MONTAGU, Henry (bef. 1567-1642)

Described by Edward Hyde^†, 1st earl of Clarendon as ‘a man of great industry and sagacity’, and by himself as a man without ‘corruption, cavillation or oppression’, Montagu was one of the leading lawyers of his age.78 Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion, i. 68; PROB 11/192, f. 374v. He was also a Calvinist, who disapproved of ‘lawless disports’ and ‘fantastic dressings’.79 Manchester Al Mondo: Contemplatio Mortis, and Immortalitatis (1635), 163. (In about 1618 he had Mytens paint him, not in his judicial robes but dressed soberly, all in black). A protégé of the lord chancellor, Thomas Egerton^*, Lord Ellesmere (later 1st Viscount Brackley), under James I he served successively as recorder of London (1603-16) and lord chief justice of King’s Bench (1616-21). However, in 1617, finding his path to further advancement in the legal profession barred by the appointment of Sir Francis Bacon^* (later Viscount St Alban) as lord keeper, he became one of the competitors to succeed the disgraced Thomas Howard^*, 1st earl of Suffolk, as lord treasurer.

Appointment as lord treasurer, and the spring sitting of the 1621 Parliament

Montagu’s chief qualification for the treasurer’s staff was the personal fortune he had amassed as a lawyer. In December 1620 he claimed that he was worth £40,000, making him one of the wealthiest men in England. There seems little reason to doubt this estimate, as in 1615 alone he had paid £21,000 to purchase Kimbolton manor and castle, in Huntingdonshire. Montagu initially offered £10,000 for the treasurership to the royal favourite, George Villiers^*, marquess (later 1st duke) of Buckingham, ‘to bestow where and when you shall appoint’.80 Bodl., Tanner 74, f. 178. However, the king, James I, was mired in debt and needed a higher sale price to help meet his running costs.81 Bodl., Tanner 290, f. 29. Moreover, Montagu was faced with stiff competition from Sir Fulke Greville^* (later 1st Lord Brooke). It was therefore not until November 1620, when he doubled the proposed purchase price, that Montagu achieved success.82 Bodl., Tanner 114, f. 154. He subsequently deposited £20,000 at Buckingham’s lodgings in Whitehall.83 Procs. 1626, iii. 41. The favourite subsequently denied pocketing any of this money himself. Indeed, it was claimed that the money paid by Montagu was merely a loan to the king, repayable after one year.84 Procs. 1626, i. 577; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 476.

On 4 Dec. 1620, shortly after the completion of this transaction, Montagu received his staff of office at Newmarket. He was formally appointed ten days later and sworn in on 16 Dec., during the vacation. This was a break with precedent, as an incoming lord treasurer normally took his oath of office only during term time.85 Diary of Sir Richard Hutton 1614-39 ed. W.R. Prest (Selden Soc. suppl. ser. ix), 26; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 200; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 331. However, Montagu’s appointment could not wait for the beginning of Hilary term, because Parliament was due to meet soon and the king might disclose to its members the state of his finances, which duty necessarily fell to the lord treasurer.

It was customary for the lord treasurer to sit in the Lords rather than the Commons. Consequently, in order to avoid causing the Lords unnecessary offence,86 Add. 72303, f. 191. the king ennobled Montagu as Baron Kimbolton and Viscount Mandeville on 19 Dec., six weeks before Parliament was due to meet. The latter title harked back to the Mandeville earls of Essex, who had owned Kimbolton manor in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Mandeville was inordinately pleased with his peerage, and, rather unusually for this period, had himself painted in his new parliamentary robes.87 See the frontispiece to Court and Soc. from Eliz. to Anne, i. A rumour that he would soon be elevated still further, as earl of Carlisle, was evidently unfounded.88 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 334.

Mandeville was formally discharged as lord chief justice of King’s Bench on 28 Jan. 1621. Two days later he attended the state opening of Parliament. Over the course of the next five months, Mandeville attended the Lords with a regularity that was nothing short of exemplary, for according to the Journal, he missed just six sittings before Easter. The true figure may be even more impressive, for on three of these occasions – 16 and 17 Feb. and 27 Mar. – he addressed the House.89 LD 1621, 1625, and 1628, p. 5; ‘Hastings 1621’, p. 22; LJ, iii. 73b. The discrepancy suggests that either the clerk was careless in his record-keeping or that Mandeville was sometimes late. After Easter, the Journal records that Mandeville missed eight further sittings. (Once again this may not have been entirely accurate, for on 31 May, when he was not marked as present, Mandeville brought in the bill against informers.) Three of these absences, on 27 Apr., 4 May and 9 May, were caused because the House decided, in defiance of its own convention, to assemble when the court of Star Chamber was sitting.90 LJ, iii. 149a; LD 1621, p. 33. A fourth absence, on the morning of 29 May, arose because Mandeville, the prince of Wales (Charles Stuart^*) and George Abbot^*, archbishop of Canterbury, were closeted in discussion with the king over whether to accede to the Commons’ request for an extension to the sitting.91 LJ, iii. 137b, 138a.

Although now lord treasurer, Mandeville was not the king’s chief minister, which position was held instead by the lord high admiral, Buckingham. It therefore seems unlikely that he was expected to take an especially prominent role in the Parliament. Nevertheless, he had a duty to defend the king’s financial interests in the upper House. On 17 Feb. he announced at the second reading of a bill to assure Sir Philip Carey of a manor in north Kent, bought from the king for £10,000, that he disliked the measure ‘in regard of my place’, for, as it was then drafted, ‘his Majesty shall lose both a tenure and a tenant’. Mandeville also regarded it as his duty to resist any diminution in the king’s prerogative power, no matter how small. When, on 16 Feb., it was proposed to petition the king to issue a proclamation requiring that the recusancy laws be enforced, Mandeville ‘held it not good to take the hand from a king’, a view subsequently echoed by Prince Charles. Moreover, on 8 Feb., at the second reading of a bill to prevent the export of iron ordnance, Mandeville, aware that the king was then in the process of selling 100 pieces of artillery to Spain, announced that ‘it seems strange unto me’ to limit the king’s right to export guns. A veteran of five previous assemblies, he claimed never to have ‘read of such a bill’ in all the time ‘since I knew parliaments’.92 ‘Hastings 1621’, pp. 10, 22; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 5. On the export of guns to Spain, see Add. 4147, ff. 4r-v, 14. On 2 May Mandeville defended the king’s right to consult the Journal after James checked the clerk’s records to see what the House had resolved to do about punishing the former attorney general, Sir Henry Yelverton^‡.93 LD 1621, pp. 56-7.

Mandeville soon discovered, however, that it was not only the king’s interests that he needed to defend. On 21 Feb., just three weeks into the Parliament, his own conduct in respect of the notorious alehouse patent was called into question in the lower House by Sir Francis Seymour^† (later 1st Lord Seymour), grandson of the 1st earl of Hertford (Edward Seymour^*). In 1615, while king’s serjeant, Mandeville had been one of the ‘referees’ who had given this, and two other unpopular patents, a clean bill of health. On the 24th, Seymour followed up this attack by producing a letter by Mandeville, which demonstrated that the lord treasurer had approved the establishment of local commissioners for collecting forfeited recognizances from alehouse-keepers.94 HP Commons 1604-29, vi. 283. This practice, which undermined the authority of local magistrates (customarily responsible for regulating alehouses) formed one of the Commons’ principal grievances against the patent.95 C. Russell, PEP, 105. However, Mandeville was stoutly defended in the Commons by his younger brother, Sir Charles Montagu^‡, the Member for Higham Ferrers, who demanded satisfaction for this ‘aspersion’. Seymour remained undaunted, even though it quickly transpired that Mandeville’s servant Robert Dixon, one of the two men to whom the patent was issued, had played no part in enforcing the alehouse monopoly. On the 27th he suggested that the referees, if found guilty, should be punished as severely as the patentees themselves.96 HP Commons 1604-29, vi. 283-4; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 347.

On the face of it, Mandeville was unmoved by these attacks, even after the king announced publicly, on the morning of 10 Mar., that both he and Francis Bacon, now Lord Chancellor St Alban and under investigation for bribery, would have to explain themselves rather than rely on his support for their political survival. He replied that if he could not clear himself ‘I am not worthy to be your officer’. He also invited James to expose him to ‘the strictest trial, even by them that loveth him worst’.97 ‘Hastings 1621’, pp. 29-30; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 15. However, that afternoon, at a conference with representatives from the Commons, both he and St Alban attempted to silence their critics by protesting their innocence. They did so without the permission of their fellow peers, for which offence they were roundly rebuked when the House reassembled two days later. Mandeville replied, somewhat feebly, that he thought he was entitled to emulate one of his recent predecessors, Lord Treasurer Salisbury (Robert Cecil^*, 1st earl of Salisbury), who had once been given leave to speak freely at a conference. He also defended his behaviour on the grounds that his honour had been impugned. However, this appeal to the right of a nobleman to defend his reputation was rejected. After being reminded that ‘the honour of the House is to be preferred to any particular man’s honour’, he, like St Alban, was forced to admit his error and apologize.98 LJ, iii. 42a, 45a; CJ, i. 550a; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, pp. 19-20.

