STANHOPE, James (1673-1721), of London

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690-1715, ed. D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley, 2002
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

7 Mar. - 2 July 1702
1702 - 7 Apr. 1711
15 May 1711 - 1713
3 Mar. 1714 - 1715
1715 - 15 Apr. 1717
5 Apr. - 3 July 1717

Family and Education

b. 1673, 1st s. of Hon. Alexander Stanhope (yr. s. of Philip, 1st Earl of Chesterfield) by Katherine, da. of Arnold Burghill of Thinghall Parva, Herefs.  educ. Trinity, Oxf. 1688; travelled abroad (Spain, Italy) 1691–2.  m. 24 Feb. 1713, Lucy (d. 1723), da. of Thomas Pitt*, 3s. 5da. (?2 d.v.p.).  cr. Visct. Stanhope of Mahon 3 July 1717; Earl Stanhope 14 Apr. 1718.1

Offices Held

A.d.c. to Duke of Schomberg in service of Savoy 1691, serjt. 1692, capt. 1693; capt. 28 Ft. 1694; capt. and lt.-col. 1 Ft. Gds. 1695; second sec. to Paris embassy 1698 and to his fa. at The Hague 1700–1; col. 11 Ft. 1702–5; brig.-gen. 1704; envoy extraordinary to Charles III of Spain May 1706–Dec. 1707, May 1708–Dec. 1710; maj.-gen. 1707; c.-in-c. of Brit. forces in Spain Mar. 1708–Dec. 1710; lt.-gen. 1709; col. regt. of Drags. 1710–12; sec. of state (southern dept.) Sept. 1714–Dec. 1716 (northern dept.) Dec. 1716–Apr. 1717, Mar. 1718–d.; PC 29 Sept. 1714–d.; ambassador, Vienna Nov.–Dec. 1714; first ld. of Treasury and chancellor of Exchequer Apr. 1717–Mar. 1718; ambassador, Paris and Madrid June–Sept. 1718, Paris Jan. and Mar.–Apr. 1720, Berlin July 1720; ld. justice May–Nov. 1719, June–Nov. 1720.2

Biography

Stanhope’s early life is a bit of a mystery, owing mainly to the paucity of information about his father, Alexander, who has usually been identified as a gentleman of the bedchamber to Queen Catherine of Braganza. However, in November 1673 Sir Joseph Williamson* reported that ‘Mrs Price is to be married to Mr Stanhope, the Queen’s servant’, evidence at odds with Stanhope’s birth that year in Paris where Alexander Stanhope was on a diplomatic mission. After spending some time at Oxford, Stanhope visited his father, now serving as William III’s envoy in Madrid, before embarking on a military career as aide-de-camp to the Duke of Schomberg, then in the employ of the Duke of Savoy. Having fought at Marsaglia in 1693, he returned to England in the hope of securing preferment. His father used his contacts in London, such as William Blathwayt*, secretary at war, and his relatives, particularly the Marquess of Halifax (Sir George Savile†), whose daughter in 1692 had married Lord Stanhope, heir to the 2nd Earl of Chesterfield. Effusive letters to Halifax followed, and eventually in August 1694 Stanhope left England to serve as a volunteer in Flanders. Stanhope’s precocity and bravery (he was wounded at the siege of Namur) brought him to the King’s attention, prompted no doubt by Alexander Stanhope’s solicitations, so that even with the loss of Halifax as a patron he became a lieutenant-colonel in the foot guards. On 22 Jan. 1696, Stanhope, technically an alien on account of his birth in France, attended the Commons to take the oaths preparatory to the introduction of his naturalization bill, which passed the House in February. The end of hostilities saw Stanhope in Flanders engaged in a series of debauched social events, with such future MPs as Thomas Coke*, and then falling foul of the Earl of Portland while part of the latter’s retinue as ambassador to Paris in 1698. His faults included ‘the most extravagant profanation of the Christian religion’ and ‘writing a book for disbanding the army’, sentiments not likely to find favour with William III. However, others were impressed by the young man, John Methuen* informing Alexander Stanhope in May 1698 that he ‘is the gentleman of greatest hope in England and I believe no man of his age hath by his own personal merit, made himself so many friends and rendered himself so universally acceptable’.3

In 1698 Stanhope appears to have made an attempt to enter the Commons for a constituency in Devon, the failure of which cost him £20. By March 1701 Stanhope was residing in Bloomsbury and possibly hoping for a diplomatic posting, John Macky around this time recording that he was ‘very learned, with a great deal of wit. King William designed to send him to the court of Sweden; and he is certainly fit for any negotiation.’ Meanwhile Stanhope had settled on a Whig grandee, the Duke of Somerset, as a new patron and it was on Somerset’s interest that he fought and lost a by-election in February 1702 at Cockermouth. However, even before a petition against his defeat was presented on 14 Mar. Stanhope had been returned for Newport, Isle of Wight, with the aid of Lord Cutts (John*) who had chosen to sit for Cambridgeshire and had placed the military payroll vote at Stanhope’s disposal. Characteristically, Stanhope did not wait long to make his first recorded intervention in the House, and spoke on 19 Mar. in favour of a union as the most acceptable solution to the problem of Scotland and one much preferable to keeping them in check with an army of occupation, with its attendant dangers to English liberties. The speech made a favourable impression on the House, resulting in Stanhope’s inclusion on the committee to bring in a bill enabling the Queen to appoint commissioners to negotiate a union. King William’s death having put an end to his ‘Swedish project’, Stanhope eventually served as a volunteer on the Duke of Ormond’s staff in Spain during the 1702 campaign. Lord Stanhope had thought it unnecessary for Stanhope to volunteer as ‘you have now a rent charge of £400 a year in England’. The Earl of Huntingdon (possibly the source of the £400 p.a.) put Stanhope’s dilemma more bluntly in November when he pondered whether it was the correct course to ‘stay a brigadier in Spain or be a senator this winter in town’. Stanhope obviously agreed that his parliamentary talents should be utilized in London, residence in the capital also serving the purpose of allowing him to advance his claims to a diplomatic post.4

On his return from Spain, therefore, Stanhope played a full part in the Commons. In the 1702 Parliament he cannot always be differentiated in the Journals from Thomas Stanhope* (although James was often referred to as ‘colonel’). He voted on 13 Feb. for agreeing to the Lords’ amendments to the bill enlarging the time for taking the oath of abjuration and acted as a teller on the 19th against adjourning the committee of the whole on the Lords’ bill for supporting the war in the West Indies. Stanhope had clearly made no small impact on public affairs since the author of an attack on the Whigs entitled The Golden Age Revers’d included the following ditty:

          Stanhope, that offspring of unlawful lust,
          Begot with more than matrimonial gust,
          Who thinks no pleasure like Italian joy,
          And to a Venus arms prefers a pathetick boy,
          Shall thunder in the Senate and the field,
          And reap what fame, or arts or arms can yield.

