Reign of James II, 1685-8
After an active career in the Commons, notable for its loyalty to the crown, Finch succeeded his father at the end of 1682. He was already a member of the Privy Council and a holder of ministerial office as first lord of the admiralty. When a Parliament was summoned following the accession of James II, Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland, wrote to him in April 1685 on behalf of the king to solicit his support in the elections for Buckinghamshire, Nottingham owning property at Milton which he had purchased in 1677.
Nottingham attended the adjournment on 4 Aug. 1685. In October, George Savile, marquess of Halifax, expected him to be one of the peers attending Parliament to oppose the repeal of the Tests.
On 14 Jan. 1686 Nottingham attended the trial for high treason of Henry Booth, 2nd Baron Delamer, finding him not guilty. He was no passive participant in this trial, intervening to suggest that in matters pertaining to parliamentary privilege, the judges were not ‘altogether the sole judges’.
The dismissal in April 1686 of his brother, Heneage, the solicitor-general, for refusing to act for the crown in the case of Godden v. Hales, must have added to Nottingham’s unease about royal policies. In June Nottingham tried to protect Sharp, who was under threat of suspension for preaching sermons deemed anti-Catholic. He succeeded to the extent that Sharp was allowed to retire unmolested to Norwich, as the real target of the authorities was Henry Compton, bishop of London.
Given his views, Nottingham was an obvious person for William’s agent, Dijkvelt, to visit during his mission to canvass English political opinion. They met at the town house of Charles Talbot, 12th earl of Shrewsbury, although when Dijkvelt returned in June 1687 to report to William he carried only a polite non-committal letter from Nottingham.
On 11 Nov. 1687 Nottingham was late in attending the Privy Council, so avoided the ceremony surrounding the installation of Father Petre as a councillor, subsequently declining to sit with the Jesuit.
Danby and Bishop Compton advised Henry Sydney, the future Viscount Sydney, to approach Nottingham, ‘who had great credit with the whole Church party’ to see if he would advise the prince to come over to England. Initially, Nottingham agreed, and on 18 June William was promised in a cipher letter that five of his ‘principal’ friends, one of whom was Nottingham, would send another letter, enclosing an ‘invitation’ to William. However, when the promised invitation was sent on 30 June, Nottingham was not among the signatories—as Sydney wrote, ‘you will wonder, I believe, not to see the number 23 [Nottingham] among the other figures; he was gone very far, but now his heart fails him, and he will go no further; he saith ’tis scruples of conscience, but we all conclude ’tis another passion’. On 27 July Nottingham’s own letter to William played down the need for intervention by questioning the likely success of the king’s policies.
Meanwhile, Nottingham used his influence against James II’s regulators in their attempts to secure an amenable Parliament. On 16 Sept. 1688, one of James’s leading Whig collaborators, Sir William Williams‡, feared that if his patron at Beaumaris, Robert Bulkeley‡, 2nd Viscount Bulkeley [I], died before the election, Bulkeley’s son, Richard Bulkeley‡, the future 3rd Viscount, ‘who is lately arrived here with the influence and eloquence of the earl of Nottingham and Mr [Heneage] Finch his near relations [they were cousins] will oppose my election’.
The Revolution, 1688-9
Nottingham was present at Halifax’s on 12 Nov. 1688 when he met with Henry Hyde, 2nd earl of Clarendon, Weymouth and Bishops White of Peterborough and Lloyd of St Asaph, to discuss a petition to the king calling for a Parliament. Nottingham and Halifax would not join in a petition if it were signed by any peer who had made themselves ‘obnoxious’ by their previous governmental role, such as those who had sat on the ecclesiastical commission. As a result Nottingham was one of the peers who on 16 Nov. refused to subscribe to the petition. On 27 Nov. he was one of about 40 peers summoned to a meeting to discuss the petition with James II, following the defection of many of his senior officers and his return from Salisbury. Nottingham was said to have spoken ‘plain’, in ‘very soft language, but things smart enough’, advising the king to call a Parliament and pardon those who had joined the prince of Orange, thereby qualifying them for election.
Presumably due to his late arrival, Nottingham did not attend the provisional government meeting at the Guildhall on 11 Dec. 1688, but was present on the following day. In the afternoon, he signed the arrest warrant for Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, although he was known to be opposed to general warrants on principle. He next attended on the afternoon of 13 Dec. and then on the morning of 14 Dec., upon which occasion he argued that Jeffreys should be brought before them and a new warrant for his confinement issued, a course of action which was rejected on safety grounds. He continued to be active on the 15th, including proposing that Jeffreys be examined as to the fate of the great seal.
Clarendon recorded on 16 Jan. 1689 that Rochester had been with Nottingham, who ‘was resolved to support the king’s cause in the Convention’, and keen that William Sancroft, archbishop of Canterbury, should attend.
Nottingham voted in the committee of the whole on 31 Jan. 1689 against inserting into the resolution sent from the Commons the words declaring the prince and princess of Orange to be king and queen. On 2 Feb. Nottingham told the king’s Dutch secretary, Constantijn Huygens, that he could not accept the view that the throne was vacant. His view explains his omission from the meeting William held with Halifax, Shrewsbury, Danby and others on 3 Feb. in which the prince made clear his refusal to act as regent or prince consort.
Nottingham was named to a further conference on 6 Feb. 1689, reporting back from it on the differences between the Houses over the terms ‘abdicated’ and ‘deserted’.
Nottingham was one of those named on 8 Feb. 1689 to report a conference on declaring William and Mary monarchs. On 9 Feb. he acted as a teller in opposition to Devonshire on whether to agree with the paragraph on the standing army, as amended by the Lords, for insertion in the declaration to be presented to the new monarchs. He was then named to prepare reasons to ‘fortify’ the Lords’ amendments in preparation for a conference, and to the resultant conference. During the debates on 9 Feb., when it was put about (possibly with an intent to derail proceedings) that William was irked by some of the proposed restrictions in the Declaration, Nottingham said that ‘the prince ought to consider that the crown of England with whatever limitations ... was far more than anything the States of Holland were able to give him’.
Secretary of State in the Convention, 1689-90
Nottingham quickly adjusted to the new state of affairs. Halifax quoted Nottingham’s speech with approval when attempting to convince Sir John Reresby‡ to take the oaths; ‘he had not consented in the least to this change, but had opposed the prince his accession to the crown, not believing it legal, but that since he was there, and that we must now owe and expect his protection from him as king de facto, he thought it just and lawful to swear allegiance to him’.
On 28 Feb. 1689 Nottingham brought into the Lords a toleration bill, which fulfilled earlier promises made to the dissenters.
Nottingham was a keen defender of the test in the bill abrogating the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. On 15 Mar. 1689 he was named to a select committee to draw a clause to make clearer the abrogating and making void the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. At the committee on 16 Mar. Nottingham handed in some ‘propositions’, and Sir Robert Atkyns‡, Sir Cresswell Levinz and Sir William Dolben were ordered to draw some clauses based upon them. When the debate was resumed in committee of the whole House on the 19th, Nottingham reported what the select committee had drawn up. A disagreement arose over the draft of a clause by Atkyns concerning the sacrament, which Nottingham refused to accept, ‘for it did effectually take off that point and so wrangled about it many hours’, and eventually it was rejected by the committee.