In the short term, the decision of both Houses to focus on the lord chancellor’s corruption eased the pressure on Mandeville, who played only a minor role in this investigation. On 26 Mar. he told the Lords that if St Alban refused to be examined under oath it was reasonable to suspect him of giving false evidence.99 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 38. However, on 21 Apr., following the Easter recess, Seymour resumed his attack on the lord treasurer. He repeated his earlier suggestion that those who had countenanced avaricious monopolists should share in their punishment. He also declared that Mandeville and St Alban should be held to account for allowing their servants, Dixon and Almond, to be appointed to the alehouse patent.100 HP Commons 1604-29, vi. 284; CD 1621, iii. 42. However, the king had by now decided that Mandeville, unlike St Alban, was blameless. Indeed, as early as 26 Mar. he described Mandeville to the Lords as ‘an honest man’.101 LJ, iii. 70a. See also Russell, 104. On 24 Apr. he told the Commons, through the master of the Wards (Lionel Cranfield^*, later 1st earl of Middlesex), not to pursue those referees who had given bad advice unintentionally. Seymour was naturally unhappy with being told to desist, and responded by claiming that Mandeville could not escape blame for the manner in which the alehouses patent had been implemented, because ‘who executed but Dixon, who went to my lord chief justice [Mandeville] for advice in execution?’ However, it had already been demonstrated that Dixon had played no active role in the management of the alehouse monopoly. Not surprisingly, therefore, Seymour was accused of slander by Secretary of State Sir George Calvert^‡ and by Mandeville’s elder brother, Sir Edward Montagu^* (soon to be ennobled as 1st Lord Montagu).102 CD 1621, iii. 67-9; HP Commons 1604-29, vi. 284. In the absence of any concrete evidence against the lord treasurer, Seymour was left with little choice but to cease pursuing Mandeville. Thereafter it was not Mandeville who found himself on the back foot but Seymour. On 11 May, after William Noye^‡ reported from committee that Mandeville had not benefited materially from the alehouse patent, Seymour asked the Commons to clear him from the charge, levelled by Sir Edward Montagu, of having spoken untruthfully against the lord treasurer.103 CD 1621, iii. 225.

Seymour was not alone in trying, without success, to incriminate Mandeville during the Parliament. On 30 Apr. Sir Henry Yelverton, brought to the bar of the House to explain his role in the monopolies scandal, claimed that he had done nothing ‘without the advice of the lord chancellor or the lord treasurer that now is [Mandeville], or one of them’. In view of this statement, it is perhaps not surprising that Mandeville agreed with Buckingham and the 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel (Thomas Howard^*) that Yelverton, in likening Buckingham to Edward II’s hated favourite, Hugh Lord Le Despenser^†, had necessarily impugned the king’s honour.104 LD 1621, pp. 50, 52. Nevertheless, Mandeville was scrupulously fair towards Yelverton. On 12 May, for instance, he declined to pass judgement on the hapless former attorney general until the latter had been heard again in his own defence. It was also he who urged the House to temper its judgement with clemency, as it was at his suggestion, on 16 May, that Buckingham remitted the fine of 5,000 marks imposed upon Yelverton.105 Ibid. 77, 90.

Although he was a former Member of the lower House, Mandeville showed scant sympathy for the Commons after they claimed the right to punish the Catholic barrister Edward Floyd for disparaging the king’s daughter and her husband. The Lords, he declared, had sole right of judicature, except in cases relating to Members of the Commons themselves or the privileges of the lower House. When the Commons claimed that they were unable to reverse their decision to punish Floyd, Mandeville observed, on 8 May, that in 1604 they had been obliged to do precisely that in the case of Sir Francis Goodwin^‡, whose election they had mistakenly upheld. He added that they should be urged to rectify their error ‘in a gentle manner’, either by bill or by transferring the case to the upper House or the king.106 Ibid. 68, 69, 71.

Mandeville was one of four peers sent, on 1 May, to demand the great seal from St Alban after the Lords judged the lord chancellor guilty of corruption. He subsequently concurred with his fellow privy councillors in the House, who thought that St Alban should be fined, imprisoned and barred from office, but not degraded from his honours.107 Ibid. 63. Were it not for the fact that he was now lord treasurer, Mandeville might have been appointed as St Alban’s successor, but it was decided instead to put the lord chancellor’s office into commission, to which Mandeville was appointed.

The impeachment of St Alban, who was deprived of his seat in Parliament, left Mandeville as the House’s only lawyer-Member. It also created a vacancy in the speakership of the upper House. This was filled by Sir James Ley^* (later 1st earl of Marlborough), lord chief justice of King’s Bench. Ley had already performed this role once, as six weeks earlier he had stepped into the chair after St Alban fell ill, and his appointment was in line with recent practice: in 1587, 1606 and 1610 temporary Speakers had all been chosen from senior members of the judiciary. However, it is perhaps surprising that Mandeville was not chosen. Before 1566 it had been the lord treasurer who normally served as temporary Speaker when the need arose, and as recently as 1576 Lord Treasurer Burghley (William Cecil^†, 1st Lord Burghley) had done so. Mandeville might easily have been spared for this task in May 1621, for unlike Lord Treasurer Salisbury in 1610, he was not needed to manage Parliament. However, neither Mandeville himself, nor anyone else, remarked that the lord treasurer had been passed over.

There was, perhaps, a good reason for not putting Mandeville in the chair: he spoke too softly. On 2 May, the day on which Ley was appointed, Mandeville addressed the House twice, but on both occasions the clerk, Henry Elsyng, proved unable to hear him. Five days later, Mandeville listed four reasons why the House of Commons should not be regarded as a court of record, but Elsyng, though a careful note-taker, was again unable to set down his speech.108 Ibid. 54, 60, 68. Elsyng may not have been alone in finding it hard to hear the lord treasurer. On 7 Apr. the newsletter-writer John Chamberlain complained that, until recently, he had been unable to obtain an accurate version of a speech delivered by the lord treasurer to representatives of the Commons 11 days earlier because Mandeville had performed his task ‘so untowardly and lamely’ that his listeners had been unable to discern his meaning. They included Sir Edward Coke^‡, who, uncharacteristically, gave such an incomplete report of Mandeville’s words to the Commons that he was criticized by his colleagues.109 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 360; CJ, i. 577a.

Mandeville’s quietness of speech, striking in a man whose earlier career had centred upon advocacy, suggests that the lord treasurer was suffering from conductive hearing loss – a form of deafness in which the affected person tends to speak softly – or a serious ear infection. There can certainly be little doubt that Mandeville was going deaf: by the summer of 1628 Sir Robert Cotton^‡ had to abandon a conversation with him because he could not make himself heard.110 Procs. 1628, p. 240. An exchange between Mandeville and Henry Carey^*, 4th Lord Hunsdon (later 1st earl of Dover) on 8 Feb. 1621 also points to the same conclusion. Elsyng recorded that Hunsdon corrected Mandeville after the latter claimed that the House had neglected to appoint legal assistants to the newly instituted committee for privileges three days earlier. Hunsdon endeavoured to spare the blushes of the lord treasurer by remarking that Mandeville must have been absent when the committee was appointed, but in point of fact Mandeville had taken the oath of allegiance on the morning of the 5th.111 ‘Hastings 1621’, p. 9; LJ, iii. 10b.

Despite being softly spoken, Mandeville reported from committee 15 times before the summer adjournment.112 LJ, iii. 29b, 30a, 51a, 51b, 53b, 54a, 65a, 72a, 128a, 136b, 137b, 142b, 148b, 150a, 150b; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 50; LD 1621, p. 11. This was because, as lord treasurer, he was often expected to chair committees and present their findings. His legislative appointments during the spring sitting were many and varied. Most of the bills he was required to consider probably held little interest for him - those on Henry Heron’s fish packing patent, for example, or the measure to improve navigation on the Thames in Oxfordshire. Others, such as measures to allow the duchy of Cornwall to make leases and Buckingham’s proposal to establish an academy for the sons of the nobility and gentry, reflected his position at court. However, there were certainly some exceptions. He was probably already a governor of the Charterhouse hospital by the time he was appointed to the committee for the bill to confirm the hospital’s charter on 1 March.113 LJ, iii. 22b, 26b, 32b, 37a, 128a. Moreover, his appointment to consider a bill to prevent troublesome suits from being brought against officers of the peace stemmed from the fact that he suggested that a clause be added to the measure.114 Add. 40085, f. 114; LJ, iii. 110a.

Mandeville introduced one bill himself. As lord treasurer, he was concerned by the shortage of coin, and early in the Parliament he laid before the Lords a bill to prevent the export of coin and bullion. This measure was quickly given two readings, and on 22 Feb. a committee was appointed, to which he himself was named. However, there seems to have been little enthusiasm for this bill, which had not been reported by the time Parliament rose for the summer. When the committee finally reported back on 30 Nov., it was to state that it had been inquorate at its most recent meeting. The House ordered the committee to sit anyway, but nothing more was heard of the bill before the dissolution.115 LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 10 (but note that the editor has mistaken ‘money’ for ‘many’); LJ, iii. 24b, 26b, 176a.

Resignation and the search for further advancement, 1621-3

Mandeville was on the commission for adjourning the Parliament on 4 June, but he failed to attend the House that day. Following the subsequent arrest of the 3rd and 1st earl of Southampton (Henry Wriothesley^*) on suspicion of attempting to wreck the Parliament, he was reported as having assisted in the ensuing interrogation.116 Add. 72254, f. 41. In mid July the bishop of Lincoln, John Williams^*, was appointed lord keeper, thereby ending Mandeville’s short-lived role as a commissioner for the office of lord chancellor. There were other candidates for the post, but Mandeville, being lord treasurer, was not among them.

Mandeville did not enjoy his duties as lord treasurer, nor, as he later complained, did he profit by them. On the contrary, the expenses involved were ‘so great’ and the gain ‘so little’ that he claimed to have subsidised his position to the tune of £20,000.117 Harl. 1581, f. 264. Moreover, aside from the fact that he had extensive resources of his own at his disposal, Mandeville was singularly ill-fitted to perform the duties of lord treasurer. By the summer of 1621 his unsuitability for the post, and the fact that he opposed the Spanish Match in Council, led Buckingham to decide to replace him with his client Lionel Cranfield, now Lord Cranfield. The latter was a more capable financial administrator than Mandeville, having recently cut costs in the household, wardrobe and Navy, and was also an hispanophile. On 29 Sept. Mandeville resigned after less than ten months in office. Although he made little attempt to conceal his joy at surrendering his post, he was soon alarmed to hear it rumoured that he had been dismissed ‘for some abuses in the place’.118 Letters and Mems. of State (1746) ed. A. Collins, ii. 352 (letter misdated 3 Sept.); Procs. 1626, iii. 41; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 399; Autobiog. of Sir Simonds D’Ewes ed. J.O. Halliwell, i. 202; Add. 72254, ff. 55, 57; Eg. 3881, f. 20; S.R. Gardiner, Hist. of Eng. iv. 227.