Writing from Vienna in April George Stepney found this very amusing, but thought ‘a man of Colonel Stanhope’s fire ought hardly to put up with’. Back in Flanders for the 1703 campaign, Stanhope continued to lobby for a diplomatic posting, thinking firstly of an appointment to Turin, or as minister attending on the Archduke Charles when he landed to claim his Spanish kingdom. The Duke of Marlborough (John Churchill†) referred Stanhope to Secretary Nottingham (Daniel Finch†), the Duke preferring Lord Galway for the position on offer in Spain. Stanhope persevered, however, soliciting the aid of Somerset, ‘as my best and indeed only patron’, and his father. Nothing came of these efforts and it seemed that the best Stanhope could hope for was leave to be in England during the 1703–4 parliamentary session while preparing his regiment for service in Portugal.5

Stanhope was thus in London before the beginning of the session, and indeed on 28 Oct. 1703 wrote to Robert Walpole II* on behalf of a group of Whigs, to come up to Westminster before Christmas, noting that ‘I fancy we shall have some sport before the king of Spain can sail’. Henry Maxwell writing from Dublin on 23 Nov. felt moved to congratulate Stanhope for the ‘generous reply you made to some grave gentlemen . . . who would have had no particular notice taken in your address of thanks to the Queen’s speech for her conduct in relation to Portugal, Savoy and the circle of Swabia’, a reference to a Tory motion promoted by Sir Edward Seymour, 4th Bt., to make only a general address of thanks. On 25 Nov. Stanhope both spoke and acted as a teller against the motion for leave to bring in a bill against occasional conformity. Having left for Spain, he wrote to Somerset from Plymouth on 16 Jan. 1704 recounting the five days he had spent at sea before a storm had driven them back to port.6

Stanhope and his regiment did eventually escort the Archduke Charles into Spain for the 1704 campaign, but Stanhope himself fell ill and was left behind in Lisbon. His regiment was then captured by the French, so Stanhope returned to England. Sir John Cropley, 2nd Bt.*, writing in September, referred to Stanhope as ‘a skeleton’ when he first came back, but added that he was now recovered and demonstrating a renewed sense of purpose: ‘the Parliament is his mistress, so you may be sure he is under a very strict conduct and will be a perfect example of sobriety’. Stanhope was thus in England when the Commons sat to do business. On 14 Nov. 1704 he ‘spoke to admiration’ against granting leave for an occasional conformity bill. He had been forecast as an opponent of the Tack and did not vote for it on 28 Nov. Despite this useful service to the Court, he found his prospects of promotion to brigadier-general blocked, at least for the moment. On 20 Dec. he was appointed to the committee drafting the bill to naturalize the wife of his fellow officer William Cadogan*. The following day he acted as a teller in favour of giving a second reading the day after the Christmas recess to the Lords’ bill appointing commissioners to treat for a union with Scotland. Stanhope was not always a partisan figure in the Commons, Alan Brodrick† in a letter from Ireland noting that both Walpole and Stanhope had been ‘moderating the heats of politics . . . in the matter of Mr [John] Toke’s being questioned for what passed from him to the Speaker [Harley]’. As might be expected, on matters affecting the army his stance was pro-Court (even when it rejected safeguards for the liberty of the subject), as when he told on 7 Feb. 1705 against bringing up a clause that those who voluntarily enlisted should declare their consent before a justice or head constable. However, he was much more of a Country Whig on the issue of placemen. Thus on 13 Feb. Sir William Simpson wrote that Stanhope and Peter King*, ‘like novices of Whigs, have been very zealous in procuring a bill to pass the House of Commons for disabling men in offices erected since the year ’84 to be members’, a reference to a bill which subsequently lapsed after heavy amendment by the Lords. His indiscretion on this point ‘made it doubtful whether he should be turned out of the post he was in or preferred to a better’, but through the ‘mediation’ of Somerset it was reported that he would secure his promotion to brigadier. The death of his ‘bosom friend’, the Earl of Huntingdon, also in February, saw Stanhope confirmed in his windfall of £400 p.a. to ‘defend the liberty and laws of his country, and the rights of the people’. On 14 Mar. he acted as a teller against agreeing to an amendment to the Lords’ bill preventing the growth of popery that all who took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and subscribed the declaration in the Act should also declare themselves to be members of the Church of England.7

In April 1705, Stanhope wrote his father an illuminating self-assessment of his parliamentary role:

During all the last sessions I was generally thought to have done the Court as much service as any man in my station, for which not the least countenance or disposition to accept of my last endeavours was ever shown; towards the latter end came on the place bill which I was indeed in opinion always for, and I had met with no usage from those in power to engage me to make them a compliment, so that I appeared strenuously for it and had during the time it was depending some occasions of mortifying the Speaker. In short I may venture to say that I carried it through our House.

In the course of this Stanhope had fallen foul of Speaker Robert Harley* and blamed him for the difficulties with his promotion. However, if Cunningham’s, admittedly rather jaundiced, view is correct in attributing to Stanhope a role in which he

would seldom do any of the courtiers’ dirty work, but pressed to have a clear account of the public money, the succession of the crown as by law established, and the liberties of the people maintained, and everything to be openly and fairly transacted, in order to acquire for himself the reputation of a great patriot . . . and courageously turned the edge of his speech against men who pretended to the name of Whigs, but were staunch courtiers, though he was one of these himself,

then clearly active service abroad was most acceptable to the Court as it would ‘promote my being sent from Parliament’. Re-elected in 1705, he appears to have sold his regiment to John Hill* and served during the summer in Spain under the Earl of Peterborough. Sent home with the news of the capture of Barcelona, he arrived too late for the division on 25 Oct. over the choice of a Speaker, but attended a Cabinet meeting on 25 Nov. wherein it was decided to communicate to the Commons the contents of the Spanish king’s letter in a speech from the throne, which praised Stanhope for his ‘great zeal, attention, and most prudent conduct’. Classed as a placeman on a parliamentary list of 1705, he was also described as a ‘High Church courtier’, a patently absurd characterization. On 7 Dec. he was named to a conference with the Lords on the upper chamber’s resolution that the ‘Church was not in danger’, and on the 15th to draft a bill for paying and clearing the debts of three army officers. On the 19th he spoke in support of the second reading of the regency bill, noting that the specific rules governing the summoning of a Parliament could be dealt with in a committee and drawing a parallel with events in Spain and the failure to provide such a bill preparatory to the demise of Carlos II.8

