BOYLE, Charles (1639-94)

The young Viscount Dungarvan [I], as Charles Boyle was styled after his father inherited the earldom of Cork [I] in September 1643, was sent to Oxford in the mid-1650s, where he was under the tutelage of John Locke and also came under the wing of his uncle, the natural philosopher Robert Boyle. Cork mss, Lady Burlington Diary, 4; Cork mss 30, nos 20, 32. ’The latter’s first major published natural philosophical work, New Experiments Physico-mechanicall touching the Spring and Weight of the Air, in many ways the emblematic work of the ‘New Science’, was published in 1660 in the form of a long letter to Dungarvan, supposedly in response to queries the young man had addressed to him while conversing with natural philosophers in Paris. Dungarvan returned from his tour of France and the continent in August 1660, and his wealth and prominence in Restoration England were shortly after emphasized by his marriage on 7 May 1661 to Lady Jane Seymour, with a settlement on the couple of £12,000 a year. Cork mss, Burlington Diary. 29 Jan., 5, 8, 11 Feb., 19 Apr., 7 May 1661; Lady Burlington Diary, 10–11.

His parliamentary career began in the Irish House of Lords, to which he was summoned in January 1663 by a writ of acceleration. However, his attention turned to England in 1665 after his father was created earl of Burlington in the English peerage. From this point he was almost exclusively referred to, in English sources at least, by the courtesy title Lord Clifford of Lanesborough, a barony which had been conferred on his father by patent in 1644. In 1670 he entered the English House of Commons following a 1669 by-election for the borough of Tamworth. He had no personal connection with the region and gained his seat largely through the interest of his mother-in-law, the dowager duchess of Somerset. HP Commons, 1660–90, i. 390. He was initially listed as a government supporter, but by 1675 had gone over to the country party and was in close contact with Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, who classed him as ‘triply worthy’ in the analysis of the Members of Parliament which he drew up in spring 1677. HMC Laing, i. 404; CSP Dom. 1676–7, p. 564, 1677–8, p. 268. In the final session of the Cavalier Parliament, Clifford of Lanesborough supported the impeachment of Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), and on 23 Dec. 1678 acted as messenger to the Lords requesting a conference on the Houses’ disagreement over the bill for disbanding the army.

From the time of the long prorogation of 1675–7, there were plans that Clifford of Lanesborough, ‘who is really an excellent patriot’, would take one of the seats for the county of Yorkshire, as his family’s principal seat in England, Londesborough Hall, lay in the East Riding of the county. Through the local influence and support of his father, Burlington, the incumbent Member, Conyers Darcy, later 2nd earl of Holdernesse, and the local worthies George Savile, earl (later marquess) of Halifax, and Thomas Belasyse, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, he proceeded to sit as knight of the shire for the three Exclusion Parliaments, joined by Henry Fairfax^‡, 4th Baron Fairfax of Cameron [S]. Stowe 745, f. 109; HMC Var. ii. 166-7, 393. He voted for the Exclusion bill in the Parliament of spring 1679, but was a reluctant candidate for the next Parliament and, despite having the support of ‘the sectaries and fanatics’ and receiving an address urging him to prosecute exclusion further, he had rejoined the court by the winter of 1680. Reresby Mems. 185, 190; Yorks. (W. Riding) RO, Mexborough mss 14/6, 129, 149; Stowe 746, f. 16.

In 1687–8 he signalled his opposition to James II’s policies by standing as surety for the appearance of William Cavendish, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire, at his trial in king’s bench in May 1687, and by joining the crowd of supporters at the acquittal of the seven bishops. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 401; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk, iv. 55. That he was seen as a key supporter of the Revolution and William of Orange was also confirmed by his summons to the House of Lords by a writ of acceleration in July 1689. His writ, dated 16 July, was addressed to ‘Carolo Boyle, de Lawnsburgh’, and he was introduced to the House two days later as ‘Lord Boyle’. The Journals continued to name him as ‘D[ominu]s. Boyle’ from 22 July to 10 Aug. 1689, even though that was not one of his father’s baronies. By 10 Aug. the mistake had been noticed, perhaps flagged up by Clifford himself, and on that day the House was notified that the king had issued a warrant for a new writ to be made out for Charles, Lord Clifford of Lanesborough. The clerk was to surrender up the old and incorrect writ. From 12 Aug. the Journals only note the presence of ‘D[ominu]s. Clifford’. HMC Lords, ii. 227.

This mistake having been rectified, Clifford of Lanesborough apparently saw little reason to remain in the House and he last sat in the first session of the Convention on 20 Aug. having been present for 18 of its sitting days since his first attendance. Classed by Carmarthen (as Danby had become) as among the supporters of the court in a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, he came to a full three-quarters of the sittings of the second (winter 1689-90) session, during which he was named to 11 committees. On 14 Jan. 1690 was a teller in the division on the motion concerning the treason trials Bill, ‘That it is the ancient right of the peers of England to be tried only in full Parliament for any capital offence’. HMC Lords, ii. 418. He was even more assiduous in the following session of spring 1690, the first of William III’s new Parliament. He came to just over four-fifths of the meetings during the session, was named to eight committees and on 13 May 1690 signed the protest against the decision not to allow more time for the counsel for the corporation of London to be heard in its case for reversing the quo warranto against it.

