styled 1629-38 Ld. Ley; suc. fa. 1 Apr. 1638 as 3rd earl of MARLBOROUGH
First sat 13 Apr. 1640; first sat after 1660, 20 Nov. 1660; last sat 6 May 1664
b. 28 Jan. 1618, o. s. of Henry Ley†, 2nd earl of Marlborough, and Mary, da. of Sir Arthur Capell, of Little Hadham, Herts. educ. unknown. unm. d. 2 June 1665; will 26 Mar.–29 May, pr. 22 June 1665.1
Lt. RN, capt. 1661; adm. of detached squadron 1662–3.2
Associated with: Teffont Evias and Westbury, Wilts.
In his memoirs Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, recalled Marlborough as ‘a man of wonderful parts in all kinds of learning, which he took more delight in than his title’.3 He was known for his particular skill in mathematics, which found practical application in a career as a navigator, colonizer, and naval commander.4 His financial position was precarious. Shortly after succeeding to the title Marlborough had to sell the family estate at Westbury and was left with only a small cluster of Wiltshire manors centring on Teffont Evias and worth just £200 a year.5 By 1643 he was an ‘admiral’ at Dartmouth, responsible for assembling and equipping a squadron of ships and vessels ‘for [the] suppressing of rebels’.6 Very soon afterwards he left English shores for the Caribbean.7
Marlborough’s lifelong involvement in this region was initially prompted by a long-running dispute resulting from an arrangement made by his grandfather, also named James Ley†, earl of Marlborough, with James Hay†, earl of Carlisle, over rights to govern the ‘Caribbee’ (i.e. Leeward) Islands. Marlborough’s efforts to establish English predominance on the Leeward island of Santa Cruz during 1645–6 ended in bloody failure at the hands of the Spanish and it may have been his inability to sustain the consequent personal financial loss that forced him to sell off the Teffont Evias estate in 1652.8
Like so many of his fellow adventurers, Marlborough saw the Restoration as providing rich opportunity for new initiatives in the Caribbean. Towards the end of 1660 he was one of many who submitted proposals for the improvement and settlement of Jamaica, which had been seized from the Spanish by Cromwellian forces five years earlier. To hasten the process of settlement under English rule he advocated the intercession of the Royal Africa Company ‘to make Jamaica the staple for the supply of blacks’, and was willing that religious toleration be granted ‘to all who desire it’. Whether Marlborough’s Jamaica proposals preceded, and therefore helped to promote, his appointment on 1 Dec. to the new council for foreign plantations is unclear, but the combination of his aristocratic status and first-hand experience of colonial management qualified him ideally for membership of this body. 9 Among his fellow councillors were Jerome Weston, 2nd earl of Portland, a friend of many years standing, and a cousin, Sir William Glascock‡.
A call of the House on 31 July 1660 revealed that Marlborough was absent by ‘leave of the king’, although further details of the business on which he was engaged are unknown. His decision to take his seat in the House on 20 Nov. 1660 may have been prompted by his interest in the bill (later aborted) for the annexation of Dunkirk and Jamaica to the crown. The bill had been scheduled to be debated that day but was not considered until the following day. Marlborough was then present for just over 37 per cent of the remaining days of the Convention.
Marlborough’s last attendance during the 1661–2 session of the Cavalier Parliament was on 6 Mar. 1662. His attendance before that date was somewhat sporadic, amounting to some 24 per cent of sitting days. In March 1662 he sailed for the East Indies as commodore of a small squadron on what proved to be an abortive mission to take possession of Bombay (Mumbai), ceded by the king of Portugal as part of Catherine of Braganza’s marriage dowry.10 Setting out from India on 5 Jan. 1663, he was back in attendance in the Lords on 14 July.11 There were a mere 11 days of the session left; Marlborough managed to attend 4 of them.
Marlborough was also determined to use his alliances to pursue his dispute over the Caribbee Islands. Apart from Clarendon, who held him in high esteem, he may also have been able to count on the assistance of two particular friends, Sir George Carteret‡ and Sir Hugh Pollard‡, both of whom were senior officials of the court. The privy council arrived at a final settlement of the several claims arising from the original grant of the Caribbee Islands to Carlisle in June 1663. It was ordered that £500 a year be paid to Marlborough out of the Islands’ revenues for the duration of his life and after him to his uncle and heir, William Ley, later 4th earl of Marlborough.12
In September 1663 there were rumours of Marlborough’s imminent appointment as governor of Jamaica but in February 1664 the king’s choice fell instead on Sir Thomas Modyford, who, unlike Marlborough, had long experience of the institutions of government in the plantation islands.13 There is a hint that Marlborough bore this outcome with some hurt, as during the ensuing session of Parliament (March–May 1664) he troubled to appear in the Lords at only five sittings and during the next session failed to attend at all. In a letter he wrote shortly before his death he spoke of having lately withdrawn himself from the ‘deceitful vanity of the world’ and as Clarendon later observed, ‘having no great estate descended to him, he brought down his mind to his future and lived very retired, but with more reputation than any fortune could have given him’.14
Early in 1665, at the commencement of Anglo-Dutch hostilities, Marlborough was brought onto the council of war, and took his place alongside the nine flag officers by virtue of his position as ‘captain of a ship by commission’.15 The prospect of naval encounter with the Dutch filled him with a strong foreboding that he would soon fall in action. From his command, the Old James, off the coast of Holland, he wrote farewell letters to his cousin Sir William Glascock and to Sir Hugh Pollard. These pious epistles reveal Marlborough’s extreme remorse at having previously been ‘a great neglecter’ and ‘despiser’ of religion but now saw him comforted in his contemplation of God and exhorting his old companions to seek the same path.16 Marlborough was killed a few weeks later at the great naval battle off Lowestoft.17 He was buried at Westminster Abbey on 14 June, ‘several lords of the council carrying him, and with the heralds in some state’.18 His will, signed on 26 Mar. 1665, appointed his ‘ever worthy and true friend’ Sir George Carteret as executor. It consisted mainly of cash bequests amounting to about £1,000, including £500 to his uncle and heir, and a range of smaller sums to cousins and distant relatives remembered from many years previously.
A.A.H./R.P.- 1 TNA, PROB 11/317.
- 2 Syrett, Commissioned Sea Officers, 299.
- 3 Clarendon, Life, ii. 132.
- 4 Banks’ Dormant Baronage, iii. 476.
- 5 CCC, iii. 1783; VCH Wilts. xi. 120; xiii. 189; xv. 157-8.
- 6 Ludlow Mems. ed. C.H. Firth, i. 51; VCH Wilts. v. 139; HMC 15th Rep. VII, 69.
- 7 CCC, iii. 1783.
- 8 CSP Col. 1661–7, p. 437; J.A. Williamson, The Caribbee Islands under the Proprietary Patents, 151–2; VCH Wilts. xiii. 189.
- 9 CSP Col. 1574–1660, pp. 491–2.
- 10 Pepys Diary, iv. 139, v. 30, 76; CSP Dom. 1661–2, p. 279; HMC 15th Rep. VII, 94; HMC Finch i. 243; HMC Heathcote, 87, 89.
- 11 HMC Finch, i. 273.
- 12 CSP Col. 1661–8, pp. 140–1; APC, i. 362–5.
- 13 HMC Hastings, 143; CSP Col. 1661-8, p. 182.
- 14 Clarendon, Life, ii. 132.
- 15 Harris, Sandwich, i. 284.
- 16 Add. 4159, f. 77; The Two Noble Converts (1680).
- 17 HMC 11th Rep. VII, 127.
- 18 Pepys Diary, vi. 127.