxxviii), 108. He registered his proxy with his fellow Whig and Nottinghamshire neighbor, Evelyn Pierrepont, marquess of Dorchester (later duke of Kingston) on 1 Feb. but vacated it later that month when he returned to the House on 19 February. During those days of his absence in early February his brother-in-law, Pelham, gave his proxy to the duke (registered on 5 Feb. 1711). Newcastle was present at the cabinet on 8 Mar. when Guiscard stabbed Harley. HMC Portland, iv. 669; Add. 72495, ff. 57-58. On 13 Apr. again during one of Newcastle’s periods of absence, Thomas Fane, 6th earl of Westmorland, registered his proxy in favour of the duke. This pattern of proxies suggests that Newcastle still associated himself with the Whigs and may indeed even have gained stature in the party as the only one remaining in the ministry.

On 24 Apr. 1711 Maynwaring wrote about the vote in the Commons that day which referred to the missing £35m and was aimed at James Brydges, future duke of Chandos. He noted that Brydges ‘has had two accounts ready above two years, that have been stopped only by’, Newcastle as lord privy seal, whose

over-caution, in refusing the act as all his predecessors have done and taking advice of lawyers in matters that are plain and usual, for no foreign payments can pass here without a privy seal, and he is so rich, and consequently so timorous, that he dares not sign, what nobody else would scruple. Add. 61461, ff. 108-9.

Newcastle’s fussiness was confirmed by Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, who noted that most of the accounts presented by Brydges had not been passed ‘through the great caution and exactness’ of Newcastle, who was ‘very slow and would allow nothing without hearing of counsel on every article’. Burnet, vi. 46.

The reshuffle necessitated by Rochester’s death offered the opportunity to move Newcastle from his post but on 5 May Poulett told Harley that the duke was opposed to becoming lord president, ‘thinking it a place of less consequence than that he has’. HMC Portland, iv. 684. On 10 May Maynwaring’s political gossip came from an intimate friend of Newcastle’s, ‘who was always that to’ Harley, and he believed that Newcastle was the source of his informant’s news about the political reshuffle attendant upon Harley’s rise to the treasurership. On that day Newcastle was one of eight pall-bearers at Rochester’s interment in Westminster Abbey. Newcastle was absent from the Lords between 17-31 May, and it seems that he left London for a time, using George Granville to remind Oxford of a patronage case. Add. 61461, ff. 116-19; 70288, Granville to Oxford, 27 May 1711; Worcs. RO, Hampton (Pakington) mss, 705:349/4739/1 (i)/ 55, newsletter, 12 May 1711.

According to Edward Harley^‡ Newcastle had proposed a match between Harley’s son, Edward Harley^†, future 2nd earl of Oxford, and Newcastle’s daughter, Henrietta, ‘who will be the richest heiress in Europe’ as early as January 1711. Newcastle also suggested to the queen in the spring of 1711 that Harley himself, who had proved himself worthy through his ‘fidelity and sufferings in her service’, be given the title of earl of Oxford, previously in the possession of the de Vere family, to whom both Newcastle and Harley were related. HMC Portland, v. 655-9; Macky, Mems. 35.

Newcastle last sat in the House of Lords on 7 June 1711, five days before its ending, having attended on 30 days, 27 per cent of the total. By 21 June he was at Orton and although he pointedly underlined the fact that he had not had a response to a letter of his from Wimpole, he proceeded to suggest ways to Oxford (as Harley had since become) by which ‘all parties may contribute to make your business easier’. One suggestion was that Orford be offered the lieutenancy of Cambridgeshire. Nottingham, on the other hand, he thought ‘however he may be represented to you now he would not be much to your satisfaction for reasons I can tell you’. For himself, Newcastle would not accept the lieutenancy of Middlesex without being named custos as well. Add. 70242, Newcastle to Oxford, 21 June [1711].