During a debate on 25 Mar. 1689 on the bill appointing commissioners of the great seal, Nottingham defended his father from the charge that he had sold the place of clerk of the peace.
On 3 June 1689 Nottingham registered the proxy of Thomas Herbert, 8th earl of Pembroke. On 20 June, as secretary, Nottingham issued a warrant for the arrest of Peregrine Osborne, styled earl of Danby, the future 2nd duke of Leeds, upon information supplied by his father, Carmarthen; although Nottingham was defended by Clarges, it resulted on 28 June in a vote in the Commons that Danby’s arrest had been a breach of privilege, and further inquiry into whether the warrant pre-dated his receipt of the information.
Nottingham played a significant role in ecclesiastical politics at the beginning of the reign. In September 1689 William authorized Nottingham to convene a clerical commission to draft detailed plans for comprehension and other reforms for presentation to Convocation in November.
Marked by Carmarthen as an opponent of the court in the list he compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, Nottingham was present when, after several adjournments, Parliament sat again on 19 Oct. 1689. On 22 Oct. the countess of Nottingham revealed that they had moved into Berkshire House, although ‘whether we can fix here is yet uncertain’ due to possible structural defects.
Nottingham acted as a teller in opposition to Stamford on 14 Jan. 1690 on whether to adjourn the debate on the trial of peers. On 23 Jan., when the Lords debated the bill to restore corporations, Nottingham took the view that the surrender of the charters in the previous two reigns had been legal, arguing that the seven of the ten judges holding the contrary opinion had ‘argued rather like philosophers than lawyers, for they had compared bodies politic with bodies natural, and yet they had said they were immortal which was a strange property of bodies natural’.
Secretary of State in the Parliament of 1690
Nottingham had supported arguments for a new Parliament and following the dissolution on 6 Feb. 1690, he campaigned for Tory candidates in the ensuing elections.
Nottingham was present when the 1690 Parliament convened on 20 March, and attended 52 days of the session, including the prorogation on 7 July, missing only 22 March. He was named to 13 committees. On 26 Mar., Nottingham was one of those who criticized at first reading the bill introduced by Charles Powlett, duke of Bolton, declaring the Convention to be a lawful Parliament and recognizing William and Mary as ‘rightful and lawful’ rulers.
After the Commons rejected the abjuration bill on 26 Apr., a modified bill, for the better securing King William and Queen Mary and the peace of the kingdom was given a first reading in the Lords on 1 May, and on 2 May Nottingham was one of those that spoke against the terms of the oath during the second reading debate, describing the bill as ‘destructive of the government’.
Despite Nottingham’s well known quibbles over the nature of William’s kingship, the king had long had Nottingham in mind as a member of Mary’s advisory council should he leave the kingdom. Nottingham was confirmed as such on the eve of the king’s departure in May 1690.
In July 1690, in the wake of the battle at Beachy Head, Nottingham was ‘oppressed with business’ and ‘scarce ever in bed till three or four o’clock in the morning’.
Nottingham was present when the 1690-1 session began on 2 October. He attended on 59 days, 81 per cent of the total, and was named to 11 committees. On 21 Oct. the Lords upheld the claim of Arthur Herbert, earl of Torrington, that his imprisonment after Beachy Head was a breach of privilege, although Nottingham defended the order of the council.
While abroad there was renewed evidence that the king held Nottingham in high esteem; on the 9 Feb. 1691 Nottingham’s son, William Finch‡, was baptized by Bishop Stillingfleet, with Sydney standing in for the king as godfather, and Princess Anne standing as godmother.
Nottingham attended the prorogations of 26 May, 30 June, 3 Aug. and 5 Oct. 1691 and was present when the next session began on 22 Oct. 1691. He attended on 73 days, 75 per cent of the total, and was named to 17 committees. On 1 Nov. Nottingham wrote to Hatton to thank him ‘for trusting me with your proxy, for which I shall send you a draught in the usual form’, not that he had it for long, for Hatton attended the Lords on 28 November. Nottingham had been heavily involved in advising Hatton in an ecclesiastical dispute with the bishop of Ely, which resulted in a bill for the settling on Hatton and his heirs a fee farm rent of £100 per annum on the bishop and his successors. On 13 Nov. Nottingham met with various referees to settle matters before the bill was drawn up, which he expected to be done by the 17th. The bill was given a first reading on 1 Dec. and passed the Lords on the 4th. Following the Royal Assent on 24 Dec., Nottingham advised Hatton to obtain a copy of the act from the clerk of the Parliaments ‘to keep by you’.
On 11 Nov. 1691 it was reported that Nottingham ‘looks down of late’. The report may have reflected Whig criticism of him in the Commons over the inactivity of the fleet during the summer. The king, however, ensured that any criticism was muted.
On 2 Jan. 1692 Nottingham registered the proxy of Viscount Longueville (the former Grey of Ruthin), and entered protests, first against sending for a precedent to include in the heads of reasons for a conference on the bill for regulating the East India Company, and then against the heads themselves. On 4 Jan. he was added to the managers of a conference on the treason trials’ bill, speaking at the conference held on the following day on a clause of the bill. Following the report of the conference, further debate was adjourned until the 7th, whereupon the Lords insisted on their amendment. Nottingham attended further conferences on the subject on 9, 14, 21, and 27 January. On 22 Jan. Nottingham registered the proxy of Richard Lumley, earl of Scarbrough. On 2 Feb. he was named to draw up reasons for a conference on the bill for taking the public accounts, and he spoke at the conference on the bill on 8 February.
Before the adjournment of the session on 24 Feb. 1692, there had been rumours that Nottingham would be appointed lord chancellor, possibly to make way for Sunderland as his replacement as secretary.
Another problem for the ministry was how to regulate the trade to the East Indies. Nottingham was broadly sympathetic to those who wished to dissolve the old East India Company.
Nottingham informed Blathwayt on 8 July that Parliament would be prorogued to 22 Aug. 1692. On 27 Aug. he penned a pessimistic letter to Blathwayt expressing the view that it was unlikely that Parliament would grant large supplies and that even if it did, that Flanders would be able to command such a large share as hitherto. Another, drafted to Portland, stressed ‘the unhappy distinctions of Whig and Tory’ and that ‘many of both parties are combined to destroy this government: those of the last sort as enemies to this king. The others are so to monarchy itself’. The ‘disaffected’ were making preparations for the next session and gaining an adequate supply would be difficult.
Nottingham was present when the 1692-3 session met on 4 Nov. 1692. He attended on 82 days, 80 per cent of the total, and was named to 20 committees. On 9 Nov. it was reported that the Lords were ‘upon the matter of the late imprisonment of Lords during an adjournment of Parliament. I doubt their aim is towards the secretary, e[arl] of N[ottingham] for committing, or the lord chief justice [Sir John Holt‡] for not bailing’.
