WESTON, Charles (1639-65)

A young man ‘of very good parts’, if ‘of a melancholic nature’, Portland took his seat in the House on 7 Apr. 1663 within a few weeks of succeeding to the peerage, though as with other peers who claimed places by descent the event went unnoticed in the Journal. Clarendon, Life, ii. 390-1. He was thereafter present on 36 days in the remainder of the session (42 per cent of the whole). With the peerage he inherited a long-running dispute with Bulstrode Whitelocke^‡, in which the 2nd earl had been engaged at the time of his death. Whitelocke Diary, 664. The resulting bill, which aimed to settle an annuity of £300 on Portland in lieu of bequests made under the disputed will of Dr Thomas Winston, was introduced into the House by Whitelocke’s kinsman Francis Willoughby, 4th Baron Willoughby of Parham (CP 5th), and received its first reading on 2 April. It was committed two days later and, following hearings in committee on 6 and 7 Apr., recommitted on the 9th. Whitelocke’s diary stressed the difficulties encountered in promoting the measure, but it was warmly supported by the 2nd earl’s old friend Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, who ‘spoke to most of the Lords for the passing of it’. TNA, C89/15/28; Whitelocke Diary, 660–9; PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, pp. 323, 325, 328. Clarendon made a particular point of recommending Portland, ‘a worthy young man’, to Arthur Annesley, earl of Anglesey, hoping that he would employ his interest on Portland’s behalf: ‘God knows, [he] has need of it, for the payment of some crying debts, which must else blast all his hopes.’ Bodl. Clarendon 79, ff. 160–1. In the event, though not without some difficulty, the combined influence of Clarendon, Whitelocke, Portland and his allies succeeded in steering the bill through both Houses, and on 3 June it was given the royal assent.

Besides his involvement in this business, Portland appears to have made little impact in the House. He proved loyal to his patron, Clarendon, and was noted by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, as being opposed to the attempt made by George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach the lord chancellor. He may at a future date have been entrusted with the proxy of James Butler, duke of Ormond [I] (sitting as earl of Brecknock). If so, no record remains beyond a reference by Ormond over a year after Portland’s death, probably confusing him with his father, who had held Ormond’s proxy in 1662. Bodl. Carte 48, f. 432; PH, xxxii. 251. Besides this, he was named to just one committee in his first session. He was similarly inactive in the subsequent session of March 1664 (of which he attended two-thirds of all sitting days), during which he was again named to just one committee. Portland took his seat two days into the following session, on 26 Nov. 1664, but was recorded on the presence list on just 15 per cent of all sitting days. It is possible that he attended marginally more frequently as, although he was not included on the attendance list on 7 Dec., he was not marked among those peers noted missing at a call that day. In any case, he sat for the final time a few days before the close of the session, on 28 Feb. 1665. Early that summer, along with a number of other peers and peers’ sons, he joined the fleet as a volunteer. His career was brought to a premature conclusion when he was killed serving alongside his kinsman James Ley, 3rd earl of Marlborough, aboard the Royal James at the battle of Lowestoft. TNA, PRO 31/3/115, p. 42; Add. 61490, f. 207; HMC Bathurst, 2.

In his will, drawn up just a few days before his death, in which he named another kinsman, William Glascock^‡, and Francis Bramston as his executors, Portland bequeathed his principal residence, Ashley House, to his mother. He made a few other modest bequests amounting to £230 and also made provision for an annuity of £40 to one Katherine Thoroughgood. PROB 11/319. The earldom descended to his uncle, Thomas Weston. Three years later, Glascock and Bramston resigned their trust to Henry Arundell, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, in response to a chancery suit launched by Arundell on behalf of three of Portland’s sisters. Surr. Hist. Cent. 3007/1. The reason for Arundell’s interest in the welfare of the Weston girls is unclear, though he may have been concerned to assist them as fellow Catholics. All of them later entered the convent of the Poor Clares at Rouen.