CAVENDISH, William (1551-1626)

In March 1603 a correspondent of Sir Robert Cecil^*, subsequently 1st earl of Salisbury, described Cavendish as ‘but a weak man … and of little love and respect here [in Derbyshire]’.24 HMC Hatfield, xii. 694. Traditional accounts of the rise of his family have tended to emphasize the role of Cavendish’s strong-minded mother, the famous Bess of Hardwick. However, recent work has shown that the 1st earl of Devonshire played a crucial role in constructing the estates on which the family’s fortunes were based.25 Riden and Fowkes, 39.

Ancestry and earl life, 1381-1603

Although the Cavendishes have frequently been said to have been descended from Sir John Cavendish, chief justice of King’s Bench, killed during the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt, their ancestry can, in fact, be traced no further back than William Cavendish, a Mercer of London, who died in 1453. William’s grandson, Thomas (d.1524) was an Exchequer official who had three sons, the youngest of whom, William, was the father of the subject of this biography. This William rose through service to Thomas Cromwell^† (subsequently 1st earl of Essex) and played an important part in the Dissolution of the Monasteries before becoming treasurer of the chamber and acquiring a knighthood in 1546. The following year he represented Ripon in the Commons, being the first member of the family to enter Parliament.26 J.H. Round, Fam. Origins and Other Studies, 22-32; P. Riden, ‘Sir William Cavendish’, Derbys. Arch. Jnl. cxxix. 238-9, 242-3; HP Commons, 1509-58, i. 597. Although he rose no higher than a knighthood, William was well connected with members of the new Tudor nobility, when his third son, the subject of this entry, was baptized in 1551, his godparents being William Paulet^†, 1st marquess of Winchester, William Herbert^†, 1st earl of Pembroke, and Elizabeth Parr, marchioness of Northampton.27 Collins, 12.

Sir William Cavendish was married three times, but his surviving sons were all born to his last wife, Elizabeth Barley, neé Hardwick, the famous ‘Bess of Hardwick’. The Hardwicks were a minor gentry family, established at the property in Derbyshire from which they had taken their name since the early thirteenth century. Bess seems to have persuaded her husband, who had previously been building an estate in southern England, to transfer his interest to her native county, as in 1549 Sir William purchased Chatsworth, which subsequently became the main seat of his descendants, the earls, and later dukes, of Devonshire. Three years later he swapped most of the remainder of his estates for former monastic lands predominantly located in Derbyshire. Shortly before his death in 1557, Sir William settled Chatsworth and the bulk of his lands on his eldest surviving son, Henry, and provided his third (but now second surviving) son, William, with property around Pentrich in central Derbyshire. His wife retained a life interest in all his property.28 Riden, ‘Sir William Cavendish’, 245; Riden and Fowkes, 21-2.

In 1567 Bess married George Talbot^†, 6th earl of Shrewsbury, probably the wealthiest nobleman of the Elizabethan era. It is likely that Shrewsbury initially agreed to provide substantial portions for her younger sons, William and Charles, but in 1572, running short of cash, he agreed to return to Bess all the property he had received from her. Bess received an allowance from Shrewsbury, leaving her free to plough the profits from her estates into land purchases made in William’s name. By 1584 she had spent about £25,000 in this way, including £9,500 on purchasing the estate of her brother James.29 Durant, 34, 39, 54, 77, 113.

Bess’s use of William, rather than her eldest son, Henry, as her principal agent in purchasing lands may have been initially intended simply to augment the former’s inheritance. However, Bess became increasingly disillusioned with Henry, whom she subsequently described as ‘my bad son’. This was partly because she regarded him as a poor manager of his estate, but it may also have been because he failed to produce any legitimate children, despite having been married since 1568.30 Ibid. 57, 212; Riden and Fowkes, 32-3. Consequently, she switched her dynastic ambitions to William, who married a Lancashire heiress in 1581. Moreover, when Bess’s relations with Shrewsbury broke down, William became his mother’s principal champion, suffering imprisonment in the Fleet in 1584 for forcibly denying his step-father access to Chatsworth.31 Durant, 116-35; CSP Dom. 1581-90, p. 453. Following the death of Shrewsbury in 1590, Bess was free to buy land in her own name, which she continued to settle on William, while William himself bought property on his own account. They lived together at Hardwick, where Bess built the magnificent hall which survives to this day. William secured control of Hardwick following the death of Bess in 1608, which he continued to use as his principal country residence until his own death in 1626.32 Riden and Fowkes, 32-3, 41.