In return for making way for Cranfield, and in acknowledgement of the fact that neither James nor Buckingham was in a position to repay him the money he had expended for the lord treasurer’s post, Mandeville was appointed lord president of the Privy Council. This office, inferior to that of lord treasurer, had long been in abeyance, having last been held in the reign of Edward VI by John Dudley^†, duke of Northumberland.119 CP, ix. 725. However, it offered little or no opportunity for personal enrichment, which Mandeville resented.120 Harl. 1581, f. 264. Mandeville was also offered an earldom, and promised by the king £15,000 of the £20,000 he had paid for the lord treasurer’s staff.121 Add. 72275, f. 131v. (Presumably the remaining £5,000 was deducted for his viscountcy.) However, he turned down the earldom, the going rate for which was then about £10,000. The reason is unclear, but Mandeville perhaps realized that acceptance would mean waiving his right to all or part of the sum he was owed.122 Letters and Mems. of State, ii. 352; Add. 72254, f. 41.

When Parliament reconvened in November, Mandeville was exemplary in his attendance once more but played only a modest role in its proceedings. According to the Journal, he was present on all but two days of the sitting, 17 and 18 December. In fact, on the first of these occasions he participated in a debate over whether the Commons had strained parliamentary privilege too far to include a Member’s goods.123 LD 1621, p. 125.

Mandeville’s first contribution to debate was on 26 Nov., after several amendments to the bill to prohibit the export of iron ordnance received two readings. He had earlier put forward objections to this measure, and now raised another minor quibble, this time in respect of benefit of clergy. However, if this was an attempt to prevent the bill from progressing any further it evidently failed. The following day, during the debate on John Blount, who had forged letters of protection by the 4th Lord Stafford (Edward Stafford^*), Mandeville proposed that the culprit be banished to Virginia, as he had already been before Star Chamber on another charge. His third recorded intervention of the sitting was on 1 Dec., when he agreed with the 11th Lord Zouche (Edward La Zouche^*), who proposed that the monopolies bill, drafted by the Commons, be replaced with a fresh measure, as ‘a recommitment cannot amend it’. He was subsequently appointed to an eight-strong committee for drafting the heads of a replacement bill. Two days later, Mandeville pitched into the debate over whether the complaint submitted by Sir John Bourchier^‡ against the new lord keeper, Bishop Williams, was a petition or an appeal. The distinction was far from academic: a petition would mean that the Lords could not order Chancery to reverse its earlier ruling, whereas an appeal necessarily required the House to give a binding legal judgement. Mandeville assured his colleagues that ‘this is a petition, and no appeal, for no sentence can be grounded upon it’, but he failed to convince the lord chamberlain, the 3rd earl of Pembroke (William Herbert^*), who complained that ‘the petitioner’s case cannot be heard again, unless by an appeal’.124 Ibid. 95, 96, 105, 109; LJ, iii. 177b. Mandeville was appointed to ten of the 11 committees established by the Lords during the brief winter sitting. Aside from the committee for the monopolies bill, they included one for perusing the Journal, to which he was added shortly after the renewed session began, and another to limit the number of lawsuits, a subject of clear interest to members of his profession.125 LJ, iii. 165b.

In January 1622, following the king’s angry prorogation of Parliament, Mandeville helped question Sir Edward Coke, who was confined to the Tower on suspicion of having formulated the Commons’ Protestation on free speech.126 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 418. Shortly thereafter, Mandeville agreed terms for an alliance designed to bring him within the royal favourite’s innermost circle and allow him to dispense with the unprofitable lord presidency of the Council. He promised to marry his eldest son Edward Montagu^*, later 2nd earl of Manchester, to Buckingham’s niece, Mary, daughter of William Feilding^*, Viscount Feilding (later 1st earl of Denbigh). In return, he would become lord chancellor in place of Bishop Williams, whose advancement the favourite already regretted.127 Ibid. 426; Diary of Walter Yonge ed. G. Roberts (Cam. Soc. xli), 52. However, this plan came to naught. In June Buckingham secured a far better match for his niece, in the form of James Hamilton^*, earl of Arran [S] (later 3rd earl of Hamilton^* [S] and 2nd earl of Cambridge), eldest son of Scotland’s premier nobleman, James Hamilton^*, 2nd marquess of Hamilton [S] (and 1st earl of Cambridge). His disappointment was doubtless compounded by the fact that in March 1622 the king appointed Prince Charles to the Privy Council. Speculation was soon rife that Mandeville was now no longer lord president of that body; others suggested that he had been reduced to the status of a deputy. In the event, Mandeville continued to preside regularly at Council meetings, despite the prince’s presence.128 T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas I, ii. 240; Add. 72275, f. 129v; Add. 72299, f. 72. However, what little authority he had previously enjoyed as lord president had now all but evaporated. Mandeville’s mood cannot have been improved by the fact that his successor as lord treasurer, Lord Cranfield, declined to pay the £15,000 promised him on surrendering the lord treasurer’s staff.129 Add. 72275, f. 131v.

Although Buckingham had abandoned his plan to match Mandeville’s son to Mary Feilding, he still hoped to draw the lord president closer to him by means of a marriage alliance. Over the summer a second plan took shape, this time to marry Edward Montagu to another of Buckingham’s nieces, Susan Hill. Mandeville was clearly delighted, for in July he christened his baby son George after the favourite.130 Mems. of St Margaret’s, Westminster, 110. Conversely, Lord Keeper Williams grew alarmed, since once again it was rumoured that he would be displaced.131 Add. 72276, ff. 5v, 18v; Add. 72299, f. 107; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 455; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 486. In fact, Williams’ fears proved to be unfounded, at least in the short term, for by February 1623 it had emerged that one of the principal purposes of the match, which was celebrated that same month, was not to facilitate Mandeville’s immediate appointment as lord chancellor but to repay the money owed to the lord president for the office of lord treasurer. Ten thousand pounds of the outstanding sum was to be written off, while responsibility for the remaining money, now put at £10,000 rather than £5,000, was to be transferred to Buckingham.132 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 476; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 489; Letters of King Jas. VI and I ed. G.P.V. Akrigg, 406.

Despite these arrangements, Mandeville still expected to be appointed Williams’ successor in the near future. In April 1623 he pointedly complained to Buckingham that the lord presidency of the Council was unprofitable.133 Harl. 1581, f. 262. However, it was not until the end of the year, after Buckingham, now a duke, learned that the lord keeper had been plotting against him, that the favourite dusted down his earlier plan to sack Williams and replace him with Mandeville.134 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 532. Once again, though, Mandeville’s hopes of preferment were dashed, for in early February 1624, as a result of the intercession of Prince Charles, Buckingham and Williams were reconciled, albeit rather loosely.

The 1624 Parliament

It was against this frustrating backdrop that Mandeville took his seat when a fresh Parliament met in mid February 1624. As in 1621, Mandeville proved to be exemplary in his attendance. Indeed, he was so conscientious that he even sat on Friday 16 Apr., despite it being a Star Chamber day. According to the Journal, Mandeville was absent for just 12 of the 94 sittings of the House. In fact this figure overstates his absences, for on four occasions – the morning of 24 Apr., the afternoon of 19 May and the two sittings on 28 May – he addressed the House.135 LJ, iii. 317b, 393b, 418b, 420a, 420b; Add. 40088, f. 114. The clerk’s ms minutes suggests a further absence on 13 Mar. not indicated in the Journal. Despite his efforts to attend the Lords regularly, it was not always possible for Mandeville to be present. On 6 Mar. he was excused due the funeral of his infant daughter at Totteridge.136 Lysons, iv. 46; LJ, iii. 248a.

The chief business of the Parliament was to consider the state of the negotiations for a marriage alliance with Spain in light of the claims of Spanish duplicity made by Charles and Buckingham. Mandeville, a mainstream Calvinist, enthusiastically supported breaking off these negotiations, and defended Buckingham when the latter was accused by the Spanish ambassadors of misleading Parliament about Spain’s intentions. Like the duke, he attached great importance to the fact that it had been Spain rather than England that had initiated the treaty negotiations in 1615.137 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 5, 16. Indeed, on 2 Mar. he had the attorney general read out a letter to the king on the subject by the English ambassador in Madrid, Sir John Digby^*, now 1st earl of Bristol.138 Add. 40087, f. 44v; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/2, f. 23v. That same day he was among those appointed to draw up, with representatives from the Commons, reasons to persuade the king to break off the marriage negotiations. During the preceding debate, however, Mandeville proposed, without success, that the Lords should not show their own reasons to the lower House, on the grounds that to do so would make the Commons judges of their views, and they were accountable to no one else but the king.139 LJ, iii. 242b; LD 1624 and 1626, p. 17.

Mandeville and Archbishop Abbot headed the delegation that presented the resultant document to the king on 5 March. Three days later he read to the upper House James’s reply, at which time Abbot praised his ‘pains and conference with others’ in creating a transcript of the speech.140 LJ, iii. 246a; Add. 40087, f. 58. The Lords were delighted at James’s response, as the king now asked Parliament to consider voting supply in order to pay for the war that would inevitably ensue following the collapse of the treaty negotiations. However, the Commons were alarmed that James seemed to be more interested in obtaining subsidies to pay off his debts than to finance war with Spain. In order to reassure them that this was not, in fact, the case, the Lords resolved to confer again with the lower House. Mandeville approved of this meeting, which took place on 11 Mar., declaring it to be necessary ‘to avoid all mistakings’.141 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 27. Shortly thereafter, the Commons promised to assist the king in ‘a parliamentary way’ once he had announced that the negotiations for a Spanish Match were at an end. Neither Charles nor Buckingham was happy with the vagueness of this wording, but Mandeville agreed with Southampton, who argued that it would give rise to needless offence if they pressed for a more specific promise of support. He pointed out that what the Commons had offered was ‘a great engagement for them’. It was up to the king, rather than the Lords, to ask them what they meant by ‘a parliamentary way’.142 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 30.