In the new year, on 17 Jan. 1706, Stanhope acted as a teller in favour of the question that Sir Willoughby Hickman, 3rd Bt.*, was not duly elected for East Retford. More importantly, he was very prominent in the continuing debates on the regency bill: in committee on 10 Jan. he warned (possibly from his own preference for uninhibited debate) that ‘warm expressions may drop in company’, and so advised that widening the definition of treason to include merely ‘speaking, preaching and teaching’ such tenets as that Anne was not Queen, or that Parliament could not alter the succession, should be removed from the bill. Other interventions included speeches on 15 and 19 Jan. on the proposal for a regency; first of all he considered the powers of the regents and the need to avoid an interregnum, and on the latter date the composition of the regency, when he argued that the regents should be named during the Queen’s lifetime and be nominated by her successor, thereby reducing the possibility of any major threat to the succession. Most of these speeches can be interpreted as broadly in favour of the Court. However, Stanhope’s major contribution in these debates was on the provisions relating to placemen, which set a group of Whigs against both their Junto leaders and the Court. On 12 Jan. the House voted to instruct the committee of the whole on the bill to receive a clause explaining the place clause in the Act of Settlement (1701). The tone of Stanhope’s three recorded interventions was in favour of clarifying the legislation. Simpson, writing on the 15th, was already referring to a ‘schism’ among the Whigs, with Sir Richard Onslow, 3rd Bt.*, heading ‘a company of angry Whigs’, including Stanhope, who had been heard to say ‘he hoped to see the day when the Court should not have two negatives to an Act of Parliament, meaning that the officers in the House amounted to one negative’. Stanhope spoke twice when the committee of the whole discussed the ‘whimsical’ clause on 21 Jan. Having passed the committee by 56 votes, the clause was agreed by the House on 24 Jan. and the whole bill passed to the Lords on the following day. The Lords then amended the Commons’ amendments and Stanhope was appointed on 4 Feb. to the committee to draw up reasons why the Commons wished to adhere to one of theirs. The deadlock between the Houses had still not been resolved when around 7 Feb. Stanhope was forced away from Westminster to embark for Spain. Thus, on 17 Feb. he wrote from Plymouth to Cropley about the prospects for the place clause, using the authority of the Greeks to justify his position:

I have learnt from Demosthenes that the . . . sure preservative which a free people can have against the encroachments of tyrants is an eternal mistrust and jealousy. This argument, however unfit to be used in the House, or at a conference, ought to be inculcated to all who mean to preserve themselves freemen.

Stanhope thus was absent from the vital divisions on 18 Feb. over the place clause, but was still at Plymouth on 24 Feb. when he was able to inform Cropley of his surprise and concern at events. He felt that the Lords ‘have granted too much or too little . . . If they had taken our clause . . . it might have secured the administration under this reign from anything of that kind, whereas they have now made a substantial precedent to alter even in this reign’. Further, he regretted ‘how I have sauntered away ten days here. I heartily lament my not having attended our clause to the last.’ Before he set sail, Stanhope had the encouraging news from Cropley that he was seen as a leader of the Whigs on the matter: ‘the remnant of the faithful we are preserving to put in your hands’. Stanhope’s position as a Country Whig at odds with the Court prompted much comment in the following months (while he was away). First of all, there was the very fact of his going as envoy to Spain, a matter Stanhope’s mother had expressed doubt about as late as 12 Jan. Then there were the possible political repercussions: Somerset was reported on 26 Mar. to be ‘dissatisfied on your part in the clause’ which Cropley felt would jeopardize his return for Cockermouth at the next election; furthermore, friends such as Walpole, finding their appeals to Stanhope to desist in pressing the clause unheeded, were opposed to his re-election. However, only a month later, Simpson was reporting that both Somerset and the Duke of Newcastle (John Holles†) were disenchanted with the Junto, ‘out of the cabal and set up for patrons of the virtuous Whigs such as Molesworth [Robert*] and Stanhope’. Some historians have expressed surprise at Stanhope’s role in promoting the ‘whimsical’ clause, but it would seem consistent with his views of the legislature inspired by Greek literature, and as before it was to his personal advantage to let his real views come to the surface. After all, he was spirited out of the country with a plum military and diplomatic posting.9

Having arrived in Spain, Stanhope immediately pressed to be promoted to major-general, a compromise being reached whereby he would receive a commission from Charles III which would have no force when he returned home and thus would not cause uneasiness to officers serving elsewhere. However, as early as July 1706 Stanhope was writing of his ‘daily wish to be discharged from having anything more to do’ with the Spanish administration, and in October wrote of his ‘mortification to see a sure game thrown away’, a feeling of uselessness made worse by the news of his father’s rapidly deteriorating health and the consequent need to return to England to sort out family affairs. The apparent futility of his presence in Spain, plus the attendant expense, saw Stanhope renew his request to come home in December, lest he lose his parliamentary seat by spending another year abroad. Cropley also tempted him by news of prospective land purchases which carried parliamentary interest with them, although he thought the ministry might trump this attraction by offering Stanhope greater powers in Spain. In the new year Stanhope’s requests for a recall again failed to bear fruit, his secretary Horace Walpole and Somerset both apparently convinced that Stanhope was merely using this as a tactical ploy or that he was indispensable at that time. Worse still, the friction between Stanhope and his erstwhile friend Peterborough, which had been evident in 1706, was exacerbated by the defeat of the allies in April 1707 at Almanza. In response, Peterborough wrote to Marlborough concerning the 1707 campaign: ‘Mr Stanhope’s politics have proved very fatal, having produced our misfortunes and prevented the greatest successes’. Paradoxically, the defeat at Almanza increased the likelihood of Stanhope’s recall owing to his potential usefulness in rebutting Peterborough’s criticism of the ministry. With a treaty of commerce successfully negotiated in July 1707, Joseph Addison*, for one, felt Stanhope’s presence in London ‘perhaps necessary in case a certain Earl [Peterborough] should raise any uneasiness in the House of Lords’. Horace Walpole concurred in thinking that the likely Tory attack in the Lords might be better repulsed with the help of Stanhope’s insights. With his father now dying and the death of George Stepney opening up the possibility of a post in Holland (although Stanhope could not realistically be in place quickly enough), a return to England became more urgent. Having been recalled by Sunderland (Charles, Lord Spencer*) in a letter dated 21 Oct., Stanhope reported that he was about to sail for England on 12 Jan. 1708 N.S.10