By 1608 Cavendish had started investing in land south of the Trent. Although these properties were generally smaller than his lands in and around Derbyshire, they were more profitable. By the time he died, Cavendish owned nearly 100,000 acres, of which the largest part consisted of estates in Derbyshire and the adjacent counties. Although the core of his wealth came from the estate he had built up with his mother, about 47 per cent of his income came from lands that he had either acquired from his first marriage or purchased himself. His total income was about £16,000 p.a., of which the vast majority (about £12,000 p.a.) came from rents.33 Ibid. 36-7, 39, 48; William Senior’s Survey of the Estates of the First and Second Earls of Devonshire c.1600-28 ed. D.V. Fowkes and G.R. Potter (Derbys. Rec. Soc. xiii), pp. xviii-xix. He also invested in the East India Company, the colonization of Bermuda (then known as Somers Island), the smelting of lead and the manufacture of glass. Moreover, Cavendish was a significant money lender from at least 1601. Among his clients was the earl of Salisbury, who borrowed from Cavendish to help finance the building of Hatfield House.34 L. Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, 342, 344, 372, 376, 530; idem, Fam. and Fortune, 26.

Entering the peerage and the early Jacobean parliaments, 1603-14

Following the accession of James I in 1603, Cavendish attended the new king at York on his way south.35 Riden and Fowkes, 64. In early April 1604 he left Derbyshire for Holborn, in London, where he had a house. During his stay he provided financial assistance for his niece, Arbella Stuart. She was also James’s niece and had been appointed to the new queen’s bedchamber, but she found life at court expensive. In May Cavendish lent her £100 and also spent a further £164 to redeem some jewels she had pawned to buy a present for the queen. He seems to have hoped that she would be able to procure him an honour in return for his help because on 4 July, three days before the end of the first session of the 1604-10 Parliament, he wrote to his mother that James had ‘been moved by my Lady Arbella for me: who promiseth as afore, at the next call which is thought will be at Michaelmas term, at the next session of Parliament’.36 H.M. Payne, ‘Aristocratic Women in the Jacobean Ct.’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 2001), 132, 134, 281; Household Accts. of William Cavendish, Ld Cavendish of Hardwick (Derbys. Rec. Soc. xlii), 110-11, 134, 138; J. Hunter, Hallamshire, 122-3.

It is possible that Cavendish was hoping for a knighthood. Suggestions that he had received one in 1580 are almost certainly unfounded, and, on the day that Cavendish was writing, James I dubbed 25 men. However, as the king conferred over a thousand knighthoods in the first two years of his reign, Arbella would have had little difficulty in acquiring one for Cavendish had he wanted it. The fact that Cavendish was not knighted suggests that he had set his sights on a greater honour, and subsequent events indicate that it was a peerage which was the object of his negotiations with Arbella. His concern for social advancement may have been associated with the courting of his second wife, whom he married while he was in London; she was the widow of a knight and Cavendish may have wanted to provide her with a higher social status.37 Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 81, 133-4; HP Commons, 1558-1603, i. 569; Riden and Fowkes, 39; Stone, Crisis, 74. In the event, Arbella’s prediction that Parliament would reconvene in the autumn proved unfounded, as it was initially prorogued to February 1605, and did not in fact reassemble until the following November.

