STANHOPE, John (c.1540-1621)

The first of his family to sit in the Lords, Stanhope was the younger brother of Sir Thomas Stanhope^‡ (grandfather of Philip Stanhope^*, 1st earl of Chesterfield). Their mother was first cousin to Mildred Cecil, the second wife of Elizabeth I’s leading minister, Sir William Cecil^†, subsequently 1st Lord Burghley, and it was undoubtedly this connection which launched Stanhope on his successful court career. By the time of Elizabeth’s death he was vice chamberlain of the household, treasurer of the chamber, postmaster general and a privy councillor. Moreover, his close relationship with the secretary of state, his second cousin, Robert Cecil^*, subsequently 1st earl of Salisbury, ensured that he had little trouble retaining his offices following the accession of James.49 P. Wright, ‘A Change in Direction’, English Ct. ed. D. Starkey et al. 163-4; CSP Dom. 1598-1601, p. 23.

In 1599 Stanhope acquired a house and lands in Harrington, Northamptonshire, which became his principal country seat. He also maintained a household at Eltham in Kent, where he was steward from 1602. However, his principal residence was his mansion house in Charing Cross, in the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields. In his will, dated 5 Oct. 1620, Stanhope mentioned that he had lived in that parish ‘the space of thirty years and above’.50 PROB 11/137, ff. 287v-8; LCC Survey of London, xvi. 94-6.

Robert Hill, the moderate puritan lecturer of St Martin-in-the-Fields, paid tribute to Stanhope’s ‘example, in frequenting God’s house’ in the ‘parish wherein you live’. He also praised Stanhope’s observance of the Sabbath, support for preachers and monthly attendance at communion.51 Workes of the reverend and faithfull servant of Jesus Christ M. Richard Greenham (1612) ed. H. Holland and R. Hill, sig. Ll3 (dedicatory epistle by Hill dated St Martin-in-the Fields, 1 Nov. 1611); J.F. Merritt, Social World of Early Modern Westminster, 313n.20. However, there is no evidence that Stanhope had any sympathy with nonconformists or calls for further reformation of the Church. On the contrary, Stanhope was the dedicatee of a work by Joseph Hall^*, subsequently bishop of Norwich, and was on good terms with Richard Bancroft^* (later archbishop of Canterbury), whom his brother, Edward, served as chancellor when Bancroft was bishop of London.52 J. Hall, Contemplations Upon the Principall Passages of the Holy Storie (1612), 87-9; CSP Dom. 1598-601, pp. 361, 365-6.

Stanhope was returned to the Commons for the eighth time in 1604. However, he rarely appeared in the records of the lower House and seems to have made few, if any, speeches.53 HP Commons, 1558-1603, ii. 440; HP Commons, 1604-29, vi. 416-17. Nevertheless he may have been active behind the scenes on behalf of the king: writing in the summer of 1604, James praised ‘honest Stanhope that hath for our sins hunted all this year in inferno, that is, the lower regions’.54 Letters of King Jas. VI and I ed. G.P.V. Akrigg, 233. The following October it was reported that, although James was for the present only willing to confer a barony on Edward Denny^* (subsequently earl of Norwich), Stanhope had been promised the next creation.55 Stowe 150, f. 196r-v.

On 6 Apr. 1605 the English ambassador at The Hague was informed that Stanhope had absented himself from court because James had announced his intention of appointing his Scottish vice chamberlain, Alexander Lindsay, 1st Lord Spynie [S], to the equivalent English post, which, of course, Stanhope held.56 Winwood’s Memorials ed. E. Sawyer, ii. 57; Oxford DNB, xiii. 842. However, this report may have been inaccurate. Nothing further was heard of the amalgamation of the two posts, and, although Stanhope was certainly absent from court at this time, this was due to poor health, presumably the ‘hungry colic, … cough, and cramps’ of which he had complained the previous month.57 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 92, 178. He was attending to official business again by 19 Apr., and, a week later, Gilbert Talbot^*, 7th earl of Shrewsbury, was informed that Stanhope would receive his promised barony, which hardly suggests that the latter was in disgrace. At the queen’s request, James had agreed to a series of new creations to commemorate the baptism of the short-lived Princess Mary.58 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 212; Illustrations of Brit. Hist. ed. E. Lodge, iii. 149. Consequently, on 4 May, Stanhope was created Lord Stanhope of Harrington, the first of four barons created at that time.59 J. Nichols, Progs. of Jas. I, i. 510-11.

