FIENNES, Nathaniel (1676-1710)

Saye and Sele inherited the peerage on the death of his reputedly imbecile father in December 1698. Living in Florence at the time of his succession, he was noted by Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, to be, ‘the only person between our countrymen and the honour’: a reference presumably to Saye and Sele’s cousins who stood to gain the title in the event of his dying without issue. HMC Portland, iii. 599; Bodl. Rawl. 892, f. 324. With the new viscount overseas, the estate was at once thrown into chaos by the claims of his stepmother, the dowager viscountess, who had married his father under peculiar circumstances in 1685. Saye and Sele’s relatives rallied to prevent the dowager from taking possession of the estate, which she claimed her husband had made over to her in her marriage settlement. Bodl. Rawl. D 892, ff. 321, 323-4. When he returned to England in early 1699, Saye and Sele was faced with the task of settling his relatives’ feuding. Much of the following two years were spent responding to his stepmother’s claims for an annuity and access to the estates that she insisted had been left to her. HMC Lords, iv. 212-3; LJ, xvi. 619; Add. 61358, ff. 21-22.

Saye and Sele took his seat in the House at the close of the first session of the 1698 Parliament, attending just one day on 3 May 1699. Following the prorogation, he retreated to the country. Paul Foley^‡ noted his arrival in his ‘neighbourhood’ in a letter to Sir Edward Harley^‡ that June, complimenting the young viscount, who he considered to be ‘a very sober and discrete [sic] young gent.’ Add. 70225, Paul Foley to Sir Edward Harley, 1 June 1699. The following month Saye and Sele added his name to a letter published in the Flying Post in approbation of a volume describing the societies for the reformation of manners. Flying Post or the Post Master, 22 July 1699. Perhaps distracted with ongoing family disputes, Saye and Sele failed to resume his seat at the opening of the new session that November, delaying his return to the House until 20 Jan. 1700. He attended thereafter on 36 days (just under 40 per cent of the whole), and on 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning the House into a committee of the whole to consider the East India Company bill. In March an initial attempt was made to solve the continuing dispute between Saye and Sele and his stepmother. John Churchill, earl (later duke) of Marlborough and Thomas Grey, 2nd earl of Stamford, were appointed referees with John Egerton, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, acting as umpire, but the effort to reconcile the feuding parties failed. Bodl. Rawl. D 892, f. 324. On 10 Apr. (the penultimate day of the session) Saye and Sele joined in subscribing the protest at the resolution not to insist on the Lords’ amendments to the Irish forfeitures bill.

With the dispute with his stepmother still unresolved, Saye and Sele took his seat four days into the new Parliament on 10 Feb. 1701, after which he was present on 62 per cent of all sitting days. On 11 Mar. the dowager presented the House with a petition seeking satisfaction of her claim, a copy of which was ordered to be despatched to Saye and Sele. His reply to the dowager’s petition made plain the bad blood in existence between the two parties. She accused him of trying to ‘starve’ her; he argued that, ‘on the contrary, in spite of her disregard of his father’s memory, [he] is willing to allow her £300 a year…’. HMC Lords, iv. 215. On 19 Mar. the case was referred to the committee for privileges and on 31 Mar. Henry Herbert, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, reported from the committee, recommending that new referees should be appointed to break the impasse. On 31 Mar. the dowager’s agents named William Talbot, bishop of Oxford, to act on her behalf, while Saye and Sele nominated John Somers, Baron Somers, to act for him. The House then appointed Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, as umpire. Under his guidance the dispute was eventually settled, broadly in Saye and Sele’s favour, though he was ordered to pay his stepmother the £300 annuity, £1,500 in money and to settle any outstanding debts. LJ, xvi. 665; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 489. With his family difficulties apparently resolved, Saye and Sele was able to turn his attention to other matters. On 17 June he voted in favour of acquitting Somers, and on 23 June he also voted to acquit Somers’ co-accused, Edward Russell, earl of Orford.

Following the close of the session, Saye and Sele was reported to have been one of those accompanying Charles Gerard, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, on his embassy to Hanover to deliver the Act of Settlement to the Electress Sophia and to invest the Elector George Lewis (later King George I) with the order of the garter. He returned to England in time to resume his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701 but was then present on just 23 per cent of all sitting days in the session. His attendance increased marginally in the 1702-3 session, of which he attended a quarter of all sitting days. On 1 Jan. 1703 he was estimated by Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, to be an opponent of the bill for preventing occasional conformity, and on 16 Jan. he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. Three days later he subscribed the two protests against the passage of the bill for Prince George, of Denmark, duke of Cumberland, and on 22 Feb. he acted as a teller for the division on appointing a day to give the Savoy Hospital Bill a second reading, which was defeated by three votes. HMC Lords, v. 217.Absent for the first month of the new session of November 1703, he took his place once more on 8 Dec., and was thereafter present on 21 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session, Saye and Sele had been included by Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, among those thought likely to oppose the occasional conformity bill again. The forecast was echoed in a subsequent assessment towards the end of November, and on 14 Dec. Saye and Sele accordingly voted against passing the bill.

Saye and Sele’s level of attendance in the 1704-5 session plummeted. Absent at the opening of the session, he was excused at a call of the House on 23 Nov. and did not resume his seat until 15 December. He was then present on just eight days in the session, though he, along with all others present, was nominated to the committee to consider the heads of a conference with the Commons concerning the Aylesbury men on 27 February 1705.

Saye and Sele returned to the House a week after the opening of the new Parliament on 31 Oct. 1705, after which he was present on just under 20 per cent of all sitting days. On 12 Nov. he was again excused at a call of the House, resuming his seat a week later. Towards the close of the session, on 11 Mar. 1706, along with most of those present in the House at the time, he was nominated a manager of the conferences discussing Sir Rowland Gwynn’s^‡ letter to Stamford. He returned to the House for the following session on 30 Dec. 1706, after which he was again present on approximately 20 per cent of all sitting days, but he was then absent for the entirety of the brief session of April 1707.

Resuming his seat at the opening of the first Parliament of Great Britain on 23 Oct. Saye and Sele attended a dozen days in the session (a little over 11 per cent of the whole), and following the session’s close he was noted as a Whig in a list of members’ party allegiances. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 21 Dec. 1708, and on 21 Jan. 1709 he voted against permitting Scots peers with British titles from voting in the elections for Scottish representative peers. Present on just 15 days in the session, Saye and Sele sat for the final time on 14 April. He failed to attend the subsequent session that opened in November, and by December he was reported to be dangerously ill. He died a few days later on 2 Jan. 1710, aged just 33. Luttrell, vi. 529, 531; Post Boy, 3 Jan. 1710. The viscountcy descended to his cousin, Laurence Fiennes, who succeeded as 5th Viscount Saye and Sele. In the absence of a will, administration of his estate was granted to his aunt, Celia Fiennes.