Cavendish went to London again in April 1605. Towards the end of that month, Edward Somerset^*, 4th earl of Worcester, informed Gilbert Talbot*, 7th earl of Shrewsbury, that James intended to grant a number of peerages to celebrate the christening of Princess Mary and had, therefore, given Arbella a blank patent for a barony to be ‘created and entitled at her pleasure’.38 LPL, ms 3202, f. 12. Shortly thereafter Shrewsbury also learned that it was unlikely that Arbella would nominate Cavendish because ‘he is very sparing in his gratuity, as I hear; would be glad it were done, but would be sorry to part with anything for the doing of it’.39 Illustrations of Brit. Hist. ed. E. Lodge, iii. 156. However, Cavendish was evidently persuaded to change his mind about laying out the necessary purchase price, as he was created Baron Cavendish of Hardwick on 4 May, and, four days later, his accounts record the payment of £2,000 ‘presently after my lord’s creation’ at the house of Sir William Bowyer^‡, one of the tellers of the Exchequer. This was probably the sum paid by Cavendish to Arbella for the peerage. At about this time Cavendish’s accounts also include a record of payment to a scrivener for procuring a loan of £1,000. This suggests that Cavendish originally came prepared to pay Arbella only £1,000, but that she demanded double that amount, leaving him to borrow the difference hastily.40 Household Accts. of William Cavendish, Ld Cavendish of Hardwick (Derbys. Rec. Soc. xlii), 208, 210.

It has been estimated that Cavendish eventually spent £2,900 on his peerage, but it is uncertain how many payments in his accounts at around this time specifically relate to his creation. Nevertheless, there were clearly a large numbers of fees and gratuities to be paid, including £10 to the attorney general for drafting the patent, £3 6s. 8d. to the latter’s clerk for engrossing it, £5 to the clerk of the crown, 20s. to the grooms of the lord chancellor’s chamber, £10 to the earl marshal (Edward Somerset^*, 4th earl of Worcester), £6 13s. 4d. for a cloak, given to Garter king at arms, and fees for the officers of the signet, privy seal and great seal. A payment of 10s. to the historian and herald, William Camden, probably also relates to the purchase of the peerage.41 Stone, Crisis, 101-2; Household Accts. of William Cavendish, Ld Cavendish of Hardwick (Derbys. Rec. Soc. xlii), 207-8. 215.

Now that he was a peer, Cavendish had to provide himself with Parliament robes. The cost of making them was only 20s., but ‘gold parchment lace’ set him back a further 22s., and 11s. more was spent on ‘colour[ed] silks’, though some of this was used to provide a suit for Cavendish’s heir. Cavendish’s largest payment in connection with his robes was £25, to have them furred. However, his accounts suggest that his was not done until February 1605, when Parliament was originally expected to reconvene.42 Household Accts. of William Cavendish, Ld Cavendish of Hardwick (Derbys. Rec. Soc. xlii), 213-15, 312.

The second session of the first Jacobean Parliament eventually began on 5 Nov. 1605. Cavendish travelled from Derbyshire to London the month before, but the start of the session was thrown into confusion by the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, turmoil which may be reflected in the entry in his accounts of a payment to ‘the keeper of the chamber where my lord should have put on his robes’. Cavendish is recorded as having been present in the Lords’ chamber on 5 Nov., but not on the 9th, when he left London to return to Derbyshire. He paid £1 10s. to Sir Thomas Smyth^‡, the clerk of the parliaments, as his fee for his ‘first entrance into the Parliament House’ and a further 10s. to Smyth’s under-clerk.43 Ibid. 258, 262-3, 271.

Cavendish was back in London in time to attend the Lords when the session resumed on 21 Jan. 1606. In total, he is recorded as being present in the upper House at 82 per cent of the sittings of the session (70 out of 85). This may be an under-estimate as his accounts record three times that he paid a fine for coming late on days when he was marked as absent in the Journal (4 Feb., 10 and 17 May). In total he was fined for lateness seven times. He usually paid the standard rate of 1s. chargeable to all peers below the rank of earl but, on one occasion (25 Mar.), he seems to have got away with only paying 6d. There is no trace in his accounts that Cavendish was ever fined for absence without excuse which, on 27 Mar., was set at twice the rate for coming late. Usually Cavendish travelled between his house in Holborn and Westminster by water, via Temple Stairs, although he used his coach at least once when it was raining. Parliament was not the sole reason Cavendish went to Westminster, of course, as he continued to make the journey to court during the Easter recess. On one occasion when he attended the Lords (1 May), his accounts describe court attendance as the purpose of the journey. He was evidently keen to win the favour of important figures at court for, on one occasion, he gave a gilt porringer, purchased for £5 2s. 4d., to the influential privy councillor Henry Howard^*, earl of Northampton.44 Ibid. 310, 316, 319, 323-8; LJ, ii. 401b.