Stanhope was not in the chamber when the Gunpowder Plot was revealed on 5 Nov. 1605, but made his first appearance on the afternoon of the 9th. The sitting was subsequently adjourned to the following January. In total, Stanhope was recorded as attending 58 times during this, the second session of Parliament, 71 per cent of the sittings. His longest period of absence was in early April. On the 7th of that month the lord chancellor, Thomas Egerton^*, Lord Ellesmere (later 1st Viscount Brackley) excused him on grounds of ill health, by which time he had been absent since the 1st. He did not resume his seat until the 14th.60 LJ, ii. 409a.

There is no evidence that Stanhope made any speeches that session. This may be due to a lack of extant sources, but it is more likely because he kept the same silence that had previously characterized his service in the Commons. Named to 26 of the 72 committees appointed by the upper House during the session, his first appointment was to consider a proposal by Bancroft, now archbishop of Canterbury, to discuss what new laws were needed to safeguard the established religion in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot. He was subsequently among those instructed to attend a conference with the Commons on the same subject. He was later appointed to consider two bills against Catholic recusants, as well as measures to require better observance of the Sabbath and maintain two divinity readers at Cambridge.61 Ibid. 360b, 367b, 386b, 419b. As a privy councillor it is unsurprising that Stanhope was appointed to consider the bill to attaint the plotters. This measure was found unsatisfactory and, on 25 Mar., the committee reported a redrafted bill to the House. This new bill was referred the following day to the same committee, including Stanhope, together with a bill against seditious speeches.62 Ibid. 367a, 399b, 401a.

Stanhope’s appointment to the committee to consider the bill for general confirmation of letters patent may have stemmed from his work as a member of the 1605 commission to compound for defective titles and concealed lands, as such a measure would have presumably strengthened the legal status of the letters patents which compounders received in return for their money.63 Ibid. 379a. In mid April 1606 he was named to consider a bill to create a royal entail. (An earlier version of the measure had originally been presented to the Lords at the end of the 1604 session, but this had failed to pass and had subsequently been redrafted by the Council.) This measure was referred to an otherwise unrecorded committee which had been instructed two days earlier to confer with the Commons about purveyance, free trade and the Union. Stanhope’s inclusion on both these bodies may have contravened an order made by the Lords the previous session, that peers should not be appointed to committees if they were absent. However, this rule did not apply if the ‘cause of the committee do concern any special office … under his Majesty’ held by the absent lord, and Stanhope was, of course, a privy councillor.64 Ibid. 323b, 413a; CJ, i. 296a; ‘Collection of Several Speeches and Treatises of the Late Lord Treasurer Cecil’ ed. P. Croft, Cam. Misc. xxix (Cam. Soc. 4th ser. xxxiv), 274, n. 69; E.R. Foster, House of Lords 1603-49, p. 91.

In September1606 Stanhope attended a meeting at Hampton Court, when the king put pressure on a number of recalcitrant Scottish presbyterian ministers to accept royal control of the Kirk.65 D. Calderwood, Hist. of the Kirk of Scotland ed. T. Thomson, vi. 572. By the autumn of 1606 the deteriorating state of the crown’s finances was causing Stanhope considerable embarrassment as treasurer of the chamber. In a letter to Cecil, now earl of Salisbury, probably written that October, he complained that his clerk had been abused by a number of crown servants angry at not having received their wages.66 HMC Hatfield, xviii. 337.

Stanhope attended the first day of the third session on 18 Nov. 1606, but when the Lords met again two days later, he was excused on grounds of poor health and did not take his seat again until 1 December.67 LJ, ii. 451a. (An entry in the Journal stating that he was among those instructed on 24 Nov. to confer with the Commons about the union was almost certainly a clerical mistake, since he was not only absent on that day but added to the 24 Nov. committee on 12 Dec. for a further conference on the same subject.)68 Ibid. 453a, 464b. Nevertheless, he attended Parliament more assiduously than in the second session. He was recorded as being present at 88 of the 106 sittings, 83 per cent of the total. He was also named to a higher proportion of committees, 20 out of 41.