Although Mandeville supported a breach with Spain, his view was not shared by all his fellow peers. Chief among Spain’s friends at court was his successor as lord treasurer, Lionel Cranfield, now earl of Middlesex. Mandeville disliked Middlesex, and not simply because the latter had refused to honour the king’s promise to repay the money he had laid out for the treasurer’s staff; the two men had also quarrelled over the lease of the sugar farm.143 Add. 72275, ff. 116r-v, 131v. At the beginning of April 1624, shortly after Buckingham discovered that Middlesex was trying to replace him in the king’s favour, one of the duke’s clients in the Commons accused the lord treasurer of corruption. Middlesex responded by complaining to the Lords that he was the victim of a dangerous conspiracy and by demanding a speedy inquiry. Mandeville agreed that the latter was necessary, but he also made the following suggestion, recorded by the clerk: ‘To be examined how he found the treasure, how he ordered it, and how he left it’.144 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 57. At first sight, the pronouns in this sentence appear to refer to Middlesex. However, since it was Mandeville who had left office rather than Middlesex, they must logically refer to Mandeville himself. If so, then Mandeville, fearful that Middlesex would try to blame any wrongdoings in the Exchequer on him, was proposing that the committee of investigation, in which he went on to play a leading role,145 LJ, iii. 301a, 301b. should examine his own brief term in office as lord treasurer.

Mandeville’s suspicion that his enemy Middlesex would try to shift the blame for the shortcomings uncovered by the ensuing investigation was to prove correct. One of the principal charges against the lord treasurer was that he had left the country ill prepared for war by failing to pay for sufficient quantities of gunpowder. Mandeville considered this accusation sound, declaring on 12 Apr. that it was incredible that, at a time when all their neighbouring states were at war, the lord treasurer had provided ‘no powder at all’.146 LD 1624 and 1626, p. 68. See also PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, f. 16. However, on 1 May Middlesex rebutted this charge, by claiming that it was during Mandeville’s period in office that the contract with the gunpowder provider, John Evelyn, had collapsed for want of payment. Ten days later he repeated this argument, saying that he had inherited dangerously low stocks, not all of which had been paid for. Mandeville, placed on the defensive, was obliged to explain that payment had not been made because money was scarce and because John Evelyn had failed to produce the necessary warrant.147 LJ, iii. 332b; Add. 40088, f. 78. The following day, however, Mandeville went on the attack, demanding that Middlesex ‘clear the House touching the weak estate you found the treasure in’, and accusing the lord treasurer of ‘a great fault’.148 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 73, 74.

Middlesex may have been entirely justified in drawing attention to the emptiness of the Exchequer that he had inherited. It also seems likely that at least some of the blame for his supposed negligence could, with justice, have been laid at Mandeville’s door. However, since there was no appetite in either the Lords or the Commons for pursuing Mandeville, it was Middlesex alone who suffered the full brunt of Parliament’s fury on 13 May, when Mandeville was among those who agreed that Middlesex was guilty of four of the six crimes with which he was charged. Being a lawyer, Mandeville produced medieval precedents to guide the House in imposing its punishment, but observed that the House could not deprive Middlesex of his lands without first passing an act of Parliament. Following the debate, he and three other peers were instructed to deprive the lord treasurer of his staff of office, the second time he had been required to perform such a duty in three years.149 Ibid. 82, 85, 90, 92.

Middlesex was not alone in incurring Mandeville’s censure during the Parliament. On 20 Mar. a London woodmonger named Thomas Morley was accused at the bar of distributing among Members of the Commons a printed libel concerning his recent case in Star Chamber. Morley claimed that he had been dealt with unfairly by the lord keeper, who had chaired the proceedings. However, two days later Mandeville refuted Morley’s version of events, claiming not only that Williams had acted entirely properly but that also he had been unanimously supported by the other members of the court. He therefore called for him to be punished. The following day, the 23rd, the lawyer responsible for drafting the libel, one David Waterhouse^‡, was also brought to the bar, where he claimed that he had penned several petitions against the lord keeper, many of them of ‘a far higher nature than this’. He was entirely unapologetic about doing so, claiming that, as a lawyer, he was merely doing the bidding of his clients. Mandeville was incensed. It was not the business of lawyers to draw up petitions, he declared. Waterhouse had demonstrated by his testimony that he was more dangerous, and certainly ‘more scandalous’, than Morley. He therefore proposed a series of harsh punishments. Most of these found favour with his fellow peers, but, at Buckingham’s suggestion, Waterhouse was spared the pillory on the grounds that it was a punishment unfitting for a gentleman.150 Ibid. 42, 44, 45.

Mandeville was appointed, or reappointed, to 55 committees during the course of the Parliament. This was far more than most of his fellow peers. He also presented 33 reports, sometimes delivering two at a single sitting. (On 28 May, the penultimate day of the session, he actually delivered three.)151 LJ, iii. 418b, 420a, 420b; Add. 40088, ff. 144v-5. Moreover, he was one of only three members of the House to report conference proceedings (the other two being Archbishop Abbot and Lord Keeper Williams). Judging from the number of times he reported, Mandeville must often have served as a committee chairman. He certainly chaired the committee for the monopolies bill, which he reported not once but twice, because on 7 Apr. the House ordered all the relevant paperwork to be delivered to him.152 LJ, iii. 393b, 397b; Add. 40088, f. 21. One reason for Mandeville’s abnormally large workload was his seniority, but it was also the case that, as lord president of the Council, he had no departmental duties. Despite having more time on his hands than many of his Council colleagues, Mandeville may occasionally have found himself hard pressed. On 12 Mar. he reported one conference ‘out of his memory only’.153 Add. 40087, f. 74.

Mandeville’s many legislative appointments covered a wide range of topics. Predictably, several dealt with legal matters, such as jeofails (oversights or minor mistakes in pleadings), limitation of actions and the length of Michaelmas term.154 LJ, iii. 252b, 273a, 384b. Three others – one to allow the prince of Wales to make leases of duchy of Cornwall property and two relating to the exchange or purchase of property – reflected the interests of Prince Charles.155 Ibid. 246a, 254b, 263b. As a Buckingham client, it is not surprising that Mandeville was also appointed to the committee for the bill to enable the duke, now absent due to illness, to acquire York House, on the Strand, by means of an exchange. Although he did not report this measure himself – a task which fell instead to Abbot – Mandeville explained to the House the necessity of two provisos that the committee had added to the bill.156 Ibid. 384a; LD 1624 and 1626, p. 94. There is no direct evidence that Mandeville laid any legislation before the House himself, but a measure to prevent the export of money certainly echoed his 1621 bill. This bill, though it was committed, and though Mandeville himself was among the committee’s members, enjoyed no more success than its predecessor.157 LJ, iii. 258a.

It is unclear why Mandeville was not appointed to the committee for privileges until 3 May. It is also unclear why, on 25 May, it fell to Mandeville to report to the House the bill to enfranchise County Durham. Neither in the Journal nor in the clerk’s scribbled book is he listed as one of the members of the committee,158 Ibid. 338a, 402b, 404b; Add. 40088, f. 125v. and, unlike the practice in the Commons, it was not customary for those who had not been named to a committee to take part in its proceedings.

On the penultimate day of the Parliament Mandeville reported four petitions to the House, although he was not a member of the committee for petitions. He seems to have done so in his capacity as a member of a committee established eight days earlier to assess the damages payable by the earl of Middlesex, as all four petitions concerned claims against the former lord treasurer. He certainly did not do so in his capacity as one of the triers of petitions for England, Scotland and Ireland, a post to which he had been appointed by the crown at the start of the Parliament, and one which was largely honorific.159 Add. 40088, ff. 144v-5; LJ, iii. 208a, 420a,b. For the members of the petitions committee, see LJ, iii. 253a.

The 1625 Parliament

In the aftermath of the Parliament, Mandeville evidently presented the king with a bill for more than £730 in interest, presumably because he had still not been repaid the money he had been promised on surrendering the lord treasurer’s staff three years earlier. James judged the demand to be reasonable, and a tally for the required amount was duly struck in the Exchequer.160 Letters of King Jas. VI and I, 440; E403/2981, p. 68. See also E403/2562, f. 142. However, nothing was done to pay back the principal sum before 23 May 1625, by which time a new king – Charles I – was on the throne. Although it had previously been agreed that Buckingham would settle this account himself, Charles assumed responsibility for the debt, and ordered that Clerkenwell manor, in Middlesex, be transferred to Mandeville. In so doing, Mandeville was said to have received payment equivalent to £12,500.161 Procs. 1626, i. 475; iii. 48. This transaction is also recorded in F.W. Fairholt, Poems and Songs Relating to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (Percy Soc. xc), p. xi, but both the date and the sum given are erroneous. This sum was far greater than the amount outstanding, as at least half of the £20,000 Mandeville had laid out for the office of lord treasurer had been considered paid off on the marriage of Edward Montagu to Susan Hill in February 1623. However, it is probably significant that in January 1625 Montagu’s wife had died without bearing her husband any surviving children.162 Court and Soc. from Eliz. to Anne, i. 324. Under these circumstances, Mandeville would have been within his rights to have demanded that the original debt be reinstated. It seems likely that the Clerkenwell transfer represented full and final settlement of Mandeville’s debt, as nothing more was heard of the subject until it was raised in the Commons in 1626.