During the second session Cavendish was appointed to 17 of the 72 committees established by the upper House, nearly a quarter of the total. All but one of his appointments were legislative. As an owner of former crown and monastic lands, he may have been interested in the bill to confirm letters patent. It is also possible that his commercial links with the West Riding clothiers, whom he used to transmit money from his Derbyshire estates to London, led him to take an interest in a measure about the export of cloth from northern ports.45 LJ, ii. 393b, 396b; Stone, Crisis, 513; Riden and Fowkes, 22, 52. He made no recorded speeches.

Like all peers, Cavendish was expected to pay fees to the officers of the House. His accounts reveal that he paid £1 to the gentleman usher and 10s. to the ‘waiters of the Parliament House’. He also subsequently purchased the book of the statutes passed in his first session in the Lords. He remained in London for nearly two months after the session was prorogued, on 27 May, returning to Derbyshire on 10 July.46 Household Accts of William Cavendish, Ld Cavendish of Hardwick (Derbys. Rec. Soc. xlii), 325, 343-4, 348. There is no evidence that he obeyed the summons, sent a week later, to attend the court for the visit of the king of Denmark.47 Add. 11402, f. 113.

Cavendish did not attend the third session of Parliament, which commenced in November 1606, instead procuring a licence to be absent on the 3rd of that month, and prudently giving his proxy to Salisbury.48 SO3/3, unfol. (3 Nov. 1606); LJ, ii. 449a. It is not known why he absented himself for this session, although it may be significant that his son, John, his only known child by his second wife, appears to have been born in early April 1607.49 HMC Rutland, i. 404.

At the start of the following year, with Bess of Hardwick visibly ailing, Cavendish tried to persuade his older brother Henry to sell him his rights to Chatsworth in return for a lump sum of £5,000 and a further £500 a year during their mother’s life. Henry rejected the offer, even after William offered him £500 a year for four years.50 Cal. Talbot Pprs. ed. G.R. Batho (Derbys. Recs. iv), 291; HMC Bath, v. 131-2. After Bess’s death, therefore, Henry inherited Chatsworth but received only the empty shell of the house, as all the furnishings had been left to William.51 Collins, 16, 18. Henry, who was heavily indebted, could have attempted to break the entail, leaving him free to sell Chatsworth to the highest bidder. However, he may have been dissuaded from doing so by Cavendish who, in April 1608, married his eldest son, William Cavendish^* (subsequently 2nd earl of Devonshire), to the daughter of the master of the Rolls, Edward Bruce, 1st Baron Kinloss [S]. This marriage was concluded only with some difficulty, as Cavendish reportedly had to threaten the groom that ‘he would make him the worse by an hundred thousand pounds’ before he would consent to the match. Nevertheless, this alliance was likely to prove useful to Cavendish were his brother to attempt to break the entail. In November 1608 Henry relented, and sold Chatsworth and the vast bulk of the entailed estates to William for £10,000. However, as Henry retained a life interest in them, these lands did not come to Cavendish until after the former’s death in 1616. Cavendish continued to use Hardwick as his principal residence even after he acquired Chatsworth.52 HMC Bath, v. 132; Illustrations of Brit. Hist. iii. 232-3, 247-8; ‘Final Concords (Divers Counties to which Staffs. Tenants are Parties)’ ed. W. Boyd and G. Wrottesley, Staffs. Hist. Colls. (Wm. Salt Arch Soc. n.s. iv), 9; Add. 6688, ff. 127-133; Fowkes and Riden, 41.

