LIVINGSTON, Charles, 2nd Earl of Newburgh [S] (c.1666-94), of Cirencester, Glos.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. c.1666, 1st s. of James Livingston, 1st Earl of Newburgh [S], by 2nd w. m. lic. 12 Sept. 1692, aged 26, Frances (d. 23 Sept. 1736), da. of Francis, Lord Brudenell, 1da. (posth.); 1s. illegit. suc. fa. 4 Dec. 1670.1

Offices Held

Capt. indep. tp. June 1685; guidon 2 Horse Gds. July 1685, lt. 1687-Dec. 1688.

Dep. lt. Glos. Feb. 1688-9.

Biography

Lord Newburgh was not long in following his father’s example, fighting his first duel with another adolescent in 1681. He was returned as junior Member for Cirencester on his own interest at the contested election of 1685, doubtless as a Tory. Still under age, he was an inactive Member of James II’s Parliament, being named only to the committee to recommend expunctions from the Journals when it was revived on 3 June. On the news of Monmouth’s invasion, he raised a troop of cavalry, ignoring the requirements of the Test Act, and was ‘shot dangerously in the belly’ in a skirmish near Pensford on 24 June. He was commissioned in The Blues, but given leave to go abroad for six months in February 1688. Presumably he was expected to support the King’s religious policy, for he was made a deputy lieutenant, but he was not approved as a court candidate, perhaps because of his wildness. Instead, Sunderland wrote to him on 13 Sept. to ask for his interest at Cirencester with his tenants and officers for Henry Powle and John Chamberlain, ‘intending to stand with the King’s approbation’. He attended the King at Rochester in order to lay down his commission. He was under constant suspicion as a Jacobite after the Revolution, and spent a month in the Tower in 1690. He died on 6 Nov. 1694, and was buried at Cirencester. His posthumous daughter brought the earldom into the Radclyffe family, but his widow, who had a fortune of £12,000, sold the Cirencester property to Sir Benjamin Bathurst.2

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Basil Duke Henning

Notes

  • 1. C6/84/55; Scots Peerage, vi. 453.
  • 2. Luttrell, i. 150; ii. 238, 477, 619; Collectanea (Oxf. Hist. Soc. xxxii), 255; HMC Ormonde, n.s. vii. 344; CSP Dom. 1687-9), p. 154; 1690-1, pp. 69, 336; 1691-2, pp. 318, 319; SP44/56/433; HMC Kenyon, 211; Clarke, Jas. II, ii. 268.