When a fresh Parliament assembled in June 1625, Mandeville once more proved assiduous in his attendance, even though plague was rife and many Members of both Houses were anxious to flee the capital. Before the adjournment on 11 July he is recorded as having missed only one sitting, on the afternoon of 28 June. Mandeville’s first recorded speech of the Parliament was on 22 June, when he suggested that the vexed question of whether bishops were peers or merely lords of Parliament – raised by Thomas Morton^*, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield – be referred to the committee for privileges. This motion was approved, even though the House had not yet created this body. The following day the Lords addressed this oversight, appointing a committee to which both Mandeville and Morton were named.163 Procs. 1625, pp. 39, 41, 45.

As in 1624, Mandeville found that his services as a reporter were soon in considerable demand. On 25 June, in the absence of Archbishop Abbot, who was sick, he reported that he had helped present to the king a petition calling for a general fast. Two days later he informed the House that the privileges committee had appointed a subcommittee as instructed. On 1 July he delivered two further reports, one on the Sabbath bill, which the committee considered fit to pass, and the other on the privilege claimed by the 2nd Lord Lambart [I] (Charles Lambart^‡), which the committee recommended be denied.164 Ibid. 53, 54, 59, 78, 81. Before the adjournment on 11 July, he presented six further reports. Perhaps the most significant concerned a conference with the Commons over the amendments the Lords proposed to make to the Commons’ petition concerning recusants. These alterations Mandeville had himself helped to identify and set down.165 Ibid. 84, 95, 96, 97, 102, 111, 116.

Although Mandeville was kept busy by the House - he was also named to 11 committees and presented the king with the recusancy petition on 6 July166 Ibid. 358. - he told his absentee elder brother, Lord Montagu, at the end of June that ‘in the upper House we have little to do’. This was perfectly accurate, for as he observed, the main purpose of the session, so far as the king was concerned, was supply, and money grants were the province not of the Lords but of the Commons. All other matters were to be kept for a second session.167 HMC Buccleuch, i. 260, 261. However, the Commons failed to vote an adequate sum for the war with Spain, which had by now broken out, with the result that the king tried to obtain a larger grant when Parliament reassembled at Oxford in August. Mandeville, of necessity, played no formal part in this endeavour, and was left to twiddle his thumbs. Although he attended every day of the brief sitting bar one, his only recorded contribution to the Oxford meeting was to be appointed to six committees.168 Procs. 1625, pp. 127, 140, 146, 174, 179.

Following the dissolution, in October 1625, Buckingham persuaded a reluctant king to force Lord Keeper Williams to resign. However, instead of fulfilling his earlier promises to advance Mandeville, the duke appointed as the bishop’s successor the attorney general, Sir Thomas Coventry^* (later 1st Lord Coventry). Mandeville now found himself pushed to the margins of power. In mid November, while Buckingham was at The Hague cementing an alliance with the Dutch and the Danes, he was given so little to do at court that, despite the cold weather, he undertook a recreational walk from his wife’s house at Totteridge to Kimbolton Castle.169 HMC Buccleuch, i. 261. This was an impressive feat, as Mandeville was by then in his late fifties, and the distance covered was 54 miles, as the crow flies.

The 1626 Parliament

It was probably as consolation for missing out on the lord chancellorship that, shortly after the coronation, on 7 Feb. 1626,170 C231/4, f. 195. CP incorrectly gives the date as 5 Feb. Mandeville was created earl of Manchester, five days after his eldest son, Edward Montagu, was made a knight of the Bath. Although the second Caroline Parliament had already commenced by the time Mandeville received his letters patent on 7 Feb., the new earl of Manchester was ceremonially introduced to the upper House on the 18th.171 Procs. 1626, i. 25, 57. For the argument that the ceremony of introduction was devised as an alternative to investiture, see A. Wagner and J.C. Sainty, ‘Origin of the Introduction of Peers in the House of Lords’, Archaeologia, ci. 119-50.

Manchester’s attendance in 1626 was as impressive as it had been in previous parliaments. According to the Journal, the lord president missed just five sittings. At least two of these supposed absences can be discounted, for on 23 Feb. he proposed that a private bill be read, while on 12 June he addressed the House regarding Sir Francis Browne’s claim for privilege. However, the Journal does not record that on the afternoon of 24 Apr. Manchester failed to attend a meeting of the committee of the whole House. Like three of his fellow members of the Privy Council, he was required by the king to attend to government business.172 Procs. 1626, i. 66, 308-9, 610.

As in 1624, Manchester frequently chaired committees and acted as one of the House’s spokesmen at conferences with representatives from the Commons. As a result, he presented 27 reports to the House. His committee appointments included the committee for petitions and the committee for privileges, to which he had been added in 1624 as an afterthought. He evidently shared the task of chairing this latter body with the 2nd earl of Hertford (William Seymour^*), as both men subsequently presented its reports to the House.173 Ibid. 48, 61, 70, 99, 225, 256, 313. However, he did not always agree with the committee’s conclusions. On 25 Feb. he reported that the committee had drafted four new Standing Orders. These included a proposal to restrict in future the number of proxy votes held by any one peer to just two. This draft order was politically motivated, being directed against Manchester’s patron, Buckingham, who had amassed 13 proxies. Not surprisingly, therefore, in the ensuing debate, the lord president declared that ‘I never heard of any ill by it that one should have many proxies’. Rather than come to an immediate decision, he urged the House to order a search of the records. However, his suggestion was brushed aside by Samuel Harsnett^*, bishop of Norwich (later archbishop of York), who observed that searching for precedents merely in order to demonstrate established practice was ‘a novelty’. In the vote which followed, Manchester and his fellow Buckingham supporters were defeated. However, this made little practical difference to the duke, who responded by distributing most of his proxies among his clients, including Manchester, who was assigned that of his first cousin, Lord Noel (Edward Noel^*, later 2nd Viscount Campden).174 Ibid. 11, 70, 72.

The vote on proxies was one of the opening salvoes in a war now waged on Buckingham by his enemies in both Houses. Throughout the Parliament, Manchester remained loyal to the duke. This was perhaps surprising, as Buckingham had not only failed to secure the great seal for Manchester as promised, but had also refused to denounce the writings of the Arminian cleric Richard Montagu^* (later bishop of Chichester) at the conference lately held at his Thames-side residence. Manchester himself was present on the second day of the York House Conference (17 Feb.),175 B. Donagan, ‘York House Conference Revisited’, BIHR, clv. 315. and must have been privately disappointed that his patron was unwilling to embrace Calvinist doctrine. However, over the course of the next four months he repeatedly sided with Buckingham and the king. When, on 14 Mar., the 4th earl of Lincoln (Theophilus Clinton^*) complained that the earl of Arundel, one of Buckingham’s leading opponents, had been arrested while Parliament was sitting, Manchester produced a precedent from the reign of Edward III to justify the fact. He did the same the following day, but this time he also flourished additional medieval precedents.176 Procs. 1626, i. 151, 158.

Manchester proved equally hostile to another of Buckingham’s enemies, the earl of Bristol. When, on 2 May, the Lords learned that Bristol had laid charges against Buckingham in the House of Commons, he expressed outrage. ‘The fact is not pertinent to the Commons’, he declared, since the lower House had only limited power of judicature. Besides, he added, in a side-swipe directed at the Commons, which was then preparing charges of impeachment against Buckingham based on little more than hearsay, ‘proceedings upon common fame’ were ‘an unworthy thing and to be damned’. One week later Manchester claimed that in 1623 Bristol had spoken ‘treasonable’ words to the king, then still prince of Wales, whereupon he was upbraided by the 1st Viscount Saye and Sele (William Fiennes^*), who reminded him that treason had yet to be proven. Perhaps the greatest service Manchester performed for the duke during the course of the Parliament was on 16 May, during the debate on whether to sequester Buckingham from the House as the Commons demanded. After lengthy discussion of this subject, Buckingham offered to leave the chamber of his own volition. He was dissuaded from doing so by Manchester, who observed that his withdrawal, even on a voluntary basis, would infringe the House’s privileges. As he explained, no peer had ever been sequestered before being formally charged or heard in his own defence, and neither of these criteria had yet been met.177 Ibid. 347, 392, 489. Manchester’s intervention helps to explain why Buckingham continued to sit. It may also help to explain why, six days later, the lord president’s eldest son was summoned to the Lords in right of his father’s barony.

Although Manchester was a stalwart Buckingham supporter, he was also an invaluable source of information to his fellow peers. As one of only two lawyers with seats in the House (the other being the 1st earl of Marlborough), it fell to him to advise the House during the debate of 31 Mar. on whether the office of lord great chamberlain could be transferred from one man to another.178 Ibid. 233-4. Lord Keeper Coventry was not yet a peer. One particularly difficult legal problem which confronted the House in May 1626 was how to go about trying the earl of Bristol. In Buckingham’s case, the procedure was straightforward, as charges were laid by the Commons, this being the necessary first stage in the judicial process known as impeachment. However, in Bristol’s case the charges emanated not from the Commons but from the king, whose accusations did not, in themselves, constitute a formal indictment. On 2 May Marlborough suggested that the way to resolve this problem was for the attorney general, Sir Robert Heath^‡, to exhibit a bill of indictment in King’s Bench, which would then transmit the king’s charges to the Lords. Manchester concurred, declaring the procedure outlined by Marlborough to be ‘the legal way’. Two days later, he criticized the method of proceeding proposed by Attorney General Heath on the grounds that it might be ‘a great prejudice to the cause’, and laid out an alternative approach, based on medieval precedent.179 Ibid. 348, 353. In the event, however, the House decided that indictment by King’s Bench was not necessary.