After his arrival, Stanhope plunged almost immediately into parliamentary battle. On 24 Feb. 1708, with the Tories seeking to exploit the shortfall of troops at Almanza by blaming the debacle on the shortage of recruits, Stanhope and Thomas Erle* gave ‘some account of Spanish affairs that were then in dispute and said it very handsomely’, and thus helped the ministry to defeat a motion critical of their conduct. On 11 Mar. Stanhope ‘made a motion . . . to pass an Act that all vassalages of Scotland whose lords shall rise in rebellion, that if they quit their service and come in to us shall be entitled to whatever lands or tenements they hold under them’, being then named to the drafting committee for the bill. He managed the introductory stages of the bill, chairing the committee of the whole on the 13th. But on reporting the bill from committee on the 15th, news of Sir George Byng’s* success in chasing away the invasion fleet caused Members to adjourn, ‘being so pleased with the news that they could not go on with the debate’. Byng’s success effectively put paid to Stanhope’s ‘project’ which lapsed after being ordered to be engrossed. Stanhope also had a role to play in the political intrigues surrounding Harley’s attempted coup against Lord Godolphin (Sidney†). Probably by virtue of his involvement in the Spanish theatre of the war, Stanhope was in contact with Godolphin over the tactics to be employed in the Almanza debates. On 19 Feb. he told Cropley that ‘our ministers should be supported here’, and showed resentment that Marlborough had almost sacrificed the lord treasurer and joined with Harley’s new scheme. As matters were patched up between the duumvirs, so Stanhope’s own future became clearer. On 2 Mar. he had written to his brother Philip of his determination not to accept a post until he had received payment of his father’s arrears, half of which dated from William III’s reign. Having divided his father’s estate of £4,000 among his siblings, the £6,000 owed his father was to be Stanhope’s own share. However, three weeks later he had been satisfied in this particular and was appointed envoy and commander-in-chief in Spain. He duly set off for the Continent at the end of March.11

Stanhope was classed as a Whig in a list of early 1708, and was returned at the 1708 election while abroad. In informing him of his victory, Somerset expressed the hope that Stanhope would be able to return home in time for the parliamentary session. Cropley was more forthright in warning Stanhope that Lord Wharton’s (Hon. Thomas*) manoeuvrings at Cockermouth might eventually threaten his position. However, if previous conflict with the Junto left some Whigs suspicious of Stanhope, the Earl of Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley, Lord Ashley*) could describe him in July as the ‘one truly good man and great man coming up in the world’. Furthermore, for the mainstream Whigs, the Earl of Sunderland felt constrained to write in September of the Queen’s hope that Stanhope would be in England in the winter ‘thinking your presence in the Parliament would be of great use to her service’, and leaving it to his discretion as to whether he could be spared from Spain. In the event, following his victorious capture of Minorca and its valuable naval base at Port Mahon, Stanhope remained abroad for almost the whole of 1709, receiving letters concerning his investments in the Bank and complaining himself about his expenses. Fortunately for his reputation, the difficulties of the Spanish campaign were imputed ‘entirely to that wretched court of Barcelona, and not at all to Mr Stanhope, who seems to me [Godolphin] to have done his part there very well’. As early as November 1709 Shaftesbury was wishing Stanhope at home, and James Craggs II* informed Stanhope that the ministry would be attacked over the failure of its Spanish policy ‘and are persuaded you are the properest person to justify them and put ’em in a good light’. Given this, Stanhope wrote from Genoa on 12 Dec. N.S. to Secretary Sunderland of his intention to come to England.12

Stanhope’s arrival in England was reported by L’Hermitage in his despatch of 3 Jan. 1710. He was too late to participate in drawing up the articles of impeachment against Dr Sacheverell, which were reported on 9 Jan., the first day after a long Christmas recess. Stanhope’s first intervention in the Commons was made on 25 Jan. when he spoke in favour of bringing in a place bill. This was noted by contemporaries and remembered by James Lowther* in July when he declared that ‘his [Stanhope’s] honourable promoting of bills to lessen the number of officers in the House when he himself was one, because he believed one time or other they would ruin the constitution, is proof of his integrity, that will never be forgot’. He was included with those ordered on 6 Feb. to draft a bill for continuing the Recruitment Act for the ensuing year. But of far more importance was his addition on 10 Feb. to the committee charged with managing the impeachment against Sacheverell. Godolphin, it seems, envisaged a different role for Stanhope than as a parliamentary manager, for on 23 Feb. he wrote to Marlborough:

I wish I could get Mr Stanhope sent over to you, but I find 6 [Sunderland] will think him so necessary at the trial . . . that till that be over I have no hopes of getting him dispatched. If it comes to such a peace as that we must recover Spain, as we can, his being there would be of great use.

Stanhope’s major contribution to the prosecution occurred on 28 Feb. when he spoke on Sacheverell’s views on passive obedience and non-resistance and their implications for the post-revolutionary regime, and did so ‘with a spirit, which in him, being a soldier, was called fine, in another would have been indecent’. For Stanhope the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance, as propounded by Sacheverell, were a clear message that the Queen’s government was based on an illegal action. Stanhope, on the other hand, saw the foundation of any government as resting on ‘resistance or compact’. What made Stanhope’s speech so effective was its delivery with few notes, its erudition, and the use it made of a wide range of texts, such as Grotius, which were usually seen as expositions of the contrary view, in support of the prosecution’s case: hence even Dean Atterbury’s own work found its way into the canon of works paraded by Stanhope to justify his claims. Not surprisingly, Stanhope voted for the impeachment, and acted as a teller on 3 Mar. against an amendment to the address to the Queen for suppressing tumults attendant on the trial, which sought to blame ‘republicans’ as well as Catholics and non-jurors. The trial over, Stanhope’s presence was no longer vital and by 17 Mar. L’Hermitage was reporting his departure.13

Stanhope was thus out of the country during the ministerial revolution of 1710 and the dissolution that followed. Events in Spain took a turn for the better with the allied victories at Almenara and Sargossa, and this in turn persuaded the Whigs to put Stanhope up as a candidate for Westminster, with Major-General Davenport serving as his proxy. Whig hopes that Stanhope would be ‘sufficiently recommended by his great services and successes in Spain’ proved ill-founded, despite rumours that the Queen favoured him and despite the ministry’s decision to keep him in place as commander in Spain. He was ‘called a sodomite, and other scandalous names, and charged with having profaned and defiled the altar’. Fortunately, as defeat loomed at Westminster, despite almost the whole Whig aristocracy seeming to exert itself in his favour, efforts were also made to ensure that Somerset secured Stanhope’s return for Cockermouth.14