Clifford of Lanesborough was present at 64 per cent of the sittings in the 1690–1 session and was nominated to 22 committees. His, and indeed the Journal’s, use of the title Baron Clifford without the suffix ‘of Lanesborough’ brought up a long-standing dispute between the different branches of the Clifford family, which came to a head in this session. On 27 Nov. 1690 the petition of his distant cousin Thomas Tufton, 6th earl of Thanet, was read before the House, in which he argued that the ancient title of Lord Clifford, a barony created by writ in 1299, descended to him as the sole male heir general, after it had been held in abeyance among female heirs general from 1605 to 1676. Clifford of Lanesborough’s mother, Lady Elizabeth Clifford, countess of Burlington, submitted her counter-petition on 2 Dec. claiming the Clifford barony through her father, Henry Clifford^†, 5th earl of Cumberland, who had been summoned to the House in 1628 by a writ of acceleration addressed to him as Lord Clifford. It was much later (in 1737) adjudged that the writ summoning Henry Clifford to Parliament in 1628 had been done in error and in effect created a new barony by writ, another Lord Clifford. At the time, though, there was still much doubt in peerage law about the position and heritability of baronies by writ and it was probably in order to clear up this uncertainty and to give a firmer base for claims to the Clifford legacy that Richard Boyle, Viscount Dungarvan [I], had been created Baron Clifford of Lanesborough by patent in 1644.

Parliament was prorogued on 5 Jan. 1691 without resolving this issue and the countess of Burlington died the day following the prorogation. Perhaps secure in his own possession of the barony of Clifford of Lanesborough, and confident that he would soon be inheriting the earldoms of both Cork [I] and Burlington, Clifford of Lanesborough assured the House on 8 Dec. 1691, in the following session of 1691–2, that he would ‘not obstruct the said claim’ of Thanet to the Clifford barony. Four days later the Committee for Privileges resolved that Thanet ‘was the sole lineal and right heir to Robert de Clifford and that the title and barony of Lord Clifford doth of right belong to him’. HMC Lords, iii. 191; CP, iv. 712–15, xii. 694–5. Nevertheless, the Journal continued to name Clifford of Lanesborough merely as ‘D[ominu]s Clifford’ and under this name he attended 60 per cent of the sittings of this session and was named to seven committees.

He resumed his regular attendance in the 1692–3 session, being present at almost three-quarters of the sitting days and named to ten committees. This was, however, only one-fifth of the committees established on the days on which he was in the House and by this point the frequency of his nominations was declining sharply. On 4 Mar. 1693 it was proposed that he be added to the committee assigned by the committee of the whole House considering the state of the nation to draw up an address on the state of Ireland, yet even with his Irish background this fell through and his name does not appear in the list of committee members provided in the Journals. HMC Lords, iv. 372. At the same time he took more definite and visible stances in this session than previously, stances which suggest, if a party label must be attributed to him, that he leaned towards country positions. He supported the place bill, voting for its commitment on 31 Dec. 1692 and putting his name to the protest on 3 Jan. 1693 when it was rejected by the House. On 19 Jan. he joined in the formal dissent from the decision not to refer the House’s amendments to the land tax bill to the committee for privileges, but he did not join in the dissent from the ensuing resolution to recede entirely from the amendments. He was one of a group of only 14 peers who found Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun, guilty of murder on 4 February. HMC Lords, iv. 297–8; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 30. He came to 38 per cent of the sitting days of the 1693–4 session, during which he was named to eight committees and subscribed his name to the protest of 10 Jan. 1694 against the resolution exonerating the Tory admirals from the debacle of the attack on the Smyrna fleet the previous summer.

Clifford died intestate at Londesborough on 12 Oct. 1694 and a few months later his estate was put into the administration of a creditor, while his father assigned many of the Irish lands which reverted to him to trustees to pay his son’s remaining debts. Trans. of E. Riding Antiq. Soc. xiv. 30; NLI, ms 13226/22, Burlington, 30 Mar. 1695, 13226/24, Burlington, 21 and 27 May 1695. Clifford of Lanesborough had already raised enough controversy in the House with his use of the Clifford title, and his early death, before that of his father, generated another problem. After some deliberation it was decided on 20 Nov. 1694 that Clifford’s title created by his writ of acceleration of 1689, and with it the right to a summons to the House, was heritable by his son, Charles Boyle, who first sat in the House as Lord Clifford of Lanesborough, before succeeding as 2nd earl of Burlington. HMC Lords, n.s. i. 393.