Manchester and Marlborough again found themselves on the same side on 8 May, after Bristol’s friends in the House tried to persuade the Lords to allow Bristol to be assisted by counsel during his trial. In order to strengthen their case, Bristol’s supporters cited an order made by the Lords two years earlier. However, Manchester agreed with Marlborough, that counsel could only advise a defendant on points of law, and not plead for him at the bar. This resulted in protests from several peers, including the 2nd Lord Russell (Francis Russell^*, later 4th earl of Bedford), who pointed out that there was a fundamental difference between trials at common law, in which the judges were trained lawyers, and trials in Parliament, where most of the judges were mere laymen. However, Manchester remained unmoved: ‘It is against the law for the party accused at the bar to have his counsel’. As for the order formulated by the Lords on the morning of 28 May 1624, when the clerk failed to record his presence in the House, he dismissed it on the grounds that it was ‘against jus publicum’.180 Ibid. 382, 383.

Manchester’s advice may not always have been helpful. On 9 May, he and seven other peers were appointed to draft a petition calling on the king to release Arundel. However, Charles objected to the peremptory tone of the resultant document, which required him to give the House a ‘present’ answer. When the king’s angry response was relayed to the House two days later, the 1st earl of Clare (John Holles^*) blamed the error of wording on the House’s failure to appoint legal assistants to the committee. His comment looks suspiciously like veiled criticism of Manchester, whose legal experience perhaps explains why no assistants were thought necessary. However, it is unclear whether the lord president, whose attempt to remedy the situation by suggesting that ‘present’ be replaced with the word ‘speedy’ was dismissed by Buckingham as equally offensive, was guilty of anything other than incompetence.181 Ibid. 389, 395, 398, 403.

Manchester was also found to be at fault on 15 May, when he reported to the House several of the Commons’ articles of impeachment against Buckingham, which had been presented to the Lords at a conference one week earlier. At this conference the Commons’ spokesman, Sir Dudley Digges^‡, had appeared to imply not only that the duke had poisoned the late king, James I, but also that the current king, Charles I, was involved in this crime. Manchester was horrified at the explosive nature of Digges’s claim and, after the conference ended, he privately pressed Digges for clarification. The latter thereupon provided Manchester with a note which contained a watered-down version of his speech. Armed with this document, Manchester subsequently delivered his report in such a way that he barely alluded to the offending words uttered by Digges. Buckingham was appalled, and complained that there had been ‘somewhat added, somewhat omitted’ in the reporting of the charges. He demanded that the notes taken by the reporters be compared in order to establish what had actually been said. During the course of the ensuing debate, Manchester was forced to admit that he had spoken with Digges after the conference and that he had adjusted his report accordingly. However, he claimed that he had been justified in doing so, because Digges, ‘when he gave me the words, protested he had no thought or intention to reflect anything on the king’s honour’.182 Ibid. 407-10, 480, 484.

Manchester might have incurred Buckingham’s wrath for this deliberate act of misrepresentation were it not for the fact that, the following day, he intervened decisively in the debate over whether the Lords should sequester the duke. Manchester’s role in this debate, discussed above, confirmed his credentials as a Buckingham loyalist and meant that his position was secure when Parliament was dissolved in mid June. The same could not be said for the lord keeper, Lord Coventry, who, in the dying days of the Parliament, implored the king on his knees to continue the assembly. Charles was so angry with Coventry that he threatened to dismiss him. Coventry’s discomfiture proved only temporary, but once again it was rumoured that Manchester would soon become lord keeper.183 Diary of John Rous ed. M.E. Green (Cam. Soc. lxvi), 3; CSP Ven. 1625-6, p. 462; Cal. Wynn Pprs. 228. This was despite the fact that Manchester had been one of four peers sent by the Lords to ask the king for a modest extension to the Parliament.184 Procs. 1626, i. 635.

The Forced Loan and the parliamentary session of 1628

Following the dissolution of the 1626 Parliament, Manchester became increasingly uncomfortable with the direction taken by the crown. The 1626 Parliament had failed to vote subsidies for the war with Spain, and the king was determined not to call another meeting with his subjects until they had demonstrated their loyalty to him by providing him with financial support. Charles insisted that money be raised in the form of loans, and that anyone who refused to pay should be forced to serve in the forces that were to be sent to assist his uncle, the king of Denmark. Manchester was appalled, and suggested instead that if the king assured his subjects that they would be repaid when Parliament next met, such a threat would not be necessary. However, Charles ‘utterly disliked’ his proposal, since it implied that another Parliament was imminent.185 T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 149.

The king eventually decided to raise money by means of a Forced Loan. Manchester was appointed to the commissions for Middlesex, Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire, and was instructed to visit the two last counties, where he owned extensive estates, in order to encourage payment. He probably did not relish this task, as, writing to his brother Lord Montagu in December 1626, he explained that he had delayed coming down to Northamptonshire for as long as possible.186 HMC Buccleuch, i. 264. However, in January 1627 he and Secretary of State Sir John Coke^‡ reported that, as a result of their efforts and the efforts of the county’s resident magnates, local opposition to the Loan had been ‘interrupted’, and that ‘the greater part of the shire now standeth in very hopeful terms’.187 Court and Soc. from Eliz. to Anne, i. 327-8.

Although willing to promote payment of the Loan, Manchester seems to have had some sympathy for those who refused to contribute. In June 1627 one newsletter-writer described the lord president as the ‘friend’ of several Loan refusers who, having been imprisoned in the Gatehouse, persuaded the Council to grant them greater liberty.188 Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 241. It may be significant in this context that Manchester’s eldest son had recently married the daughter of Robert Rich^*, 2nd earl of Warwick, who had failed to contribute to the Loan. Manchester also remained opposed to pressing those who refused to contribute. In March 1627 he seconded his fellow privy councillor Lord Conway (Edward Conway^*, later 1st Viscount Conway), after the latter refused to sign a warrant to press 150 Loan refusers in Gloucestershire.189 CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 91; R. Cust, ‘Chas. I, the PC and the Forced Loan’, JBS, xxiv. 227. He also supported Lord Keeper Coventry, albeit somewhat reluctantly, after Coventry opposed in Council a plan to hang a number of Essex men who had refused to take press money. Coventry argued that only soldiers were subject to martial law. As the only other lawyer on the Council, Lord Treasurer Marlborough, agreed with his two colleagues, the Council was instead forced to consider punishing refusers in Star Chamber.190 Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 208. This was a modest victory for due process, but this did not mean, of course, that Manchester was opposed to the imposition of the death penalty when it was merited at law. When, in mid April, Buckingham reprieved a cut-purse from the hangman’s noose so that he could serve as a soldier, Manchester was so angry that he struck the duke on the shoulder with a paper, explaining that the man had already been reprieved once but had been sentenced to the gallows again because, being impatient for release, he had tried to engineer his rescue.191 Procs. 1628, p. 111.

Manchester was kept fully occupied at court throughout the summer of 1627 by the war with France, which had broken out earlier that year.192 HMC Buccleuch, i. 266; HMC Cowper, i. 318. During this time he snapped up Hinchingbrooke, a large estate in Huntingdonshire, to add to his existing holdings. The purchase cost him £4,400, but he was so wealthy that even after the transaction was complete he still had £600 cash in hand.193 Hunts. RO, D/DM50/7. In November news reached Manchester of Buckingham’s ignominious retreat from the Île de Ré. He wrote to the duke advising him not to reproach himself for the failure, as ‘no captain or general’ could have done better. However, he also sought to distance himself from the cause of the disaster, which lay, to a considerable extent, in the failure to provide Buckingham with adequate reinforcements. Had he been in charge, he declared, ‘the failure should not have been on our side’, but, he lamented, ‘my part was only to advise’.194 Court and Soc. from Eliz. to Anne, i. 327.

In the aftermath of the Ré disaster a fresh Parliament was all but inevitable, and in January 1628 the necessary writs were issued. Manchester, who seems never to have sought to exercise electoral patronage before, dispatched a letter of nomination on behalf of his servant Robert Dixon to the Devon borough of Dartmouth, of which he had become high steward in 1626. However, the freemen declined to elect a stranger and Dixon was left without a seat.195 Devon RO, SM 1989, f. 34. Manchester evidently enjoyed better success at Huntingdon where, in February, his third son James Montagu^‡ was returned as senior burgess.

Manchester was present when Parliament opened on 17 March. As in the previous assemblies in which he had sat, he was assiduous in his attendance. Indeed, before the presentation of the Petition of Right on 28 May, he missed no more than three sittings. (There is an element of doubt about his attendance on 1 May, as the Journal shows him to have been present even though he appears as absent in the clerk’s minutes). Thereafter he was absent just seven times.

Early in the Parliament Manchester was appointed to three standing committees: two on privileges, the third for petitions.196 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 73, 78, 79. As in 1626, he evidently shared responsibility for chairing the privileges committee, as he was by no means its only reporter. On 29 Apr. he reported the committee’s recommendation that Lady Purbeck, the estranged wife of Buckingham’s elder brother John Villiers^*, Viscount Purbeck, should not be granted privilege. As a Buckingham client, it is no surprise that he himself had cast his vote against allowing Lady Purbeck privilege.197 Ibid. 360; PA, HL/PO/JO/10/1/33, no. 12. One week later, it was the turn of the earl of Arundel to report from the committee, this time on the vexed question of whether a peer was entitled to swear upon his honour rather than upon oath in a court of law. The committee unanimously held it permissible for peers to swear upon their honour. When this recommendation was challenged by Lord Keeper Coventry, who declared that he had thought that Star Chamber had ruled to the contrary, he was contradicted by Manchester, who added for good measure that, while an individual peer might choose to waive his right to swear upon his honour, ‘that binds not, nor bars not, nor prejudices the privilege’.198 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 382, 383, 384.

Manchester’s legislative appointments during the session included a bill to increase trade, which he reported as fit to pass. They also included a bill for the better maintenance of hospitals and almshouses. A similar measure had been laid before the House in 1626, when Manchester had not only served on the committee but reported its findings. Manchester approved of this new bill, but said that he wished that some specific works were assigned to these institutions for the benefit of their inmates.199 Ibid. 120, 151, 153; Procs. 1626, i. 104, 172. Manchester’s position as a governor explains why he once again served on the committee to put the Charterhouse hospital on a statutory footing, reporting the measure as fit to pass on 20 May.200 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 474, 478.