By 26 Nov. 1692 a Commons’ committee examining papers concerning the failure to make a descent on France was ready to report, with criticisms ‘levelled’ at Nottingham. If the committee had had power to have reported conclusions they would, it was said, ‘have passed a censure’ on him. Speaker Trevor tipped off Nottingham, requesting that the earl’s friends attend and ‘that one of them may inform me how you will be served’, when the report was made on the 28th.
Meanwhile, Nottingham was marshalling his own defence in the Lords. He was one of three peers deputed to present an address to the king on 29 Nov. 1692, for all the orders and papers sent by the council, or secretary of state, in the summer’s expedition at sea, especially the papers relating to the descent. He accordingly delivered the papers on 6 and 8 December. On 7 Dec. Nottingham voted with the majority against establishing a committee of both Houses to consider advice to the king on the state of the nation.
Meanwhile, on 15 Dec. Robert Price‡ reported that Russell was ‘making all the preparation he can’ in the Commons to give Nottingham ‘a new charge, as to the miscarriage of the descent’ and Nottingham was ‘as eager in fixing the fault on Russell’, ensuring that everyone was ‘very desirous to see the engagement between them’.
On 31 Dec. 1692 Nottingham spoke and was listed as voting against the commitment of the place bill and on 3 Jan. 1693 he voted against its passage.
a person, knowing the design of another to lie in wait to assault a third man, and accompanying him in that design, if it shall happen that the third person be killed at that time in the presence of him who knew of that design and accompanied that other in it, be guilty in law of the same crime will the party who had that design and killed him, tho’ he had no actual hand in his death?
Bodl. Carte 79, f. 477; State Trials, xii. 1048.
On 19 Feb. Nottingham registered the proxy of Robert Sutton, 2nd Baron Lexinton. He was one of three peers on 7 Mar. deputed to attend the king and inform him that the penalties in the mutiny bill were due to begin on 10 March. He was in attendance on the last day of the session on 14 March.
Following the end of the session, John Somers, the future Baron Somers was named lord keeper, after Nottingham refused to take the great seal.
Given the conflict over naval affairs in the previous session, Nottingham was bound to come under pressure again in the wake of the disaster of the Smyrna convoy in May 1693. Realizing this he asked Delaval for a detailed defence of the admirals’ actions and helped plan their defence before the Privy Council.
desirous to have justified himself in Parliament before he parted with his employment, but this sudden change being made chiefly to put the Parliament in good temper at their meeting, it was not thought convenient to defer it till then, tho’ I can’t say my Lord ever desired that favour of his majesty expressly.
Add. 72482, f. 147.
Out of Office, 1693-5
Nottingham was present when the session convened on 7 Nov. 1693. He attended on 111 days of the session, 87 per cent of the total, the majority of his absences coming in March and April. He was named to 18 committees. On 4 Dec., in a debate in committee of the whole House on the triennial bill, he unsuccessfully opposed the inclusion of the word ‘declare’, and when discussions in committee resumed on 6 Dec. he opposed the bill.
The Commons’ investigation into the conduct of the admirals over the Smyrna convoy in November and December saw Delaval and Killigrew escape severe censure, but they were removed from the Admiralty Board in December. The Lords exonerated them too on 10 Jan. 1694, and attention turned to the shortcomings of Trenchard, with Nottingham being given leave to substantiate his claim that he had brought intelligence of the movements of the French fleet to the cabinet.
Now out of office, Nottingham switched his attention to the building of a mansion on his newly acquired estate at Burley. Nottingham had not inherited a country seat from his father, just houses in Kensington and at Ravenstone, Buckinghamshire. His search for a country estate had centred on those counties in which he had an existing interest, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland. Burley had come to his attention as early as October 1689, when it became likely that it would eventually be sold to pay the debts of the previous owner, George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham.
Nottingham was absent from a call of the House on 26 Nov. 1694, and when he was still absent on 3 Dec. the lord keeper was ordered to write to him to attend by 18 December. As he wrote to Hatton on 7 Dec., ‘did not my business require me at London I should not go upon this summons tho’ I had no sickness to disable me from attending the House’.
The death of Queen Mary affected Nottingham deeply. On 28 Dec. 1694 James Vernon‡ reported a rumour that Nottingham had questioned whether Parliament was dissolved by the queen’s death, as the Members had been summoned by writs in both the king’s and the queen’s names.
Nottingham acted as a teller on 12 Jan. 1695 in opposition to Rochester on the question of whether to reverse the judgment in the case of the Bishop of London v. Birch. On 22 Jan. Nottingham seconded the motion of James Bertie, earl of Abingdon, for the House to consider the state of the nation, which was ordered for the 25th.
the sending the fleet into the streights, the prejudices by carrying the money out of the kingdom to the enriching of strangers, the unsafe condition they were in by the king’s going abroad without their knowing how the government shall be settled in his absence, the ruin of trade that was threatened by the Bank and the examination of the Lancashire trials.
Add. 46527, f. 48; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 431-2.
The House took up only the question of the Bank, which was defended successfully, and the Lancashire Plot, which was ordered to be considered on the 28th. Nottingham acted as a teller on 25 Jan. in opposition to Charles Robartes, 2nd earl of Radnor, on the question of appointing a day to consider the Bank. Commenting on the investigations into the Plot and Shrewsbury’s role in it, Vernon noted on 29 Jan. that Nottingham had declared that ‘no reflection could lie’ upon Shrewsbury, ‘since he had done no more than the duty of his place required’.
Meanwhile, on 23 Jan. 1695 Nottingham had protested against an amendment to the bill regulating treason trials. On 24 Jan. he entered another protest, this time against adding a clause making it more difficult to quash proceedings on certain technicalities such as mis-spellings. He was appointed on 16 Feb. a reporter of a conference on the bill, and was named on 20 Feb. to a committee to draw reasons and on the 23rd then nominated for the conference itself. He had acted as a teller on 5 Feb. in opposition to Monmouth on the question of agreeing a resolution on Aaron Smith relating to the Lancashire Plot trials. On 16 Feb. he registered the proxy of Saye and Sele. He entered his protest on 18 Feb. to the vote that the judges in the Lancashire trials had done their duty, according to law. Nottingham’s papers contain notes for a speech on the Lancashire trials, which may never have been delivered after further inquiry into the matter was adjourned on 22 February.
On 1 Mar. 1695 L’Hermitage noted in a dispatch that Nottingham had expressed a desire to live in the country. On 7 Mar. Nottingham wrote that ‘I am very weary of the town but am afraid I shall not get to Exton till Easter week’.
The Parliament of 1695
During William III’s tour of the Midlands before the 1695 election, Weymouth wrote of his surprise that Nottingham had avoided treating the king when he had ‘passed so near him’.