Stanhope had barely set foot in Spain before he was itching to come to the aid of his fellow Whigs. As early as May 1710 he wrote to Sunderland of his sorrow that the ‘High Church’ were likely to cause trouble and offering to come home if he would prove useful. As the tide turned against the Whigs and swept them from office, leading Whig politicians, such as Robert Walpole II, actively sought his return: ‘pray make haste to us, that you may see what you will not believe if it were told you’. Marlborough, too, was hoping for more ‘assistance’ from men like Stanhope and Cadogan during the forthcoming Parliament for ‘they have both honesty and courage to speak truth’. With the increasing likelihood of his recall, Stanhope showed some impatience to receive official permission to return: ‘without it . . . I shall not venture nor trust Mr Harley with my head’. Military victory had in fact made him popular, and a target for recruitment into Harley’s ministry: as Craggs jovially expressed it, ‘this may defer your impeachment and make you more courted by the new party’. Unfortunately, defeat and capture at Brighuega in late November 1710 removed all possibility of an early return to the fray at Westminster. Thus, although marked as a Whig on the ‘Hanover list’ he remained a prisoner for the first two sessions of the 1710 Parliament. A Tory attempt to unseat him at Cockermouth saw the Commons declare his initial election void on 7 Apr. 1711, but he was returned at the subsequent by-election, with Somerset placing his influence behind the campaign.15

During his captivity, Stanhope was of course unable to defend himself from accusations of misconduct in Spain, although the Whigs could rely on the justice of the House in not condemning a man unheard. As Stanhope wrote to Cropley in February: ‘I did everything I thought for the best: fortune hath crushed me, and I know no remedy but patience. I am sensible how I shall be arraigned in England.’ While Stanhope pursued plans for his release and for the relief of his fellow prisoners of war, he also studied philosophy. He may well have needed the diversion since his efforts at securing an exchange of prisoners were thwarted by the Spanish (though possibly with the tacit agreement of the British ministry) because he was ‘represented as a man that would do a great deal of harm, if he was suffered to go home, being of the wrong party, and one that would violently oppose the peace that was in agitation’. At least Cropley was able to inform him that his Bank stock (over £4,000 in 1710) was flourishing. January 1712 again saw rumours that his release was being delayed due to fears that he would prove to be an effective opponent of the peace. After being exchanged for the Duke of Escalona, Stanhope made his way through France, stopping at Fontainebleau where his friend Lord Bolingbroke (Henry St. John II*) was also visiting, reaching England in mid-August, and waiting on the Queen on the 18th. A report from Paris suggested that Stanhope had acted with notable circumspection while in France, although some of his entourage had not, giving rise to the view that he was hostile to the peace and the restraining orders and still a creature of the war party. Shaftesbury expressed the hope that Stanhope would ‘rise out of his retirement with nobler thoughts and higher estimation of his own time and health than to lavish both after the way of our Whig grandees’. With Parliament prorogued and awaiting the peace for the remainder of 1712, Stanhope appears to have spent his time visiting various Whigs in the country and promoting sales of his own translation of part of Shaftesbury’s Essay upon the Characteristicks.16

At the beginning of 1713 Stanhope received a medal from the Queen commemorating the allied victory at Almenara. February 1713 saw a symbolic statement of his political intent as he accompanied the Duchess of Marlborough to Dover on her way to a self-imposed exile on the Continent. Later the same month Stanhope married. When Parliament reassembled in April Stanhope had had the luxury of nearly a year in the country in which to acclimatize himself to the political situation. Consequently, it was to be his most active session to date, with no urgent need for him to travel overseas to take up a military or diplomatic post. Stanhope’s initial intervention came on 10 Apr. over the wording of that part of the Address referring to the peace: the Journals record a division over leaving out the words such a peace as ‘might be conducted’, which was heavily defeated. However, three sources suggest this was the prelude to an attempt by Stanhope to insert the words ‘we hope might be conducted’, thereby indicating unease at expressing an opinion before the House had actually seen the terms of the peace. The following day Stanhope ‘urged very handsome the necessity of having the treaties before us’, and there was no opposition to this motion for an address, once the Court had amended it to be done ‘in due time’. In the committee of supply on 22 Apr. Stanhope supported a Tory back-bench rebellion on the land tax which resulted in a resolution for only 2s. in the pound, rather than the 3s. desired by the Court, and an addition that it should not be altered later in the session. His involvement in this process was acknowledged by the House on 23 Apr. with his appointment to the drafting committee to bring in the land tax.17

As one might expect, Stanhope was heavily involved in the debates concerning commercial relations with France, an important part of the peace treaty. Thus, on 6 May Stanhope was listed as voting against the committal of the bill to suspend for two months the duties imposed on French wines since 1696. According to one of Sir William Trumbull’s* correspondents Stanhope was one of the Whigs who spoke against the bill on the grounds that ‘this was a ruinous and destructive peace, and that the only considerable branch of our trade being at present our Portugal trade, even that was going to be given up and made precarious by this Act’. When on 14 May the committee of the whole discussed the 8th and 9th articles of the French commercial treaty, Stanhope changed his tack slightly in a long speech in which he sought to move discussion of the issue away from the peace and on to that of trade, over which he hoped no doubt to persuade Tory MPs to break with the ministry: ‘the peace being made, it was now preposterous to say anything for or against it’, and therefore ‘the only point to be considered was whether a free trade with France would be advantageous or no’. To answer this ‘it was necessary to consult the merchants and manufacturers who had presented several petitions and representations about it’. Peter Wentworth expounded on another part of Stanhope’s speech which gave weight to the danger of destroying the trade with Portugal: ‘why should we try new experiments at the expense of breach of treaty with a nation whose trade was much more advantageous to us?’ Stanhope’s knowledge of the Iberian Peninsula, and of trade negotiations, must have lent weight to his views, but the Whigs offered only token opposition to the motion ordering the bill. However, Stanhope was also keen to court opinion outside Parliament in the hope of building up pressure against the bill from commercial interests, and he published a journal, The British Merchant, which extolled the positive trade balance with Spain, Portugal and Italy as opposed to the deficit run with France in peacetime.18

While the bill confirming the 8th and 9th articles was being prepared, Stanhope was able to marry opposition to the ministry with adherence to long-cherished beliefs about the dangers to the constitution of too many office-holders sitting in the House. Thus on 15 May he was one of the Whigs who supported the consolidation of the place bill with the malt duty. When the committee of the whole considered the commerce bill on 9 June they heard representations from the Levant Company over the treaty’s likely detrimental effect on woollen and silk manufacture: Stanhope quoted the preamble to an Act of Charles II to show the damage French imports were perceived to cause at that time. Speaker Bromley (not in the chair) rejected this claim, but when the document was read Stanhope was proved correct, which led him, in turn, into some vitriolic criticism of Bromley. Needless to say, Stanhope was a champion of allowing merchant witnesses the fullest possible freedom to put their objections against the bill. When the bill was reported on 18 June Stanhope spoke and voted against its engrossment. In the aftermath of the bill’s rejection, he was named to the committee on 23 June to address the Queen to appoint commissioners to treat with France for a new commercial treaty. A motion proposed by Stanhope to instruct the committee to include in the address the view that the Queen’s subjects should have liberty to trade in all French ports was lost on the previous question, the Commons not wishing to be accused of ‘tying the Queen down’.19