In view of his profession, it is unsurprising that Manchester expressed an interest in a bill to allow jurors to be appointed from among bystanders. This measure was needed because sometimes, after challenges by counsel, there were not enough prospective jurors left from which to form a panel. However, he clearly thought that the proposed legislation needed improvement, as he observed, with a tact which suggests that he wished to avoid offending its (unknown) author, that ‘there must be a great care in penning this bill’. He was subsequently appointed to the committee. Concern for the authority of his profession also explains why Manchester noted with alarm that the soldiers who had burned down the Oxfordshire town of Banbury believed that they were answerable only to their own officers rather than the civil magistrates.201 Ibid. 107, 140.

Manchester approved of the propositions for increasing trade which Buckingham presented to the House on 3 Apr., even though these were produced the day after the lord president himself reported from committee that a bill on the same subject was fit to pass. Declaring these propositions to be ‘both for wealth and safety’, he moved for a committee to be appointed. He evidently went on to chair this body himself, for on 26 Apr. he asked the House to set a day for it to meet. (Presumably its last meeting had been inquorate).202 Ibid. 137, 350. It seems likely that it was Manchester who also chaired the committee for the bill to confirm the queen’s jointure, which measure was reported on 15 June. Although the identity of the reporter has gone unrecorded, it was the lord president, a member of the bill committee, who informed the House on 23 June that the queen had decided not to proceed further due to various errors in drafting.203 Ibid. 641, 646, 689.

Throughout the session Manchester regularly served as a reporter and as a spokesman for the House at conferences with the Commons. The task of preparing reports was time consuming, and could not always be accomplished as quickly as others expected. On 8 Apr. the earl of Clare, responding to pressure from the king, expressed the hope that the Lords’ reporters would be ready by the following morning, whereupon Manchester replied that he would not be ready until the afternoon. It was also difficult for reporters to remember to include everything of importance that had been said, particularly when summarising more than one long speech. On 19 Apr. Manchester was interrupted midway through one report by Saye and Sele, who evidently thought that he had not been sufficiently thorough.204 Ibid. 167, 306. Not surprisingly, Manchester was sympathetic to others charged with preparing reports. Following a conference held on 26 Mar. on the subject of petitioning the king to enforce the penal laws against Catholics, he sent his fellow privy councillor Sir John Coke a note of the words he had spoken in order to assist Coke in preparing his own report to the Commons.205 CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 43; CD 1628, ii. 170.

As in 1621, the clerk seems to have experienced occasional difficulty in hearing Manchester. When, on 2 Apr., the lord president announced that the king was willing to limit the precedence granted to the earl of Banbury (William Knollys^*) to the latter’s lifetime, the clerk left most of the entry in his scribbled book blank. In the margin, the clerk then placed a note, possibly to remind himself to ask Manchester to supply what was missing.206 Ibid. 137, 138.

The 1628 session was dominated by debates on the liberties of the subject, which had been called into question by the Forced Loan, the billeting of troops and the imposition of martial law. From the outset, Manchester, being a senior minister and lawyer, was heavily involved. When the Commons requested on 7 Apr. that a conference be held to discuss this matter, the lord president was one of four peers appointed by the upper House ‘to put questions, to take notes and make report of the business.’ Two days later, after Manchester and his fellow spokesmen had presented their reports, the Lords debated how to proceed. Manchester began, declaring that the Commons’ complaint against the crown’s imprisonment without trial of Loan refusers boiled down to ‘a comment’ upon clause 39 of Magna Carta, which stated that no free man would be imprisoned or exiled without the judgement of his peers in accordance with the laws of the land. He therefore proposed that before proceeding any further they should invite the opinion of the judges. However, at the suggestion of Saye it was decided instead to hear the king’s law officers.207 Ibid. 161, 182, 183.

Now that issues of fundamental law were being debated, Manchester may have feared that his workload would rapidly become too heavy. At conferences with the Commons he alone might be expected to argue the case for the king, since the only other lawyer with a seat in the Lords, the earl of Marlborough, was now absent due to illness.208 Ibid. 183. It was probably in order to avoid this scenario that, on 10 Apr., Lord Keeper Coventry was ennobled. As a peer, Coventry too would be able to attend conferences with representatives of the Commons. In the event, the burden of representing the crown’s case to the Commons fell not to Manchester or Coventry but to the king’s principal law officer, Attorney General Heath. This was somewhat irregular and entirely unforeseen, since, in parliamentary terms, Heath was merely one of the Lords’ legal assistants. However, at the suggestion of Sir Edward Coke, the Commons decided to waive their customary objection to debating with the Lords’ assistants.209 CD 1628, ii. 483, 487.

Although it was now the attorney general rather than Manchester who found himself in the firing line, the lord president continued to press his colleagues to consult the judges. He did so because, in the recent Five Knights’ Case, the judges had refused to grant bail to five prominent Norfolk Loan refusers, and it was important that both he and his fellow peers understood the legal basis for their judgement. As a result of Manchester’s persistence, on 12 Apr. the House ordered the judges to explain their ruling in two days’ time. However, when the judges appeared they declined to give their reasons, on the grounds that, being the king’s servants, they had not been given permission to do so. Their refusal to cooperate aroused considerable anger. The 2nd earl of Devonshire (William Cavendish^*) thought ‘the honour and justice of this place’ had been impugned, while Saye observed that it was unnecessary for the judges to seek Charles’s permission, since the king was always present by representation. Manchester was also offended by the judges’ response, as he later suggested that the committee for privileges consider whether the judges were ever entitled to refuse to provide the House with information. However, his immediate concern was to soothe the wounded feelings of his colleagues. He pointed out that this was not the first time that the judges had asked to seek the king’s permission before speaking, and argued that ‘the question is but of comeliness, not of right’. In the event, the immediate problem created by the judges’ refusal was solved not by Manchester but by Buckingham, who, on his own initiative, sent his younger brother Christopher Villiers^* (1st earl of Anglesey) to the king to obtain the required consent.210 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 204, 205, 206, 218, 234.

Manchester was appointed to serve as one of five reporters at the conference held on 16 and 17 Apr., at which the king’s position was set out by Attorney General Heath and the king’s serjeant, Sir Francis Ashley^‡. The Lords gave both men permission to debate freely, but Manchester and many of his fellow peers were horrified when Ashley declared that to impose any constraints on royal power would result in anarchy. For the second time in three days, the lord president intervened to limit the damage. He assured the Commons’ representatives, on behalf of the upper House, that ‘Mr Serjeant Ashley had no direction to speak in that manner he has now done’.211 Ibid. 244, 284.

Although Manchester did not share Ashley’s extreme view, he nevertheless considered it undesirable to curtail the royal prerogative for fear of harming the entire body politic, a maxim he held throughout his life.212 P. Warwick, Mems. of the Reign of Chas. I, 245. Speaking on 22 Apr., he conceded that, in an ideal world, it would not be necessary for the king to imprison men without revealing the cause, but the reality was such that in all other states ‘latitude is left to the crown’. Too much emphasis should not be laid on Magna Carta, he added. After all, this document did not enter the statute book for some time and ‘was only a charter before’. None of the published legal year books prohibited the king from imprisoning a man without showing the cause, and the Elizabethan judge Sir James Dyer^‡ actually stated in his reports that a man imprisoned by the king could not be bailed. If the king refused to allow a prisoner to be brought before the courts, the judges could always issue a second, special writ of habeas corpus, in order to attend the king in person to know the cause. Not surprisingly, Manchester’s willingness to set aside one of the basic protections afforded to the subject by the common law aroused fury. The earl of Arundel reportedly not only confuted his arguments, but also

made a public protestation against him and the rest who were of the same opinion, concluding that those liberties which now they would betray were those which had cost so much of their predecessors’ blood to maintain them; and for his own part he was resolved to lose his own life, and spend his own blood, rather than he would ever give consent to the betraying of them.

Although it is doubtful that Arundel ever uttered these words, it seems clear that the lord president had caused grave offence.213 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 321-2; Birch, Ct and Times of Chas. I, i. 346; THOMAS HOWARD, 21ST (OR 14TH) EARL OF ARUNDEL. Manchester, though, remained unmoved, even after the Commons formulated the Petition of Right. He approved of Charles’s letter, sent to the Lords on 12 May, which declared that imprisonment without cause shown was a power that the king could not abandon ‘without the overthrow of sovereignty’. He also considered that Charles’s promise not extend this power ‘beyond the just rule of moderation’, or to apply it in future to anyone who refused to lend, formed the basis of an agreement with the Commons, and so need not be debated. On 14 May, after assuring his fellow peers that it was feasible to do so, he urged the Commons to bring the Petition into conformity with the king’s letter. The Commons, however, protested that they could take no notice of this document because of its unparliamentary character, a point disputed by both Manchester and Coventry. The lower House’s refusal to amend the Petition led Buckingham to propose that the Lords should do so instead. He reasoned that, although the Commons would not respond to the king directly, they would have little choice but to consider his wishes if they came from the accustomed channel, the upper House. This was a clever solution, and one which therefore found favour with both Manchester and Coventry.214 CD 1628, iii. 373; Lords Procs. 1628, p. 410, 424, 427, 428.

Despite the neatness of Buckingham’s solution to the problem posed by the Commons’ refusal to respond to the king’s letter, it was one thing to suggest altering the Petition to bring it into line with Charles’s wishes and quite another to achieve this objective in practice. The heart of the problem, as Manchester observed on 15 May, was to devise a form of words that would leave both the royal prerogative and the liberties of the subject intact.215 Ibid. 439. However, Manchester’s words have been slightly garbled by the clerk: ‘To be so as neither the prerogative be affirmed [sic], nor the liberty infringed’. On 17 May an amendment was put before the House by a committee of which Manchester was a member. However, this revised wording was severely criticized by Saye, who observed, not unreasonably, that it failed to answer the need. Far from prohibiting arbitrary imprisonment, it merely required the king not imprison men contrary to Magna Carta. The committee was therefore obliged instead to consider adding a proviso, along the lines of one suggested by the chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Weston (Richard Weston^*, later 1st earl of Portland). Manchester reported that the committee approved of this fresh wording, and proposed that they produce precedents to satisfy the Commons should they question the Lords’ right to demand this addition.216 Ibid. 400, 453, 454.