In February 1607 Stanhope was named to the committee on the bill to confirm defective titles. This bill may have been similar to the measure concerning letters patent which had been considered the previous session, as it stipulated that any letters patent granted by the crown to those who compounded would be valid even if they contained minor errors of wording.69 Ibid. 471b; HMC 4th Rep. 118. The measure was redrafted by the committee and introduced as a new bill on 21 Mar., entitled ‘an act for confirmation of letters patents to be made on compositions with the king’s Majesty’. Two days later it was committed to Stanhope and the rest of the committee that had been appointed on 16th February.70 LJ, ii. 493a, 494a. On 15 June Stanhope was appointed to consider a further bill to confirm letters patents, this time relating to grants of copyhold lands.71 Ibid. 524b. His other committee appointments included measures against drunkenness and the enforcement of ecclesiastical Canons without statutory confirmation.72 Ibid. 489b, 503a.

In the autumn of 1607 Stanhope again had to absent himself from court because of poor health.73 HMC Hatfield, xix. 477. He had returned by the following February but was subsequently forced to retire for further periods in June 1608 and the second half of 1609.74 CSP Ven. 1607-10, pp. 95-6; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 437; HMC Hatfield, xxi. 137. Nevertheless his attendance in the fourth session, which started in February 1610, was almost as impressive as it had been in the third. He is recorded as having been present at 75 of the 95 sittings, 79 per cent of the total, and received one committee appointment, on 14 May, when he was not marked as attending. His longest period of absence was in early July, when he missed five consecutive sittings, between the 5th and the 11th inclusive.

Stanhope was appointed to 19 of the 58 committees appointed by the Lords that session. In February he was among those instructed to attend the conference at which Salisbury outlined what subsequently became known as the Great Contract.75 LJ, ii. 551a. In May Stanhope was named to consider a measure to establish common breweries, intended to help suppress drunkenness. He was subsequently appointed to consider another measure relating to moral reform, concerning swearing. In July he was named to the committee for the bill against scandalous ministers.76 Ibid. 592a, 629a, 641b. He took the oath of allegiance in the Lords’ chamber on 7 June, suggesting that he had been absent from the meeting of the Privy Council at which the king administered the oath to his colleagues, and was appointed on 16 July to consider the bill for administering the oath.77 Ibid. 608b, 645a. Although the sources for proceedings in 1610 are richer than those for earlier sessions, there is still no record that Stanhope made any speeches.

In the short-lived fifth session Stanhope was recorded as attending 15 out of 22 sittings, 68 per cent of the total. He was named to four of the seven committees established by the Lords, including two conferences, the first concerning the Great Contract and the second to request supply following the Contract’s collapse.78 Ibid. 671a, 677a. He also received two legislative appointments, one concerning bequests of land and the other to help Prince Henry administer his recently established duchy of Cornwall estates.79 Ibid. 675a, 677a.

Henry Hastings^*, 5th earl of Huntingdon, recorded that Stanhope was one of the commissioners for the adjournment of Parliament on 6 December. This is probably an error, as Stanhope’s name does not appear in the commission entered in the Journal. Instead, Stanhope was a member of the commission to dissolve the Parliament, although he does not appear to have attended the dissolution on 9 Feb. 1611.80 HMC Hastings, iv. 229; LJ, ii. 684b.

On 8 July 1613 it was reported that Stanhope’s son and heir, Charles Stanhope^*, ‘is lately fallen lunatic; and the little hope that is conceived of his recovery’. The report makes clear that by this date Charles was Stanhope’s only son. Another son, baptized at St Martin-in-the-Fields in 1599, had presumably died in infancy.81 T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, i. 254. In fact Charles was not permanently incapacitated, but he remained mentally impaired, casting a shadow over Stanhope’s prospects for establishing a noble dynasty.

In October 1613 Stanhope agreed to sell the treasurership of the chamber for £2,000 to Robert Carr^*, Viscount Rochester (subsequently earl of Somerset), who intended to confer it on Sir Henry Neville^‡. Stanhope probably now wanted to retire from public life (if he could make sufficient money from selling his offices) because of his declining health, and because of the death the previous year of his patron and kinsman, the earl of Salisbury. However, the deal fell through when Neville refused the post.82 Chamberlain Letters, i. 480.

Stanhope attended more than half the meetings of the Privy Council between May 1613 and June 1614, but although the Addled Parliament was convened on 5 Apr. 1614 he failed to attend the Lords until 26 May.83 L.L. Peck, Northampton, 8. The lord chancellor twice excused Stanhope’s absence because of poor health (9 and 14 Apr.), and Stanhope attended just seven of the 29 sittings of the House, 24 per cent of the total.84 LJ, 690a; HMC Hastings, iv. 242. He received no committee appointments and made no recorded speeches. On 7 June he served as one of the commissioners for the dissolution.85 LJ, ii. 717a.