On 1 July 1713 Stanhope was first-named to a committee to draft an address asking the Queen to secure the Pretender’s removal from Lorraine, an appointment which suggests his prime role in devising this motion. Although he reported from the committee on the 3rd, according to Wentworth the House chose the seconder, Auditor Harley, as chair, ‘contrary to the known rules of the House’. On the last day of the session, 16 July, the House took into consideration the report of the commissioners appointed to inquire into the number and quality of the Queen’s forces in Spain and Portugal and the various accounts for those places. As several aspects of their report touched upon Stanhope’s conduct, he was heard in his place and the report then referred to the commissioners for taking the accounts of the army, transports and sick and wounded. Thus, Stanhope still had a threat hanging over his head concerning his role in Spain.20

As early as April 1713 Stanhope had begun to prepare for the forthcoming general election. Not surprisingly, he went first to his family’s traditional area of influence, the borough of Derby. However, after securing support from Lord Stanhope, he was advised that his chances of success would be slight. Reports of a candidacy at Southwark proved unfounded and no vacancy was available at Andover. Stanhope was defeated at Cockermouth, possibly owing to the Whig vote being stretched by Nicholas Lechmere* standing with Lord Wharton’s backing, and was disappointed that his father-in-law Pitt did not bring him in for Old Sarum or Wilton. Immediately, his friends began looking at seats with Members returned for more than one constituency, such as William Morison at Sutherland. Faced with the prospect of having to wait for a fortuitous by-election to re-enter the parliamentary arena, Stanhope offered Schütz a gloomy prognostication of the new legislature: ‘his opinion is that if things continue never so short a time upon the present footing, the Elector will not come to the crown, unless he comes with an army’. Despite private criticisms of Harley (now Lord Oxford), he wrote to him on 9 Oct. 1713 regarding arrears of his salary, and even soliciting payment for the period he spent while in captivity. In November he was invited to reply to the report of the commissioners investigating the Spanish campaign, and appeared before the commissioners of accounts in February 1714 concerning the negotiations for the commercial treaty with Spain and the use of secret service money.21

Stanhope spent the first month of the 1714 Parliament outside the House, returning to the Commons when Richard Hampden II* chose to sit for Berwick which thereby allowed Stanhope in at Wendover. Kreienberg thought that the findings of the commissioners of accounts might be used to expel him, but Stanhope showed no apprehension of this, taking his seat on 15 Mar. and showing little sign of pulling his punches in debate. Indeed, no sooner had Stanhope taken his seat than he was plunged into opposing the Tory attempt to expel Richard Steele for writing pamphlets containing material tending to sedition and reflecting upon the Queen and her government. Steele appeared on 18 Mar. in his place to answer the accusations, flanked by Stanhope and Walpole, ‘who condescended to take upon them the parts of his advocates’. Upon the method of proceeding, Stanhope supported Steele’s request to defend his writings paragraph by paragraph, objecting to an observation by Sir William Wyndham, 3rd Bt., that the Sacheverall trial was aimed at subverting the constitution with the question: ‘Is a legal trial of an offender the subversion of our constitution?’ The gist of Stanhope’s and Walpole’s argument as captured by Bothmar was that they

could find nothing in them which required to be explained, or which could not be acknowledged and recognized in front of every court in England; thus the burden of proving the evil of these writings rested with the Member who had complained of them.

In a partisan House this ploy failed and Steele was duly expelled, Stanhope joining those voting in the minority. Stanhope’s next notable intervention came on 16 Apr. at the report of the committee of the whole on the state of the nation with regard to the Protestant succession. Stanhope spoke ‘admirably well’, pointing out that ‘British ministers in all courts were looked upon as French solicitors, that we did the drudgery of France, and cited the Earl of Strafford’s memorial to the Dutch’, and that Louis XIV wished to restore the Pretender. Again his speech had no discernible effect, but no doubt maintained pressure on those Tories known to be uneasy at the direction of the ministry’s policy on the succession. When on 22 Apr. the Commons debated whether to join with the Lords in an address thanking the Queen for an advantageous peace with France and Spain, Stanhope ‘only spoke to one point, as to the duties we were to pay in Spain’. Drawing on his deep knowledge of the subject as the negotiator of a commercial treaty between the two powers, he was able to challenge Arthur Moore’s* favourable gloss on the latest proposals by suggesting that formerly the trade to Spain yielded a 9 per cent profit, so how could merchants afford a 10 per cent ad valorem? In effect, Stanhope postulated that the new duties would amount to a prohibition. Again the Whigs failed to divide the Commons on the matter, but continued to oppose effectively in debate.22

After a six-day recess, Stanhope unsuccessfully moved on 20 May 1714 for a call of the House. Two extant speeches detail Stanhope’s opposition to the schism bill. On 1 June, at its third reading, he suggested that one ill consequence of the bill would be the education abroad of many children, leading to a drain on the country’s resources and the possibility that foreigners would ‘fill the tender minds of young men with prejudices against their own country’, just as the Catholic seminaries had done, and as an incidental argument added that for this reason the laws against such institutions should be relaxed as well. On 23 June Stanhope backed an amendment to a Lords’ amendment exempting noblemen from the bill, which would have extended the privilege to families of MPs on the grounds that they ‘had as great a concern as the Lords for the education of their children and an equal right to take care of their instruction’. Also in June, Stanhope managed a bill through the House for the provision of a public reward for anyone discovering a method of calculating longitude, chairing the committee of the whole in the process. At the prorogation of Parliament on 9 July Stanhope was reported to be in ‘prodigious fury’ at the Queen’s Speech and had declared that ‘from what she said I look upon our liberties as good as gone’. Such near despair no doubt prompted him to think of using armed struggle to protect the Hanoverian succession and, if Lord Egmont (John Perceval†) is to be believed, assassination of the proposer of any motion to repeal the Act of Settlement and allow the Queen to appoint a successor of her own choice. No doubt because of his influence Bolingbroke entertained Stanhope and other Whig friends to dinner on 27 July, the day he finally ousted Oxford from office. This approach was to no avail as on 30 July Stanhope wrote to his old master the Archduke Charles (now Emperor Charles VI) assuring him that ‘all right-thinking people here are indignant at the perfidious conduct of the last ministry’, and predicting a peaceful succession for the ‘House of Brunswick’. Stanhope was on hand on 1 Aug. to sign the proclamation of George I. On 6 Aug. he was entertained by Marlborough and was soon tipped for high office in the new regime.23