The pattern of the previous session was repeated in 1695-6, with Nottingham absent from the beginning of the session on 22 Nov. 1695. As usual his absence did not prevent him from commenting on topical matters, including registering his support for a parliamentary council of trade.
As a result of Nottingham’s refusal to sign the Association his name had been struck out of the Privy Council register by the king on 12 March.
we have made very little alterations in it, only added a proviso to except offices of inheritance. I would have taken the like care of offices for life, but I found so great caution used in the wording of the proviso that it should not extend to offices for life that ’twould have been to no purpose to have attempted it.
Add. 29595, f. 110.
No doubt his opposition explained George Stepney’s comment on 11 Apr. that Nottingham had ‘become the most violent man in England against the king’s interest’.
Nottingham was absent when the 1696-7 session convened on 20 Oct. 1696, first attending on 6 November. He attended on 52 days of the session, 46 per cent of the whole, and was named to 14 committees. He entered protests on 28 Nov. against the passage of the amended bill for further remedying the ill state of the coinage and on 2 Dec. against the decision not to insist on the Lords’ amendments to the bill. He wrote to Hatton on 3 Dec., ‘I was not at the House today, being engaged in the duchy court, where I have prevailed against the corporation of Daventry’.
The major issue of the session was the fate of Sir John Fenwick‡. Fenwick was keen to know whether Nottingham was ‘for or against the bill, he is a leading card and I hear he spake against my having counsel till the bill was read[.] If he is against the bill I suppose then it is the better for me’.
Nottingham entered his protest on 23 Jan. 1697 against the decision to reject at second reading the bill for further regulating parliamentary elections. On 8 Feb. the bill for the exchange of advowsons between Nottingham and the bishop of London passed its third reading in the Lords. It had received its first reading on 1 Feb., and had been reported by Bishop Lloyd of Lichfield and Coventry, without amendment, on the 5th. Nottingham last attended on 10 Feb., over two months before the session ended and on 11 Feb. his proxy was registered with Halifax. By 20 Feb. 1697 Nottingham was reported to be out of town.
Nottingham’s views of the forthcoming session were set out in a missive to Halifax on 22 Nov. 1697, in which he raised the prospect of opposing the ministry’s support for a standing army with ‘some measures more suitable to the interest of England’. He suggested that they positively promote their own proposals, and not simply ‘barely … oppose the designs of others’; he argued for a ‘concert’, ‘without which all struggling in Parliament will not only be vain but leave some particular men exposed to resentment’. On 29 Nov., Nottingham wrote again to Halifax to tell him that he would not be in town until 18 Dec. at the earliest (Parliament was prorogued to 3 December). He told him that he would not ‘recommend to my friends any particular things to be done, because there are some to which perhaps they will not be persuaded tho’ without them all other matters will be ineffectual to our happiness’. He then again suggested that his friends ‘should resolve what to do as well as what to oppose so they should also begin those things and bring them to a speedy issue before gentlemen grow weary of attending.’ Nottingham was still at Burley on 4 Dec., grappling with his accounts, but hoping to ‘make haste to town’. With the weather poor, still delayed on 25 Dec., he announced his intentions to set out on 3 Jan. 1698 or the day after.
On 12 Feb. 1698 Robert Bertie‡ reported after dining with Nottingham, Halifax and Robert Shirley, 8th Baron Ferrers, that Charles Duncombe‡ would ‘come off’ in the Lords, even if the bill against him (a bill of pains and penalties against him for alleged corruption in the exchequer accounts, initiated by Montagu in a response to charges Duncombe had brought against him) passed the Commons.
From the 1698 Election to the end of William’s Reign
In the 1698 general election, Nottingham exerted electoral influence in his adopted county of Rutland, where according to Vernon, the defeated candidate, Bennet Sherard‡, apparently wrote that Nottingham ‘was the first man that voted against him’. Vernon also noted that Nottingham had ‘writ very zealously’ on behalf of Anthony Hammond‡ at Cambridge University.
Nottingham was still a magnet for Tory politicians: on 1 Aug. 1698, he talked of Halifax’s impending visit, a potential visit from Rochester, and of having waved off Musgrave and Sir Robert Southwell‡ after a short stay. Nottingham might feign a lack of interest in politics, but on 27 Aug. he wrote to ask Halifax to bring a marked printed list of the returns of Members with him to help pass away the time ‘when you are weary with hunting’. On 19 Sept. Nottingham showed little inclination to return to active participation in the Lords unless matters changed: ‘I have no business in London, nor any thoughts of going thither till I see whether the H. of Commons will find any other business for us than consenting to their money bills’. Nottingham told Halifax on 3 Nov. that he had no plans to visit London and was only going to stay at Albury for a few days. Despite his professed indifference to politics, Nottingham noted on 12 Nov. that Seymour’s determination to stand for the Speakership of the Commons risked splitting the Tory vote and letting the third candidate, Sir Thomas Littleton‡, carry it, ‘which in itself would be very ill and in the consequence much worse for it will break all confidence among our acquaintance and prevent all measures that should be taken.’ His hope was that Rochester would prevail upon John Granville, the future Baron Granville, to abandon his bid for the Speakership, for ‘I despair of persuading the other [Seymour]’. Nottingham did plan a visit to Rochester at New Park in early December, and he was at Albury on 12 Dec., and then expected to spend a couple of days in London.
Nottingham did not attend the Lords until 16 Jan. 1699. In all he attended on 30 days of the session, 37 per cent of the total and was named to 13 committees. On 17 Jan. Nottingham wrote that the bill mentioned by Hatton, the governor of Guernsey, to prohibit the export of corn for one year, had arrived in the Lords the previous day; he would be ready to obey Hatton’s ‘commands’, presumably for the exemption of the island, but there was an ‘obvious objection’ that ‘under the pretence of exporting corn to Guernsey it will [be] carried to other places’. He then reported on the 19th that on the previous day that the corn bill had been read ‘and the Guernsey-men have liberty given to make their proposals, which I have desired them may be such as they may reasonably hope will be granted and to offer such restrictions as may prevent the abuse of the favour they ask’.
Nottingham was still attending on 4 Feb. 1699, when he wrote that ‘I can’t forsee when I shall return into the country. I can only resolve to stay here no longer than of necessity I must’.
Lawsuits often determined Nottingham’s movements, especially his visits to London. On 13 June 1699 Nottingham wrote ‘my cause was heard yesterday and the court has taken time to consider of it, what my lord chancellor said seemed to be in my favour. I shall go out of town on Thursday [15th], thro’ Essex to Exton’. When on 2 Sept. Nottingham was considering the patronage implications of the conviction for simony of Thomas Watson, bishop of St Davids, and the likelihood that those paying for preferments would lose them, he felt able to approach Lord Chancellor Somers, and to use Halifax and Bishop Lloyd, now of Worcester, but not Thomas Tenison, archbishop of Canterbury, ‘whom I will not ask’. On 9 Sept., he wrote to Halifax that ‘I thought the bishop of Norwich [Moore] had intended a preferment to Dr Burton, which did not require much residence, which I should like much better, that my children might not be deprived as yet of a man so useful to them.’