Cavendish travelled to London in October 1609, and was still there when the fourth session opened the following February.53 Chatsworth, Hardwick 29, p. 133. He is recorded as having been present at 80 of the 95 sittings, an attendance rate of 84 per cent. His accounts no longer record payments of fines for late attendance, but these may well be subsumed in the numerous payments of small sums to Cavendish ‘at’ or ‘going to’ Parliament.54 Ibid. pp. 151, 155, 159, 161-6. Cavendish was appointed to 12 out of 58 committees, of which nine were to consider legislation and two to attend conferences with the Commons. However, he made no recorded speeches.

Cavendish was appointed to only one committee before Easter, on 19 Feb., when he was named to consider bills to confirm composition agreements between the crown and copyhold tenants for the manors of Clitheroe in Lancashire and Wakefield in Yorkshire, both counties in which he owned property.55 LJ, ii. 553b. He also acquired a copy of a speech by Salisbury at around this time, probably a copy of the oration the latter delivered at the conference held on 15 Feb., when the earl outlined the king’s parlous finances and laid the foundations for what became known as the Great Contract.56 Chatsworth, Hardwick 29, p. 152; Procs. 1610 ed. E.R. Foster, i. 9-27. Nevertheless, he did not appear in the proceedings concerning the Contract until nearly the end of the session, when he was added to the committee to confer with the Commons about this subject on 14 July.57 LJ, ii. 644b.

After the Easter recess Cavendish was appointed to three committees concerning religion. One concerned clerical non-residence and pluralism, while the others were to consider bills against the enforcement of ecclesiastical Canons lacking statutory confirmation and scandalous ministers.58 Ibid. 587b, 611a, 641b. All these were issues of concern to the godly. It may be significant that, at the time of his second marriage, Cavendish bought his wife the works of three puritan ministers - Richard Greenham, William Perkins and Edward Dering - although there is no evidence that he himself shared such views.59 Household Accts. of William Cavendish, Ld Cavendish of Hardwick (Derbys. Rec. Soc. xlii), 132.

Two payments for the carriage of his robes feature in Cavendish’s accounts at this time, the first presumably being for the creation of Prince Henry as prince of Wales, and the second for the prorogation.60 Chatsworth, Hardwick 29, pp. 162, 167; LJ, ii. 607b. During the session Cavendish acquired the text of a speech by the king, although it is not clear which one. He also paid £1 to a servant of the earl of Northampton, possibly indicating that Cavendish visited the earl, who, in October, secured the election of Cavendish’s eldest son, William, to the Commons for Bishop’s Castle. In addition, Cavendish gave 10s. to the ‘waiters’ of the Parliament House.61 Chatsworth, Hardwick 29, pp. 158, 166; HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 330.

Cavendish’s attendance declined significantly during the fifth session, although he was still recorded as attending 73 per cent of the sittings (16 out of 22). Nevertheless, he was present on only one of the five final days of the Parliament before it was prorogued on 6 Dec. 1610, though he returned to the chamber for the dissolution on 9 Feb. 1611. During the course of this session he was named to four of the seven committees appointed by the Lords, two of which were legislative (on bills to preserve timber and prevent lawsuits relating to bequests of land). He was also instructed to attend two conferences with the Commons: the first, on 25 Oct., concerned the Great Contract, and the second, on 13 Nov., concerned supply.62 LJ, ii. 669a, 671a, 675a, 678a, 684b. Cavendish’s accounts include payments to the officers of the House, which were probably made at the dissolution: the clerk received £1, the under clerk and gentleman usher received 10s. each, the yeoman usher 5s. and the ‘waiters’ 5s. between them. He also paid 6d. to ‘one that swept before the Parliament stairs’.63 Chatsworth, Hardwick 29, pp. 217, 222.