A conference to consider both the proviso and various other suggested changes to the Petition was held on the morning of 19 May. One of the alterations to the Petition demanded by the Lords concerned the oath administered to Loan refusers, which was described in the draft Petition as ‘unlawful’. Like many of his fellow peers, Manchester was unhappy at the suggestion that the king had acted illegally, and proposed instead that this word be replaced with either ‘unusual’ or ‘new’. However, Sir Edward Coke declared not only that the oath was unlawful, but also that the peers were fully aware of the fact. This drew from Manchester the retort that ‘this was but to discover a combination’. The lord president went on to defend the oath as being necessary to establish whether those who refused payment had been persuaded to do so at the prompting of others. However, this justification merely elicited from Coke the observation that the oath was ‘worse than the Spanish inquisition’, and from Saye the complaint that Manchester had exceeded his brief. Manchester remained unmoved by these criticisms, and on 20 May he declared that unless ‘unlawful’ was replaced with some other form of words, such as ‘not warrantable by the laws and statutes of the realm’, ‘I cannot give my consent to the Petition’. Reluctantly, the Commons agreed to adopt Manchester’s circumlocution, for, as Coke remarked, the alteration made no difference to the meaning, since ‘what is not warrantable by law is unlawful’.217 Ibid. 468, 477, 481; CD 1628, iii. 470, 476, 480, 481, 501, 506.

Although Manchester’s tenacity had helped the Lords to secure a small victory in their battle with the Commons over the Petition, the lower House steadfastly refused to accept the proviso offered by the Lords, on the grounds that it had the effect of rendering the entire Petition null and void. Manchester nevertheless continued to maintain that a clause safeguarding the prerogative was essential, and drew the Lords’ attention to just such an addition to a reissue of Magna Carta from the reign of Edward I. He also argued that the proviso was not, as it was widely described, a ‘saving clause’, but merely ‘a declaration of the prerogative’s saving power’, a distinction which appears to be entirely artificial.218 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 471, 491, 495. However, he was eventually forced to accept defeat, for on 26 May, on which day he was listed as being present, the Lords unanimously accepted the Petition without the offending proviso. Two days later he and five other peers were sent to the king to ask for a time at which to present the Petition. He performed a similar function on 7 June, when he was dispatched with a small deputation to ask Charles for a more satisfactory answer to the Petition than his first.219 Ibid. 546, 551, 596, 599.

Despite the doggedness with which he had pressed for changes to be made to the Petition of Right, Manchester was far from being a hard-line member of the Caroline regime, as his sympathy for Forced Loan refusers demonstrates. On the contrary he was among its more moderate members, for on 19 May he supported the earl of Bristol in calling for an amnesty to be granted to all those who had incurred the king’s displeasure for refusing to pay the Loan. Indeed, he declared that he would be ‘most willing to be a means and instrument in this cause and request’.220 Ibid. 460, 464. Nevertheless, the king so appreciated Manchester’s attempts to water down the Petition of Right that on 30 June, four days after Parliament was adjourned, he appointed him lord privy seal in succession to Edward Somerset^*, 4th earl of Worcester, who had died four months earlier. Manchester expressed pleasure at this change of role, which he claimed to have found burdensome, in a letter to his older brother: ‘I have put myself into some ease by putting off my presidency’. This new office not only provided him with a more lucrative position than the presidency but also gave him control of the Court of Requests, for which position he was eminently well suited. According to the mid seventeenth-century writer Thomas Fuller, Manchester subsequently succeeded in greatly increasing the business of this court, which was widely regarded as the poor relation to Chancery.221 HMC Buccleuch, i. 267; T. Fuller, Worthies of Eng. ed. J. Freeman, 439.

Final years, 1629-42

Manchester was not directly affected by the assassination of Buckingham in August 1628, even though the duke had been his patron. When Parliament reconvened in January 1629, he proved to be as diligent in his attendance as ever, missing only three sittings of the Lords. Some other peers were either less conscientious than Manchester or too unwell to attend, among them the 5th earl of Huntingdon (Henry Hastings^*), who appointed the lord privy seal as his proxy after pleading ill health.222 HEHL, HA5524. However, it was not Manchester who conveyed Huntingdon’s apologies for absence to the Lords, but the latter’s distant kinsman the 3rd earl of Essex (Robert Devereux^*).223 LJ, iv. 27a.

Although the 1629 session of Parliament is less well documented than its immediate predecessor, Manchester continued to play a leading role in the life of the upper House. On the opening day of the meeting he was reappointed to the committees for privileges and petitions, and the subcommittee for privileges. He subsequently helped present a petition which called upon the king to order the holding of a general fast (having performed a similar duty in 1628).224 Ibid. 6a, 6b, 14a; Lords Procs. 1628, p. 89. He also helped draft, present to the king and then report, a protest against allowing Irish and Scottish viscounts and earls to take precedence over English barons on local commissions.225 LJ, iv. 25b, 27b, 34a; HMC Buccleuch, iii. 340. On 15 Feb. Manchester served as Speaker for a day after Lord Keeper Coventry fell ill. This is perhaps surprising, as eight years earlier Manchester had not been thought suitable for this role, although in April 1624 Buckingham had briefly considered putting him on the woolsack after Lord Keeper Williams claimed to be too ill to attend the House. However, Charles I, unlike his father, was keen to increase the prestige and responsibilities of the nobility. He must also have been aware that Sir Nicholas Hyde^‡, who as lord chief justice of King’s Bench might have been expected to supply Coventry’s place, was unpopular, both among his fellow lawyers and also with the Commons, having been one of the judges in the notorious Five Knights’ Case (1627).226 LJ, iv. 16a, 16b; CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 225; HP Commons 1604-29, iv. 850.

During the course of the session, Manchester was appointed to five legislative committees, and delivered a report from the privileges committee on the claim of Lord Percy (Algernon Percy^*, later 4th earl of Northumberland) to be regarded as senior baron. He also presented to the king the House’s petition to improve the means of the impoverished 19th earl of Oxford (Robert de Vere^*). His final notice in the records of the brief session was on 21 Feb., when he named to the committee to survey munitions.227 LJ, iv. 7b, 8a, 10b, 31a, 34b, 35a, 37b.

In mid March 1629, following the dissolution of the Parliament, the Venetian ambassador claimed that Manchester, and his fellow lawyer Coventry, would be expelled from the Privy Council.228 CSP Ven. 1628-9, p. 589. Although this report proved to be no more than wild rumour, it suggests that Manchester was not enthusiastic at the king’s decision to rule without parliaments. Over the course of the 1630s Manchester remained, physically at least, at the heart of the Caroline regime, and, by some measures, could be considered as one of its chief pillars. The regularity with which he attended Council meetings, for instance, was almost as impressive as his previous attendance record in Parliament. However, he was more interested in the day-to-day administration of government than in factional politics, and never took a close interest in foreign policy.229 Oxford DNB, xxxviii. 735. As a result, he was outshone by brighter stars in the firmament, men like Richard Weston, 1st earl of Portland, Thomas Wentworth, Viscount Wentworth^* (later earl of Strafford) and William Laud^*, archbishop of Canterbury. The marginal nature of his position must also have owed something to the fact that Manchester was ill suited to court life. The courtier, he disdainfully observed, ‘rises late, dines late, sups late, repents late’.230 Manchester Al Mondo, 122. Yet, while it is accurate to describe him as a fellow traveller during the Personal Rule,231 L.J. Reeve, Chas. I and the Road to Personal Rule, 190. Manchester was by no means an irrelevance, as he helped bring about the Book of Orders in 1631,232 K. Sharpe, Personal Rule of Chas. I, 456, 458-9. and served on the treasury commission of 1635-6.

By the early 1630s Manchester was in his mid sixties, and not surprisingly he began to dwell on his own mortality. In 1631 he published a lengthy treatise on how to prepare for death, Contemplatio Mortis, and Immortalitatis. It proved immensely popular, and was reprinted five times during his lifetime. The first edition was published anonymously, but later versions appeared under his name. At around the same time as he wrote this treatise, Manchester also began to compile biographical notes on his own life.

In 1635 Manchester was shocked to learn that his younger son, Walter, had converted to Catholicism. He was no less horrified to see that copies of Walter’s letter announcing his conversion enjoyed a wide circulation. A formidable student of theology, Manchester penned a lengthy response to his son, in which he argued the case for Protestantism. In the process he drew upon an extensive range of works, the earliest of which was by the third century writer Tertullian.233 HMC 8th Rep. II, 10. However, he was so depressed by his son’s abandonment of his religion that he took refuge in drink.234 HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 75. Walter, though, was not alone in causing his father grief, for during the early 1640s, as the kingdom lurched towards civil war, his eldest son, Viscount Mandeville, became closely associated with John Pym^‡ and his allies. Manchester, who remained loyal to the king and served twice more as temporary Speaker of the Lords, was forced to suffer the indignity of seeing Mandeville charged with treason in the upper House on 3 Jan. 1642.

Manchester died in November 1642, shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War. In accordance with the wishes expressed in his will, drafted eight months earlier, he was interred in the chancel at St Andrew’s, Kimbolton. His tomb, consisting of a black marble slab supported by white marble columns, bears an inscription which records his many offices but not his life dates.235 VCH Hunts. iii. 84. He was succeeded, as second earl of Manchester, by his eldest son, Viscount Mandeville, who went on to command a parliamentary army against the king.