Stanhope was appointed secretary of state in September 1714, his only rival appearing to be Hon. Henry Boyle*. His knowledge of Europe and commitment to the Hanoverian succession were his main qualifications for the post. For the next seven years Stanhope was arguably the dominant figure in British politics, leading the Whig ministry in alliance with Sunderland. Many of the themes of his period in power were foreshadowed in his earlier career, especially his knowledge of foreign affairs and his interest in constitutional matters. Even the manner of his death on 5 Feb. 1721, occurring as it did on the day following an impassioned defence of his conduct in the Lords, was reminiscent of earlier days in the Commons, when he had railed against the iniquity or injustice of some legislative matter. He was buried later that month at Chevening, the house he had bought in 1717, leaving five children (two born posthumously).24

Stanhope’s parliamentary career to 1715 was an intermittent affair, punctuated by military and diplomatic duties overseas. However, it was not short of incident: from his very first speech he did not shirk difficult or controversial issues, but rather relished the challenge of the political battle. In Arthur Onslow’s† assessment, Stanhope was ‘a man of great public spirit, but too hot and projecting in matters of state . . . a reputation of great bravery and resolution . . . [and] the best scholar perhaps of any gentleman of his time’. In many ways historians have adhered to this interpretation of Stanhope as a flawed genius, Basil Williams making the case for his contribution to European diplomacy. Others have stressed his honesty and stoicism, seeing him as a philosopher-statesman.25