Cavendish’s wife evidently attended the marriage of the Scottish favourite, Robert Carr^*, earl of Somerset, to Frances Howard in December 1613, as she gave the couple £55 worth of plate.64 Ibid. 360. The Addled Parliament met the following April, when Cavendish’s son, William, was returned for Derbyshire.65 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 85. An entry in Cavendish’s accounts mentions the setting up of his ‘foot cloth horse at Parliament’, and presumably refers to the opening day of the session.66 Chatsworth, Hardwick 29, p. 366. Excused attendance on 9 Apr. because of illness, Cavendish was not recorded as present in the upper House from the 7th to the 11th of that month.67 LJ, ii. 690a. Nevertheless, he was recorded as attending 24 of the 29 sittings of that Parliament, 83 per cent of the total, and was appointed to three of the nine committees named by the upper House. As in the fifth session of the previous Parliament, he was named to consider measures concerning bequests of land and the preservation of timber. The third committee concerned a private measure.68 Ibid. 694a, 697b, 699b. Cavendish paid a total of 17s. 6d. to the gentleman usher, yeoman usher and the ‘grooms’ of Parliament (almost certainly servants to the groom porter). In late June he also contributed £100 towards the Benevolence levied by James I following the failure of the 1614 Parliament to vote supply.69 Chatsworth, Hardwick 29, pp. 371, 373.

Later life, 1614-26

Since 1610 Cavendish had been paying off his extravagant heir’s sizeable debts.70 Ibid. p. 165. By 1614 his patience was wearing thin, especially as following the dissolution, his son promptly left the country to escape his creditors. In January 1615 Cavendish was summoned before the lord chancellor, Thomas Egerton^*, Lord Ellesmere (later 1st Viscount Brackley), to explain why he was refusing to give security for the payment of his son’s debts, and it was not until the end of the year that his son felt able to return to England.71 HP Commons, 1604-29, iii. 464; SO3/6, unfol. (27 Jan. 1615). According to the letter writer, John Chamberlain, Cavendish now intended to leave a large landed estate to his son by his second marriage, John, but the latter, ‘a very hopeful and towardly young gentleman’, died in January 1618.72 Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, ii. 133.

The following summer Cavendish received a fresh opportunity for advancement when James offered earldoms for £10,000 each to finance his summer progress. By this date Cavendish evidently had no qualms about spending a large sum of money for his advancement. Consequently, on 7 Aug., he was made earl of Devonshire, dispensing with the need for any formal investiture. Devonshire paid the money into the Exchequer the day after his patent was issued. He also stumped up an additional £108 15s. 2d. in fees.73 HMC Bath, ii. 68; ‘Camden Diary’ (1691), 34; E401/1900, unfol. (8 Aug. 1618); Chatsworth, Hardwick 29, p. 545.

Attitudes to the new earl varied. Chamberlain reported that the ‘malicious poets and libellers’ called Devonshire ‘a Lombard or usurer’, while even John Holles^*, Lord Houghton (later 1st earl of Clare), thought that Devonshire had been ‘put on by his wife’ to a purchase that would bring only ‘a little precedence’ and an addition to his coat of arms. Nevertheless, Houghton regarded Devonshire’s elevation as a tribute to the new earl’s ‘long parsimony, and a temperate diet’, which had ‘so filled his purse, as what he list, he may have’, in contrast to the ‘brave, prodigal, nobly minded, well fashioned, and well clad lords, [who] shall sit ingloriously in the darkness, and as it were hold up the cloth to his good husbandry, and good reason’.74 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 163; Holles Letters ed. P.R. Seddon (Thoroton Soc. xxxv), 209.

The following year Cavendish was made lord lieutenant of Derbyshire. However, he was granted this office jointly with his son. This suggests that either there were doubts about his competence to hold major public office, or there were fears that, being in his late sixties, he might be too frail to discharge his duties or not have long to live. He contributed £300 towards a benevolence raised to defend the Palatinate in October 1620, although he only paid, after being pressed by the Council for a response, on 2 Jan. 1621.75 SP14/117/2, 96; Chatsworth, Hardwick 29, p. 658.