Newcastle did not have long to enjoy his new office or the summer in the country, for on Friday 13 July he fell from his horse while stag-hunting and died in ‘great pain’ two days later. Some contemporaries attributed his death to his continuing to hunt for two hours after his fall, until the stag was killed, and the complications which set in afterwards. HMC Portland, v. 50, 65. It was intended to bring the corpse from Welbeck for burial in Westminster Abbey, and on 9 Aug. at about 10 a clock in the evening it ‘was brought to town and carried directly to his interment attended only by 15 shabby tattered hired coaches and not by any of the nobility and the mob appeared very rude and indecent at his interment: instead of sprinkling his ashes with tears’. Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs, 47, ff. 279-80, 289-90.

Oxford was deeply shocked by this unexpected turn of events. He wrote to the duchess while Newcastle was still on his sickbed, ‘no person less concerned than your grace can conceive the disorder I am under, and indeed the agonies I endure while I consider the man in the world I most entirely loved should be under any unfortunate accident’. HMC Portland, ii. 230. He was, of course, under no illusion as to its political implications: it cut one of Oxford’s main lines of communication with the Whigs. G. Holmes, ‘Great Ministry’, 129. Contemporaries such as Burnet described Newcastle at the time of his death as ‘the richest subject that had been in England for some ages’, with an estate estimated at above £40,000 p.a., ‘and was much set upon increasing it’. Burnet, vi. 69. Newcastle’s own records suggest that it did come close to this sum. Davies, 44. Indeed, John Bridges had heard a ‘manager of his estate’ say ‘that by a modest computation the rental might then amount to £37,000 per annum and his personal estate could never be less than £100,000.’ Add. 72491, f. 39.

Newcastle had one surprise left in store after his unexpected death. The terms of his will shocked contemporaries and were roundly condemned. Unlike his father-in-law he divided his extensive estates, bequeathing to his only child Henrietta a marriage portion of £20,000 and the Cavendish properties in Staffordshire, Northumberland and Yorkshire, together worth about £5,000 p.a. All his other property – the remainder of the Cavendish estate, the inherited lands of the earls of Clare and Barons Holles, and the land purchased by Newcastle himself -- went to his nephew Thomas Pelham, later duke of Newcastle, son of his youngest sister Grace and Pelham of Laughton, provided that he took the names Holles. TNA, PROB 11/548; UNL, NeD 92. John Bridges added this commentary on 20 July, that since he made his will he had purchased ‘about £6,000 per annum, which, if he made no new publication, goes all to the daughter’, and it was said that it is also directed by the will that they should marry together, which seems probable’. Add. 72491, f .39.

The dowager duchess of Newcastle and Henrietta (who was to marry Harley’s heir in August 1713), contested the settlement against the pretensions of Pelham. They claimed that the duke had not had the right to dispose of the Cavendish estates, as he held them by right of his wife. Significantly Newcastle had never fulfilled one of the key conditions in the 2nd duke of Newcastle’s will, by refusing to adopt the name of Cavendish as his own. HMC Lords, n.s. x. 56-57; LJ xix. 521, 531, 542. After the death of Margaret, dowager duchess in 1716, an agreement was reached between Henrietta Cavendish-Holles (by then styled Lady Harley) and Thomas Pelham-Holles (by then duke of Newcastle), which became official by statute in 1719. Henrietta received all the Cavendish properties her father had inherited from the 2nd duke of Newcastle, including Welbeck Abbey, as well as the land purchases Newcastle had made since making the will in 1707, which were estimated to be worth £100,000. Henrietta thereby improved on the original terms of the will, but the lion’s share of the Newcastle estate still went to the new duke of Newcastle, who used it as a base during the remainder of the eighteenth century for his preponderant power in English politics.

Newcastle was most commonly described as ‘covetous’. HMC Cowper, ii. 415; HMC Portland, viii. 280; Macky, Mems. 35. His main concern seems to have been local office and prestige, and in terms of patronage, he was what Godolphin called ‘a general recommender’. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 548. He was known to have little need for money, and was a heavy investor in land. Add. 72494, ff. 48-49. With land came political power, to which he added by an assiduous build up of voting strength in certain boroughs, allowing a considerable electoral influence. With this came a certain stubbornness, as Oxford wrote in August 1713, specifically about the marriage of his daughter, ‘it was impossible for anyone to make proposals to his grace, he must do what he would’. Add. 70140, Oxford to E. Harley, 13 Aug. 1713.