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: Stuart Handley

Notes

  • 1. B. Williams, Stanhope, 1–3, 8, 128; Collins, Peerage, iv. 178; HMC Fortescue, i. 58; Hearne Colls. vii. 217.
  • 2. Williams, 9.
  • 3. A. N. Newman, Stanhopes of Chevening, 15, 17–26; Williamson Corresp. (Cam. Soc. n.s. ix), 71; Williams, 2, 8–25; Devonshire mss at Chatsworth House, Halifax pprs. Stanhope to Halifax, 17/27 Sept. 1694; Centre Kentish Stud. Stanhope mss U1590/C9/1, Alexander to James Stanhope, 10 Mar. 1694 N.S.; U1590/O7–2, Blathwayt to Alexander Stanhope, 14 June N.S., 18/28 July, 19/29 Sept. 1695; U1590/O28/5, John Methuen to same, 2 May 1698; Ld. Mahon, Spain under Charles II, 55, 78–79; Lexington Pprs. 116; HMC Cowper, ii. 370; HMC Bath, iii. 205, 226, 241; Cunningham, Hist. GB, 180.
  • 4. Newman, 24, 27–29; Macky Mems. 151; Cocks Diary, 250–1; Stanhope mss U1590/C9/1, Alexander to James Stanhope, 23 Jan., 20 Feb. 1702; U1590/C9/9, Ld. Stanhope to same, 26 Apr. [1702]; U1590/C7/23, Somerset to Alexander Stanhope, 31 July 1702; U1590/C9/28, same to James Stanhope, 2 July 1702; DZA, Bonet despatch 17/28 Feb. 1702; Williams, 26.
  • 5. Poems on Affairs of State ed. Ellis, vi. 517, 525; Stanhope mss U1590/C9/28, Somerset to Stanhope, 8 June 1703; U1590/C9/1, Alexander Stanhope to same, n.d. [summer 1703], 28 July 1703; Boston Pub. Lib. Mass. Ms. K.5.5, Stanhope to Somerset, 15/26 June, 15 Aug. 1703, Alexander Stanhope to same, 20/31 July 1703, Ld. Godolphin to same, 1 Aug. 1703; Marlborough Letters and Despatches ed. Murray, i. 141, 158, 190; Marlborough–Godolphin Corresp. 218; Add. 61157, ff. 41, 43; Newman, 29.
  • 6. Stanhope mss U1590/O141/11, Henry Maxwell to Stanhope, 23 Nov. 1703; Coxe, Walpole, ii. 4; Bonet despatch 12 Nov. 1703; Atterbury Epistolary Corresp. iii. 140; HMC 15th Rep. VII, 113–14.
  • 7. Studies in Dip. Hist. ed. Hatton and Anderson, 58; Newman, 30–31; Bull. IHR, xli. 179; Surr. RO (Guildford), Midleton mss 1248/2, ff. 163–4; Univ. Kansas Spencer Research Lib. Methuen–Simpson corresp. C163, Simpson to Methuen, 13, 27 Feb. 1705; HMC Portland, iv. 168; Cunningham, 460.
  • 8. Newman, 30–31; Cunningham, 460; E. Gregg, Q. Anne, 235; Cowper, Diary, 19–20; Cam. Misc. xxiii. 57.
  • 9. Cam. Misc. xxiii. 37, 58, 62–63, 66, 68, 70, 72, 77, 80–81; G. Holmes, Pol. in Age of Anne, 132, 223, 340–1; Bull. IHR, xlix. 54–55; Speck thesis, 157–8; Methuen–Simpson corresp. C163, Simpson to Methuen, 15 Jan., 12 Feb., 30 Apr. 1706; Add. 61511, ff. 1–2; PRO 30/24/20/278; Stanhope mss U1590/C9/31, Cropley to Stanhope, 19 Feb., 26 Mar. [1706]; Newman, 33.
  • 10. Marlborough–Godolphin Corresp. 575–6, 590, 807, 905, 918, 922; Marlborough Letters and Despatches, ii. 629; Add. 5441, f. 172; 61157, f. 72; 61511, ff. 35–36; 61512, ff. 1, 3; Newman, 34–35; Stanhope mss U1590/C9/31, Cropley to Stanhope, n.d. [1706], 28 Jan., 25 Mar. [1707]; U1590/C9/28, Somerset to same, 12 Feb. 1706/7; U1590/O137/17/65/1, Horace Walpole to same, 12, 19, Aug., 16, 23 Sept. 1707; O137/16/65/2, Sunderland to same, 21 Oct. 1707; Coxe, Walpole, ii. 7; Addison Letters, 74, 76.
  • 11. Addison Letters, 95, 103, 106; Vernon–Shrewsbury Letters, iii. 355; Hervey Letter Bks. i. 231–2; PRO 30/24/21/21–4; G. Holmes, Pol. Relig. and Soc. 72–73; Marlborough–Godolphin Corresp. 943; Newman, 36.
  • 12. Stanhope mss U1590/C9/28, Somerset to Stanhope, 24 June 1708; U1590/C9/31, Cropley to same, 18 July [1708], 15 Mar. [1709]; U1590/O138/27, Sunderland to same, 24 Sept. 1708; U1590/O139/9/71/3, Craggs to same, 8 Nov. 1709 N.S.; Shaftesbury Letters, 388, 411; Huntington Lib. Stowe mss 58 (3), pp. 224–5; Marlborough–Godolphin Corresp. 1365, 1381; Add. 61513, f. 120.
  • 13. Add. 17677 DDD, ff. 378, 439; 47026, f. 5; Boyer, Anne Annals, viii. 336; Bull. IHR, xxxix. 59; G. Holmes, Pol. in Age of Anne, 223; Marlborough–Godolphin Corresp. 1421–2; Yale Univ. Beinecke Lib. Osborn coll. ‘Acct. of trial of Dr Sacheverell’, p. 5; G. Holmes, Trial of Sacheverell, 137–9, 142; State Trials, xv. 126–34; HMC Portland, iv. 533.
  • 14. Oldmixon, Maynwaring, 163; Boyer, Pol. State, i.–ii. 13; Wentworth Pprs. 143, 145–7; HMC Downshire, i. 903–4; Cunningham, 306; Marlborough–Godolphin Corresp. 1590–1, 1603, 1607–9, 1631, 1649, 1654; Add. 70421, newsletter 19 Sept. 1710; W. L. Sachse, Ld. Somers, 299; K. Feiling, Tory Party, 432; Stanhope mss U1590/O140/12/73/18, Craggs to Stanhope, 13 Oct. 1710.
  • 15. Stanhope mss U1590/O140/54, Stanhope to Sunderland, 14 May 1710; U1590/O141/6, Walpole to Stanhope, 22 Aug. 1710; U1590/O140/12/73/18, Craggs to same, 12 Sept. 1710 N.S.; U1590/O140/50, Stanhope to Somerset, 18 Nov. 1710; U1590/C9/27, Thomas Micklethwaite to Stanhope, 13 Apr. 1711; Coxe, i. 33; Stanhope, Reign of Anne, 448–9; Newman, 45.
  • 16. SRO, Montrose mss GD220/5/808/1a, [Mungo Graham*] to [Montrose], 2 Jan. 1711; Ld. Mahon, Hist. War of Spanish Suc. 340–1; Duchess of Marlborough Corresp. i. 83; U1590/C9/31, Cropley to Stanhope, 21 Oct. 1711; Egerton 3359; Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 712; Daily Courant, 9 Jan., 21 Aug. 1712; Boyer, Pol. State, iv. 102, 109; PRO 31/3/199; Shaftesbury Letters, 463; R. Voittle, Shaftesbury, 408.
  • 17. Mems. of Life and Actions . . . of . . . Stanhope, 24; HMC 7th Rep. 508; Montrose mss GD220/5/298/5a, John Cockburn to [Montrose], 8 Feb. 1712/13; Boyer, Pol. State, v. 37; Add. 47027, ff. 24–25; 17677 GGG, ff. 144–5; NLS, Advocates’ mss, Wodrow pprs. letters Quarto 7, ff. 129–30; Hervey Letter Bks. i. 355; Chandler, iv. 338; D. Szechi, Jacobitism and Tory Pol. 127, 129; NSA, Kreienberg despatch 24 Apr. 1713.
  • 18. BL, Trumbull Add. mss 136, Ralph Bridges to Trumbull, 8 May 1713; Add. 17677 GGG, f. 164; Kreienberg despatches 8, 15 May 1713; Cobbett, Parlty. Hist. vi. 1213; Wentworth Pprs. 335; Newman, 46; Williams, 131–3.
  • 19. Herefs. RO, Brydges mss A81/IV/23/b, William to Francis Brydges, 16 May 1713; Cobbett, vi. 1222–3; Bodl. Rawl. lett. 92, f. 563; Williams, 133; Kreienberg despatch, 12 June 1713; SRO, Cromartie mss GD305/bdle. xv, [–] to [Cromartie], 20 June 1713; Chandler, v. 42; Northants. RO, Isham mss IC 3834, Justinian† to Sir Justinian Isham, 4th Bt.*, 23 June 1713; SRO, Dalhousie mss GD45//14/323/7, [Ld. Lyon] to [Maule], [23 June 1713].
  • 20. Wentworth Pprs. 341; Szechi, 139; Williams, 133–4.
  • 21. Stanhope mss U1590/C9/9, Ld. Stanhope to Stanhope, 15 Apr. 1713; C9/14, Thomas Stanhope* to same, 2 May 1713; C9/28, Duke of Bolton (Charles Powlett I*) to same, 20 Aug. 1713; C9/33, Robert Munro* to Robert Walpole II, 29 Oct. 1713; Newdigate newsletter 18 July 1713; Churchill Coll. Camb. Erle mss, Craggs to Thomas Erle*, 21 Sept. 1713; Beaufort mss at Badminton House, Coventry pprs. Beaufort to George Pitt*, 20 Aug. 1713; Hants RO, Jervoise mss, Mr Harris to Thomas Jervoise*, 30 Oct. 1713; Holmes, Pol. in Age of Anne, 320; Orig. Pprs. ed. Macpherson, ii. 478; HMC Portland, v. 346; Add. 17677 HHH, f. 45; Williams, 134–5.
  • 22. Boyer, Pol. State, vii. 263; Kreienberg despatch, 9 Mar. 1714; HMC Portland, v. 400; Cobbett, vi. 1268, 1288, 1347–8; Douglas diary (Hist. of Parl. trans.), 18 Mar., 22 Apr. 1714; G. Holmes and W. A. Speck, Divided Soc. 75–76; Williams, 136; Wodrow pprs. letters Quarto 8, ff. 95–96; Add. 31144, f. 453; Wentworth Pprs. 377; Bodl. Ballard 25, f. 113; HMC 15th Rep. VII, 213–14.
  • 23. Ballard 20, f. 80; Cobbett, vi. 1349–50, 1356; PRO 31/3/203, f. 7; Williams, 136–7, 143–4, 147; Lockhart, i. 479; HMC Egmont Diary, ii. 509; Holmes, Pol. in Age of Anne, 97; Boyer, Pol. State, vii. 625; viii. 117, 169; Swift Corresp. ed. Williams, i. 89.
  • 24. Wentworth Pprs. 420, 422, 427; Coxe, ii. 48; Hatton, George I, 125–6; HMC Polwarth, iii. 47.
  • 25. HMC 14th Rep. IX, 511–12; Williams, 1–2; M. A. Thomson, Secs. of State, 159; Newman, 100; Voittle, 303, 408.