Although the 1699-1700 session began in November 1699, Nottingham did not attend until 22 Jan. 1700. He was present on 29 days of the session, 37 per cent of the total, and was named to seven committees. On 8 Feb. he entered his protest against putting the question that the settlement of the Scotch colony at Darien was inconsistent with the good of the kingdom’s plantation trade. On 10 Feb. he protested against the address itself. In about February 1700 he was forecast as likely to support the East India Company bill and on the 23rd he voted in favour of adjourning into committee of the whole House to debate the bill. Also on 23 Feb. he was named to draw up heads for a conference relating to the Commons bill authorizing the appointment of English commissioners to treat for a Union with Scotland. Following the removal of Somers in April, Nottingham was one of those mentioned as a possible lord chancellor.
Around the end of 1700 and the beginning of 1701, his presence in London and a belief that the king favoured a further move towards the Tories encouraged the rumours that Nottingham would be made lord chancellor. However a newsletter of 11 Jan. 1701 suggested that he had refused the office, ‘being unwilling to meddle any more with public affairs’.
Nottingham was named on 15 May 1701 to a conference on the bill on the king’s bench and Fleet prisons. He entered protests on 3 June to parts of the House’s answer to the Commons on the delay to the impeachments of the members of the Junto. It seems very likely that he spoke in the debate that preceded the protest.
Meanwhile, however, Nottingham responded to an initiative from Godolphin on 8 June 1701 to concert with ‘our friends’ in the Commons in support of the king’s foreign policy, and following the king’s speech on 12 June, the Commons voted an address in support of such alliances as William thought fit to approve for the preservation of Europe and the reduction of French power.
Nottingham was present when the 1701-2 Parliament first met on 30 December. He attended on 50 days, 50 per cent of the total and was named to 20 committees. He seconded Normanby’s motion on 31 Dec. for an address concerning Louis XIV’s recognition of the Pretender.
Queen Anne and the Secretaryship, 1702-4
Nottingham was not in London when William died on 8 Mar. 1702, but his prospects seemed to have revived with the new reign. On the 9th Nottingham had already noted that ‘I am much importuned by my friends (not of the Court) to come to town immediately to which I am very averse, for the same reasons which made me leave London’.
no force in it, for I think you are left as much at liberty after you have taken this oath, nay it is as much your duty to own for your king whomsoever God in his Providence sets upon this throne (so as that in the sense of the law he is the king), tho’ it should prove the very person you have abjured. Provided you contributed nothing to it, I say in this case it is as much in your liberty without breach of your oath to own this person for your king, as if you had never taken it.
Finch mss DG7, bdle 22, Sharp to Nottingham, 31 Mar. 1702.
In turn, Nottingham was crucial in persuading Weymouth to take the oath, as the latter acknowledged on 4 Apr.: ‘I think I have overcome my scruples, and ... shall be proud to follow your Lordship to the Table and since our hasty retreat has occasioned much discourse, the sooner we silence it the better, and therefore design to be in town the 15th instant’.
Nottingham was appointed secretary of state on 2 May 1702. His wife became a lady of the bedchamber later in May.
From Whitehall Nottingham kept a close eye on the election returns; on 13 Aug. 1702 he congratulated James Grahme‡ ‘on the victories you have obtained’, and took the opportunity to exhort ‘you and all our friends about you’ to ‘be here at the first day of the Parliament’.
Nottingham was present when Parliament met on 20 Oct. 1702, and there is evidence that the Queen’s Speech had been amended by him when in draft form.
On 2 Feb. 1703, it was ordered that the commissioners of accounts should attend in relation to the management of the exchequer by Charles Montagu, Baron Halifax. Nottingham’s concern was to ensure that since the Commons had already ordered the attorney-general to prosecute Halifax that their actions did not look like giving a judgment in the case. In a debate in committee of the whole House on 4 Feb. on the bill extending the time allowed for taking the oath of abjuration, Nottingham and Somers combined to add a clause promoted by Bishop Compton of London that clergymen already instituted into vacant benefices should not be deprived as a result of failing to take the oaths in time. On 5 Feb., when Charles Seymour, 6th duke of Somerset reported from the committee on the findings of the public accounts commissioners, exonerating Halifax, Lord Keeper Wright informed the House that the attorney-general wished to be heard before any vote on the report. Nottingham backed him, but unsuccessfully. Nottingham brought in on 9 Feb. a list of persons granted licences to return from France by Queen Anne; he was in agreement with peers who felt that those returning without licences should be prosecuted, but suggested that it was incumbent upon peers who were aware of such persons to inform ministers. Nottingham used his lawyer’s expertise in defence of Rooke on 11 Feb., when he objected to the report of the committee appointed to examine the journals of Rooke and James Butler, 2nd duke of Ormond. The committee’s frequent use of the word ‘appears’, he argued, indicated that it had exceeded its remit which was only to inspect and report, not to draw inferences and conclusions; the report was recommitted to be re-drafted.
Even Marlborough acknowledged that Nottingham was the fount of ecclesiastical patronage; in May 1703 the duke asked Godolphin to excuse him to the queen for writing to Nottingham on the subject of the bishopric of St Asaph ‘for had I not done it Doctor Chetwood would never have forgiven me’. Nottingham’s reply was that ‘the matter was too far advanced’ in favour of George Hooper, who would become the bishop in October.
On 7 June Marlborough thought fit to warn the lord treasurer (with the caveat that his informant Count Wratislaw was ‘hotheaded’) that Nottingham ‘will upon all occasion’ do Godolphin ‘what hurt he can with his party’.
Nottingham attended the prorogations on 14 Oct. and 4 Nov. 1703 and he was present when the next session commenced on 9 November. He attended on 53 days of the session, 54 per cent of the total and was named to 24 committees. He seems to have actively solicited the attendance of some peers, presumably to support the occasional conformity bill.
During the summer of 1703 Nottingham had been heavily involved in the investigation of the so-called ‘Scotch Plot’ for a Jacobite rising in Scotland. The Scotch Plot was brought before the Lords on 14 Dec. 1703, possibly owing to a leak from the cabinet, and the Lords elected a committee of seven on 18 Dec. to interrogate some of the prisoners. Nottingham gained ten votes, a derisory amount compared to those secured by the Whigs who were chosen. Nottingham was criticized in the Commons on 20 Dec. for ‘having given order for the release of one Middleton’ (one of those said to be involved in the Plot). But when the lower House resumed the debate the next day a concerted effort was made there to argue that Nottingham ‘was the only person in Council that opposed his release’, and the House then agreed ‘the most honourable vote that ever was seen in favour of that great and good minister and ordered it to be laid before her majesty at the same time with their address which was accordingly done’.