In July 1614, following the appointment of Somerset’s father-in-law, the 1st earl of Suffolk (Thomas Howard^*) as lord treasurer, there was an ‘uncertain bruit’ that Stanhope was about to sell the office of vice chamberlain to Suffolk’s client, Sir Thomas Vavasour^‡.86 Birch, i. 338; HP Commons, 1604-29, vi. 621. There was further speculation that he would retire or be replaced the following year, but, in the event, he did not surrender the office of vice-chamberlain until the king instructed him to do so in April 1616.87 Holles Letters ed. P.R. Seddon (Thoroton Soc. xxxi), 62; Chamberlain Letters, i. 604; ‘Camden Diary’ (1691), 17. On 1 Jan. 1617 it was reported that James I’s favourite, George Villiers^*, Viscount Villiers (subsequently 1st duke of Buckingham), was very much in love with Stanhope’s daughter, Katherine, but that ‘she is squeamish and maketh no show to accept the offers of his affection’.88 HMC Downshire, vi. 81. The following August she married Robert Cholmondeley^†, subsequently 1st Lord Cholmondeley.89 St Martin-in-the-Fields (Harl. Soc. Reg. xxv), 99. In January 1618 Stanhope relinquished the treasurership of the chamber to Sir William Uvedale^‡, although, for accounting purposes, Uvedale’s appointment was backdated to the previous Michaelmas.90 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 125; APC, 1616-17, p. 407; E351/544, rot. 82.

Stanhope remained postmaster general, but his continuation in this office became increasingly contentious as a result of the discontent among local postmasters against the fees he exacted from them. Thomas Hutchins, the postmasters’ representative, ‘so vexed and haunted’ Stanhope that the latter agreed to try to pay him off with £30 in December 1619. In addition, that same year Matthew de Quester, who had previously worked for Stanhope, received an independent patent to control the foreign posts, though de Quester subsequently claimed that the new office was created in consultation with Stanhope.91 Add. 12496, ff. 9-10; CSP Dom. 1623-5, pp. 117, 131; 1625-6, p. 473.

Stanhope made his will on 5 Oct. 1620, in which he appointed his wife, Margaret, his sole executrix and bequeathed her his house in Charing Cross, together with the residue of his personal estate. His son, Charles, received the furniture at Harrington, the contents of his armoury and the plate ‘as I did ordinarily use when I was a courtier’.92 PROB 11/137, ff. 248v-9. Although the will makes no mention of the fact, his health was evidently declining. Writing five days later, John Holles^*, Lord Houghton (subsequently 1st earl of Clare), who had married Stanhope’s niece, believed he would be able to borrow Stanhope’s robes for the opening of the forthcoming third Jacobean Parliament, ‘for I suppose he will trouble himself little with it’.93 Holles Letters ed. P.R. Seddon (Thoroton Soc. xxxv), 242. Nevertheless, Stanhope was well enough on 10 Nov. to write to the borough of Gatton in support of Houghton’s son, John Holles^† (subsequently 2nd earl of Clare). Stanhope informed the inhabitants that William Copley, the landlord of Gatton, had promised one of the borough seats to Holles. It is possible that Stanhope, still a privy councillor, had pressured the recusant, Copley, into nominating Holles.94 Nottingham UL, NeC15406, p. 196.

Stanhope is recorded as having attended the 1621 Parliament only once, on 14 Feb., and that may be a clerical mistake. The Journal also records that he was appointed to the committee for the bill against the export of bullion eight days later, but this too is almost certainly an error, as the committee book states that the appointee was Philip Stanhope (by this date Lord Stanhope of Shelford) who, unlike Stanhope, was recorded as present on that day.95 LJ, iii. 26b; PA, HL/PO/CO/2/1, p. 2.

Stanhope died on 9 Mar. 1621, while Parliament was in session, at his house in Charing Cross. He was buried, according to his wishes, in the chancel of the parish church of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Having requested that it should be without ‘pomp’ or ‘extraordinary cost’, his funeral took place at night.96 C142/434/100; St Martin-in-the-Fields (Harl. Soc. Reg. lxvi), 164; PROB 11/137, f. 248v. Although his only surviving son, Charles, known as ‘the mad Lord Stanhope’, did eventually marry, he had no children. Consequently, Stanhope’s peerage became extinct on Charles’s death in 1675.97 CHARLES STANHOPE.