When the third Jacobean Parliament met in January 1621, Devonshire hired a chamber for his wife for the first day, possibly to enable her to watch the spectacle. It cost him £3 14s., an astonishing sum, which suggests that such rooms were in high demand. (His wife gave an additional 20s. to the king’s guard.) In late May Devonshire hired a chamber in Westminster for himself for 10s., suggesting that by then the now elderly earl needed a place to rest close to the Parliament. He also gave £3 to the gentleman usher, £1 10s. to the yeoman usher and £4 10s. to the clerk, which sums correspond to the higher rate of fees payable to the officers of Parliament by earls. In late May he paid a further 10s. to the officers of Parliament. He did the same after the session was resumed in November, when he also gave 5s. to the ‘fire-maker’.76 Chatsworth, Hardwick 29, pp. 659, 662, 681.

Devonshire remained assiduous in his attendance of the House of Lords during the 1621 Parliament. He is recorded as having attended 84 per cent of the sittings before Easter (37 out of 44). Between Easter and the summer recess he apparently did not miss a single sitting, and after the Parliament reconvened November he attended 23 out of 26 sittings, 88 per cent of the total. Nevertheless he received only three committee appointments, all concerning private legislation: one for a Norfolk estate, a second for the lands of Sir Richard Lumley, and the third to confirm an agreement between Thomas Wentworth*, 4th Lord Wentworth (later earl of Cleveland), and the copyholders of Stepney and Hackney.77 LJ, iii. 16a, 128b, 139b. In addition, he appears to have been unsuccessfully nominated to consider the bill concerning the lands of Edward Russell^*, 3rd earl of Bedford, on 9 May.78 Add. 40085, f. 132; PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/1, p. 109.

Parliament met again in 1624, when Devonshire was recorded as attending 80 out of 98, or 82 per cent, of the sittings of the upper House.79 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/2, ff. 37, 97v. Given leave of absence on 20 Apr., having already failed to attend on the 16th and 17th of that month, he returned to the House on the 22nd.80 LJ, iii. 313a. Devonshire received four committee appointments: two for public bills concerning inns and stealing plate, and another two for private measures.81 Ibid. 305a, 323b, 399b, 407a. In addition, he was again nominated to consider the bill concerning the copyholders of Stepney and Hackney, but was deleted from the final committee list.82 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, f. 37v.

Devonshire’s attendance declined significantly in the 1625 Parliament. Nevertheless, he was recorded as present 65 per cent of the time (22 out of 34 sittings). His distant kinsman, Henry Grey^*, 2nd Lord Grey of Groby (subsequently 1st earl of Stamford), made his excuses for him on 23 June, and he did not attend again until 1 Aug., when the session resumed after adjourning to Oxford. Other than taking the oath of allegiance, he took no recorded part in the proceedings of the first Caroline Parliament.83 Procs. 1625, pp. 46, 102; Riden, ‘Sir William Cavendish’, 244.

Devonshire was active in the autumn of 1625 in his capacity as lord lieutenant of Derbyshire, mustering the trained bands and compiling lists of potential privy seal lenders.84 HMC 3rd Rep. 42-3; CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 124, 154. However, by the time he made out his will, on 26 Jan. 1626, he was ‘weak in body’.85 PROB 11/148, f. 429v. Not surprisingly, therefore, there is no evidence that he attended the second Caroline Parliament, which met shortly thereafter; indeed, he was excused on ground of sickness at the call of the House on 15 Feb. 1626. The Journal, compiled after the session, states that he was appointed to the committee and subcommittee for privileges that same day, but these are almost certainly references to Devonshire’s son, who was added to those bodies on 5 Apr., having succeeded to his father’s titles in the interim. On 23 Feb., at the motion of William Herbert^*, 3rd earl of Pembroke (the grandson of one of Devonshire’s godfathers), the Lords granted privilege to one of Devonshire’s servants who was being sued in his capacity as a proxy for the earl about certain lands in Derbyshire.86 Procs. 1626, i. 48, 49, 65, 257; Collins, 12.

Devonshire died at Hardwick on 3 Mar. 1626, but was buried, in accordance with his wishes, in the church of Edensor, the parish in which Chatsworth is situated. In addition to his extensive estates he bequeathed his son, in a nuncupative codicil to his will, about £10,000 in cash and bonds, as well as his stake in the East India Company.87 Coll. of Arms, I.8, f. 19; PROB 11/152, f. 97v.