Nottingham’s responsibilities as secretary must have limited his appearances in the House: a letter of 13 Mar. 1704 from Godolphin implies that it was easy enough to summon Nottingham back to Westminster when necessary, allowing him to spend much of his time out of the House: ‘the House is in a committee upon the bill of first fruits. I think there is not like to be any occasion of troubling you to come hither’.
Marlborough, en route for the campaign, wrote from Harwich to Godolphin on 8 Apr. 1704 that Nottingham had told the Tories that the queen was hindered from giving them satisfaction by the duumvirs, that he was convinced that they would hand all business to the Whigs, and that ‘if he can’t get such alterations made in the Cabinet Council as he thinks absolutely necessary for the safety of the Church, he would then quit’. Godolphin reported to him on 18 Apr. that Nottingham had outlined his demands for the removal of Somerset (who had chaired the Lords’ investigations of the Scotch Plot) and Archbishop Tenison from the Cabinet, but although Nottingham had given the queen ‘a good deal of these notions’, she was still set to dismiss Seymour and Edward Villiers, earl of Jersey instead.
Return to Opposition, 1704-6
It was reported on 16 May 1704 that Nottingham attended as frequently at Court as before his resignation. His presence presaged some kind of political campaign in the autumn, centring on the fear of instability in Scotland, the failings of the allies and the promotion of a further bill against occasional conformity.
Godolphin reported on 23 Nov. 1704 that Rochester and Nottingham ‘were the only men’ to second John Thompson, Baron Haversham ‘upon the mismanagement of naval affairs. One or two more came into the other part of the motion about Scotland. They would also have had a committee to inquire into the state of the money, but that would not be endured in the House’.
said that though he would not presume to propose a remedy he would say what remedy he would not approve of. Not introducing the Scots. Not to bring K. James into England. Nor to sacrifice to Protestant interest abroad in order to have King William’s title acknowledged as done at the treaty of Ryswick.
This drew Pembroke and Jersey into vindicating their actions as the negotiators of the treaty, though Nottingham disavowed any intention of questioning their conduct.
Nottingham protested on 17 Jan. 1705 against giving a first reading to a bill to allow William Henry Granville, 3rd earl of Bath, to make leases of his settled estate during his minority, because the next heir to the estate, Baron Granville, objected to it. On 21 Jan. Nottingham approached the customs commissioner, Sir John Werden, bt.‡ to ask him a question about ‘prohibiting Flanders trade’, presumably in preparation for possible legislation.
During the early part of 1705 Nottingham was preoccupied with the forthcoming election. As early as 12 Jan., Bishop Nicolson was approached in the Lords by Nottingham and Thomas Tufton, 6th earl of Thanet, who discussed the ‘fancy’ of Joseph Musgrave‡ in declining to stand for Westmorland.
Nottingham attended on the opening day of the Parliament, 25 Oct. 1705. He was present on 68 days of the session, 72 per cent of the total, and was named to 34 committees. On 12 Nov., Nottingham ‘made a motion relating to the affairs of Scotland’, which resulted in the appointment of a committee to draw up an address on union, asking that what had passed in the Scottish Parliament since the previous session in relation to the succession of the crown of Scotland and to the intended treaty of union be laid before them.
George Lockhart‡ had told Atholl on 15 Oct. 1705 of the frustrations of the Tories and their plans to invite the electoral prince, Prince George, duke of Cambridge, to reside in England. Nottingham and Rochester were in correspondence with Hanover, he wrote, and observed ‘that they don’t so much value in England who shall be king, as whose king he shall be’.
Earlier, in the debate in committee of the whole House on the state of the nation on 22 Nov. 1705, Nottingham made an unsuccessful motion to request the queen for information on the disappointing military campaign. The next day, he seconded Haversham’s motion for the repeal of the clause which declared the Scots to be aliens, although Somers then proposed repealing the whole act and was seconded by Rochester. On 28 Nov. Nottingham opposed leave to bring in an appeal (requested by Halifax) on the grounds that it was against standing orders. He spoke in the debate on 6 Dec. on the queen’s speech and the Tory claim that the Church was in danger: ‘having briefly remarked on the Scotch act for the establishment of presbytery and the mischief of the occasional communicants voting in corporations’, he seconded Archbishop Sharp’s motion on an instruction to the judges to consider ways of subjecting dissenting seminaries to ecclesiastical discipline.
On 17 Jan. 1706, Nottingham defended himself against the report of Lord Halifax (Charles Montagu, Baron Halifax) from the committee on records, which complained of the neglect of the recent secretaries of state in failing to pass on the public papers: Nottingham said that he had parted with some papers he should have kept for his own security. Pembroke ‘preferred’ a petition from the trustees of the deceased marquess of Halifax’s estate, including Nottingham, on 23 Jan., praying leave to bring in a bill to sort out the estate.
The Union, the War and Sacheverell, 1706-10
Critical of the conduct of the war away from central Europe, in a letter of July 1706 Nottingham criticized the neglect of the war in the West Indies and in October Godolphin was worried that the complaints of the earl of Peterborough (formerly earl of Monmouth) about his treatment and the war in Spain would adversely affect the business of the forthcoming session, especially as ‘one may be sure’ Nottingham ‘will be fully possessed of that whole affair.’
Before the House went into a committee of the whole on 3 Feb. 1707 on the bill for the security of the Church of England, Nottingham seconded Archbishop Sharp’s motion to instruct the committee to insert into the bill, ‘as a fundamental condition of the intended Union’, a clause declaring the Test Act perpetual and unalterable. In all probability he drew up the protest, which he signed, when the motion was negatived.
Nottingham was omitted from the new Privy Council of Great Britain in May 1707.
Nottingham was present when the next session opened on 23 Oct. 1707, despite telling Dartmouth as recently as 9 Oct. that
if I were never so idle and had nothing to do, I have a great deal to say against London, where I can do no good to any, but may [do] much harm to myself, at least I shall expose myself to great and unavoidable but yet fruitless vexation, instead of quiet and satisfaction which I enjoy here, more, I can truly say, than ever I had in my life.
Dartmouth mss D(W)1778/I/ii/87.
He did attend on only 29 days, 27 per cent of the total and was named to seven committees. After attending the first three days of the session on 23, 30 Oct. and 6 Nov., he did not appear again until 1 December. On 15 Dec., when the state of the war in Spain was considered in committee of the whole House, Nottingham joined Rochester and Haversham in speaking in defence of Peterborough. When the House continued the debate on the 19th, Nottingham spoke for half an hour, ‘took notice of the ill condition of the kingdom in the decrease of our money and trade, but agreed it was absolutely necessary to support King Charles’, proposed sending 20,000 men from Flanders under a British commander, and said that ‘Spain ought to be our principal regard, for that in Flanders we might war to eternity and never come to anything decisive, wherefore he proposed we should [act] there only on the defensive’.
Nottingham’s perceived importance to the Tories can be gauged by a letter written to him by Bromley on 2 Oct. 1708, concerning a possible Tory candidate for Speaker in the new Parliament; if Nottingham approved, ‘it is humbly desired you’d be pleased to engage all you can to be in town the first day of the session and if your Lordship can any way do it to secure some of the Scotch to be with us.’ Nottingham’s reply must have been encouraging in general, but promised no action on his part, for on 23 Oct. Bromley wrote again, to press his attendance, some peers being unwilling to act without him. Rather plaintively, he ended ‘the term is begun, has your Lordship no business at it?’ Bromley regretted on 11 Nov. that Nottingham was ‘so much determined against coming to town at a juncture when all advice and assistance are wanted’ in order to take advantage of Whig divisions over the speakership. In his draft reply of 15 Nov., Nottingham counselled caution in dealing with Harley, suggesting that Bromley listen to his proposals rather than advancing any of his own. He decided to remain in the country although ‘if I could hear that resolutions were taken to lay open our grievances and boldly to endeavour to remedy effectually, I think I could not refuse’ to answer his commands.
Nottingham was not, therefore, present when the 1708 Parliament convened on 16 Nov., and did not attend the christening on 2 Dec. by Archbishop Sharp of his grandson, Robert Ker* , the future 2nd duke of Roxburghe, Dartmouth standing in for him as godfather.
On 10 Aug. 1709 Nottingham was looking forward to the prospect of a visit to Burley by Sir Thomas Hanmer‡ and Arthur Annesley, the future 5th earl of Anglesey, in the first week of September, remarking incidentally on the favours he had received from Hanmer in Wales.
there is a great difference between a single instance and a law custom, especially since we conceive that in all the proceedings, at least all that have appeared to us for 400 years of the prosecutions in Parliament, the particular words charged as criminal, have been constantly expressed in the articles or declarations of impeachment.
State Trial of Sacheverell, 236-7.
As he wrote later that day, the matter had been decided ‘upon one single precedent, not clear and plain but justly controverted, and which no man could or did affirm to be fact against 40 instances to the contrary’.
Nottingham spoke twice in the debate on first article of the impeachment on 16 Mar. 1710, although, according to White Kennett†, the future bishop of Peterborough, he was one of those who ‘spoke long but so low that I could know little more than their general votes for the Doctor’.
As Nottingham concluded in a letter to his son, Daniel Finch†, Lord Finch, the future 3rd earl of Nottingham and 8th earl of Winchilsea, on 24 Mar. 1710,
never was more concern shown among all sorts of people than upon this occasion, and it is now pretty plain how zealous the generality of the people all over England are for the Church; and it is a pretty odd sight to see the victors more uneasy than those who are overcome, if they may be said to be overcome who have such an issue of this affair as I have told you.
Finch mss DG 7 box 4950 bdle 23, Nottingham to Ld. Finch, 24 Mar. 1710.
On 3 Apr., Rev. Ralph Bridges had heard ‘a flying report’ that Nottingham had ‘got all the speeches that were spoke in the H. of Lords on the debate of the articles there, which in due time will be published with the protests and reasons.’
The Ministry of Harley, 1710-11
While Nottingham remained at Burley, speculation was rife as to his role in any new ministry. Both the lord privy seal and the admiralty were mentioned by contemporaries as possible posts for him.
brags that both you, and my uncle Guernsey, are now so pleased that my Lord Anglesey and my Lord Dartmouth are employed, that you both must do journey man’s work under them, or else keep out of the way of opposing; that ’twas never to be thought of, to bring in the leaders or high Tories, such as yourself and my Lord Rochester, into the administration for that would be contrary to that rule of moderation as to keep in the violent Whigs.
Finch mss DG 7 box 4950 bdle 23, duchess of Roxburghe to Nottingham, 31 Aug. 1710.
Addison was better informed, writing on 1 Sept. that the ‘present scheme’ under Harley as ‘first minister of state’, would exclude Nottingham, Rochester and Leeds.
Harley’s analysis of peers drawn up on 3 Oct. 1710 listed Nottingham as a supporter of the new ministry. On 9 Oct. William North, 6th Baron North was surprised that Nottingham was not in London, as he recognized that the changes had gone further than originally intended and foresaw that Nottingham’s presence ‘may be necessary to keep things steady’.
Nottingham was present when Parliament met on 25 Nov. 1710, attending on 69 days, 61 per cent of the total. He was named to 22 committees. He took a major part in the fresh investigation of the Spanish campaign of 1707, in support of Peterborough. On 9 Jan. 1711, during the examination of General Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], in committee of the whole House, Nottingham interrupted him, ‘telling him he wasn’t being examined about Almanza’, and was rebuked in turn by Buckingham for speaking to the witness without going through the chair. Two days later, during a debate which led to the decision not to receive petitions from Galway and Tyrawley seeking time to prepare their defence, Nottingham thought that these petitions should not be granted as ‘this was no proper time to deliver them, and because the petitions themselves were improper’. He answered Wharton’s view that a censure would not allow them a proper defence, by noting that he did not deny them a right to be heard, and if a prosecution was ordered then would be the time to hear them. He then spoke against the motion that Peterborough’s instructions should be laid before the House. On 12 Jan. when the culpability of ministers for the failures of Spanish campaign was discussed in committee of the whole House, Nottingham argued that he would not have supported an offensive war at that juncture and that there were too few men at Almanza, which showed that ‘advocating an offensive war was a very ill council’.
Nottingham spoke on 5 Feb. 1711 in favour of a second reading for the bill repealing the general naturalization act and protested against the bill’s rejection.
It seems possible that the increasingly effective opposition of the October Club was linked to the disappointment of its members over the failure of important legislation, such as the repeal of the general naturalization act and the place bill. Nottingham shared their disappointment and seems to have attempted to influence their proceedings through his friends among the membership.
Nottingham was named to manage a conference on 9 Mar. 1711 on a matter relating to the safety of the queen’s person and government. On 3 Apr. Ward reported to Nottingham a meeting with Speaker Bromley the previous day in which it had been decided
to bring on the notice of the invasion, to force on the account of the customs and stamp office and what other mismanagements the court can lay open without tedious inquires and to make two representations, the one of the money matters, the other of the church and state, and in the latter to expose the mask of moderation by which we have so much suffered and the trimming measures we fear and this in the boldest lively colours.
This bore some similarity to Nottingham’s programme and significantly Ward added that this required ‘your Lordship at hand to direct and conduct us and nothing can discourage us but your Lordship’s withdrawing this from us’.
The unexpected death of Rochester, the lord president, at the beginning of May 1711 saw Nottingham immediately mentioned as a possible successor.
if you put Nottingham in and he over-sets the balance, you can no more raise the scales again. You know him of no great consequence as he is out, and what service can he do you with the Tories, to make amends for misleading others to be desperate. Would you give his weight to secure an interest already yours by the greatest obligations imaginable, and after this, may not his being in just now show a shift and make it doubtful by tempting them to hope for their old extravagances with him, which they must despair of as impossible without him.
Nottingham, he suggested, could ‘be made as useful with more safety in giving his son Lord Finch a place, rather than in admitting him into the ministry’.
Whig Alliance, 1711-13
Rumours reached the Whigs early in October 1711 that Nottingham was expressing strong disapproval of a peace being negotiated in which Spain remained in Bourbon hands.
Nottingham attended the opening day of the session on 7 Dec. 1711, and moved for the insertion in the address of a phrase demanding ‘No Peace without Spain’, ‘against his usual principles’.
served the Church party very faithfully for these 30 years past. He was allowed on all hands to have a very good understanding and had all this summer taken a[n] abundance of pains to study the important points of peace and war, and after all this, he could not but be concerned to find all his old friends desert him and run a-madding after a white staff.
Bridges interpreted this as ‘a plain argument that his revolt is chiefly founded upon either envy or resentment that he is not in the management of affairs’.
The deal Nottingham made with the Whigs included a bill against occasional conformity.
notwithstanding this their darling bill which they could never have had but by me and that they know the Great-Man [Oxford] would never have given it them, nor suffered it if he could have helped it, ... yet there are such charms in the word peace ... or such enchantments in a white wand that tho’ there be scarce any that believe him sincere in their interests ... yet they are entirely governed by him and to such a degree that I am even railed at by ’em as a deserter for opposing his measures for peace.
Finch-Hatton mss 281, Nottingham to wife, 26 Dec. 1711.
On 20 Dec., one of the correspondents of William Wake, bishop of Lincoln, told him that ‘Nottingham’s bill had a very quiet passage’ through the Lords, although Nottingham had received ‘a taste of that scurrility which has formerly been in so liberal a manner bestowed upon other men’.
On 15 Dec. 1711 Nottingham had complained in the Lords of ‘a grub street speech’, supposedly delivered by him in the Lords on 7 December. A committee was named to investigate the matter.
Following the introduction of the 12 new peers on 2 Jan. 1712, the lord keeper read a message from the queen for an adjournment to the same day as the Commons stood adjourned. The Whigs opposed it, and were joined by Nottingham, who in seconding Somers, argued that the Lords should not be in such haste in a matter that so nearly concerned their constitution, that there was no precedent for such a message, and that they should follow ‘a known and good maxim in the law that what never had been never ought to be’. Furthermore, he pointed out, the House was a court of judicature and there were several private causes appointed to be heard between before the time of the next sitting of the Commons.
On 19 Jan. 1712 Nottingham reported the bill to enable John Leveson Gower, 2nd Baron Gower, an infant, to make a settlement upon his marriage. John Elphinstone, 4th Baron Balmerinoch wrote on 24 Jan. that on the ‘last day we sat’, the discussion ranged on how to solve the problem of the fall-out from the vote on Hamilton’s patent: Nottingham was one of the peers who ‘held their peace’.
Nottingham was unable to prevent the amendment of the Scottish Episcopalian toleration bill in the Lords in committee on 13 Feb. 1712 to include an abjuration clause acceptable to the Kirk.
Nottingham acted as a teller on 6 May 1712 opposite Francis North, 2nd Baron Guilford, in a division in committee of the whole House on the county elections bill, on an amendment to the clause allowing Quakers to affirm.
almost repeated it, adding that he hoped the House would have in their immediate thoughts the resumption itself, and think no more of enquiries, especially since that noble Lord had declared he would be as much for the resumption of any person, and only disliked the last bill because it left room for partiality and favour.
Add. 61461, ff. 149-50.
St John could only splutter: ‘I cannot express to you what part my Lord Nottingham acted; his son voted for tacking it to the money-bill; and he, in the House of Lords, opposed it when separated from it.’
Whigs were said to have boasted before the debate on the ‘restraining orders’ on 28 May 1712 that Oxford would be sent to the Tower and that Nottingham would be treasurer.
The last sitting Nottingham attended in the session was 13 June 1712. In all he had been present on 89 days, 83 per cent of the total and been named to 15 committees. By 26 June he was in the country, complaining in July in correspondence with Godolphin about the enthusiasm of the country for peace and the results of several by-elections.
Possibly on 8 Mar. 1713 Robert Benson, the future Baron Bingley, wrote to Oxford to remind him to invite his father-in-law, Guernsey, to a meeting: ‘for though he should not come to the meeting tomorrow, yet the invitation will take away a pretence for complaint which his brother would make use of.’
When, in a debate on the state of the nation in committee of the whole House on 1 June 1713, James Ogilvy, 4th earl of Findlater moved for the dissolution of the Union, Nottingham supported him to the extent that he foresaw no constitutional impediment to prevent the Union being dissolved by Parliament, ‘answering solidly all the trash had been said against us (as that it was not possible to dissolve the Union)’.
The Parliament of 1713 and the Succession Crisis
Nottingham had been preoccupied by the forthcoming electoral contest in Rutland since January 1713, by the end of which Lord Finch had ‘been personally round about the county, haranguing the freeholders, and spending liberally amongst them, endeavouring as well as he can to justify his own and others proceedings last winter.’
Nottingham was present when the 1714 Parliament met on 16 February. He attended on 70 days, 92 per cent of the total and was named to 14 committees. He protested on 11 Mar. against the rejection of an addition to the address for a proclamation for discovering the author [Swift] of The Public Spirit of the Whigs: the proposed additional words would have hinted that the author was close to the administration. On 15 Mar. Philip Herbert‡ and his wife Marianne, daughter of William Finch, Viscount Maidstone (first son of Heneage Finch, 3rd earl of Winchilsea), who had died in his father’s lifetime, petitioned the Lords to overturn a Chancery decree in favour of her brother-in-law, Hon. John Finch†, the future 6th earl of Winchilsea (and youngest son of the 3rd earl), and Nottingham and his sons, but after a hearing on 27 Apr., the Lords upheld the decree.
In late May 1714 Nottingham wrote in pessimistic vein to Schütz, in response to the obstacles put in the way of the plans to send the duke of Cambridge to reside in England: ‘if the difficulties which you insinuate should prevail to disappoint our present expectation the scene here would soon be changed; and put an end to all our further hopes’.
On 24 June 1714 Nottingham moved for and was nominated to a committee to draw up an address of thanks for the reward placed upon the head of the pretender, asking for the queen to enter negotiations with her allies to guarantee the Hanoverian Succession and for putting the laws into execution against recusants and non-jurors. He reported it to the House.
Nottingham was not in London when the queen died on 1 Aug., Sunderland writing to him from Bothmer’s residence on 30 July to return immediately.
Nottingham had appeared as a serious figure to contemporaries. As early as 1663, his father enjoined him not to lose the reputation he had gained for ‘diligence and sobriety’, and just before his second marriage in December 1685, John Fell, bishop of Oxford described him as ‘grave’.
Much of Nottingham’s parliamentary influence rested on his legal training and knowledge of parliamentary records, which made for long set-piece interventions, although his style was not to everyone’s taste. Burnet clearly enjoyed describing his rival as ‘a copious speaker, but too florid and tedious’, and one full of ‘pompous and tragical declamations’.