THYNNE, Thomas (1640-1714)

THYNNE, Thomas (1640–1714)

cr. 11 Dec. 1682 Visct. WEYMOUTH

First sat 19 May 1685; last sat 9 July 1714

MP Oxford University 1674, Tamworth 1679 (Mar.), 1679 (Oct.)

b. 8 Sept. 1640, 1st s. of Sir Henry Frederick Thynne, bt. and Mary, da. of Thomas Coventry^†, Bar. Coventry;1 bro. of James Thynne^‡. educ. Kingston-on-Thames g.s., Hayes, Mdx. (Dr Thomas Triplett); Christ Church, Oxf. 1657. m. by 1673 (with £7,000)2 Frances, (d.1712) da. of Heneage Finch, 3rd earl of Winchilsea,3 2s. d.v.p. 1da. ?d.v.p. suc. fa. as 2nd bt. 6 Mar. 1680, cos. in Wiltshire estates 12 Feb. 1682. d. 28 July 1714;4 will 4 Nov. 1709 (undated codicil), pr. 4 Aug. 1714.5

Groom of the bedchamber to James, duke of York, 1666-72; envoy to Sweden 1666-9; PC 18 June 1702-May 1707,6 8 Mar. 1712-d.; first ld. of trade and plantations 1702-7.7

Commr. for assessment Glos. and Salop 1673-80, Oxford Univ. 1677-9, Herefs., Staffs. and Warws. 1677-80, for recusants Oxford 1675; dep. lt. Staffs. 1678-?87, Som. 1682,8 Wilts. 1682-3; steward Sutton Coldfield 1679-d.; high steward Tamworth 1681-d., Lichfield 1712-d.; custos rot. Wilts. 1683-88, 1690-1706,9 1711-d.;10 warden Forest of Dean 1712-d.;11 constable of St Briavels Castle 1712-d.

FRS 1664; mbr. SPG 1701-d.12

Associated with: Kempsford, Glos., Drayton Bassett, Staffs. and Longleat, Wilts.

Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir P. Lely, 1675, Courtauld Gallery, London.

The Thynne Inheritance

The Thynnes claimed descent from a Poitevin family, the Boteviles, who were granted land in Stretton, Shropshire during the reign of King John. According to family mythology the surname Thynne derived from John Botevile (fl. 1460), known on account of his principal property holding as John of th’inn. By the 16th century the family had prospered and was established in several counties with the most celebrated estate at Longleat being acquired in 1540.13 Other substantial holdings were also developed in Shropshire, Gloucestershire and Staffordshire. By the 17th century the family was divided into two distinct branches in Wiltshire and in Gloucestershire and Shropshire. The Wiltshire estates were the more substantial, with their holder enjoying an income in excess of £10,000. In 1682 this was Thomas Thynne^‡ of Longleat (‘Tom of ten thousand’). His murder in 1682 would reunite the majority of the family’s estates in the hands of the head of the other branch, his cousin, Sir Thomas Thynne, 2nd bt., of Drayton Bassett. Sir Thomas was soon afterwards created Viscount Weymouth.14

Initially attached to the court, the then Sir Thomas Thynne had served as groom of the bedchamber to the duke of York and as a diplomat in Sweden before a falling out with his former patron encouraged him to stand in the country interest for Oxford University in 1674 and for Tamworth in 1679. He was able to bring his own interest to bear at Lichfield in 1679 on behalf of his cousin Daniel Finch, later 2nd earl of Nottingham.15 Thynne’s marriage to Frances Finch was the foundation of an enduring association with both branches of the Finch family and especially with Nottingham. Another cousin, George Savile, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax, was also an important influence on him, while the advantageous marriage of Thynne’s sister Katherine to Sir John Lowther, later Viscount Lonsdale, extended his interest into the north-west.

Thynne’s marriage had added substantially to his estates. Already possessed of lands in Gloucestershire and Shropshire, Thynne acquired the manor of Drayton Bassett in Staffordshire, estates in Herefordshire and an estimated 22,000 acres in Ireland by the will of his wife’s grandmother, Frances, duchess of Somerset.16 A codicil to the duchess’s will had dramatically increased Thynne’s share and for almost seven years after her death in 1674 he was involved in a complicated legal tussle with the other claimants, among them his father in law, Winchilsea, who accused him of fraudulently imposing the codicil on the dying duchess when her reason had gone.17 Although a settlement was finally arrived at in April 1680, eight years later Weymouth (as he had by then become) faced a new challenge to his tenure of the Longleat estates when Charles Seymour, 6th duke of Somerset, initiated further proceedings against him in an effort to recover a third of the estate in right of his wife, Elizabeth, widow of the murdered Thomas Thynne.18 Despite the long legal dispute, relations between Thynne and his Finch cousins remained remarkably cordial.19 Thynne’s inheritance of the duchess’s estates may have been one of the reasons for his own father leaving him comparatively little when he died in 1680. Although determined to ‘make no disturbance in the family’ Thynne was clearly disconcerted by his father’s last action towards him and he complained that ‘at present I have not £1,000 a year from my father nor ever shall have above £2,800, for Kempsford if all rented will not exceed £1,700’.20

Despite his reputation as a staunch upholder of the Anglican Church (prior to the Restoration he had been an habitué of the Oxford congregation presided over by John Fell, afterwards bishop of Oxford), in the 1670s Thynne was a determined opponent of Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby, later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds.21 During the Exclusion Parliaments he, along with his uncle Sir William Coventry^‡ and his cousin Halifax, returned to supporting the court. In August 1681 the corporation of Gloucester offered Thynne the seat previously held by the exclusionist Charles Berkeley, styled Lord Dursley (later 2nd earl of Berkeley).22 The following year he was nominated a deputy lieutenant in Somerset by Winchilsea.

Viscount Weymouth and the Tory Reaction

His cousin was murdered in February 1682. Thynne’s inheritance of Longleat presented the court with a valuable counterbalance to the whiggism then prevalent in Wiltshire.23 Towards the end of November it was rumoured that he was to be one of a new clutch of barons and the following month he was promoted Baron Thynne and Viscount Weymouth.24 The peerages were created with a special remainder conveying both his barony and the viscountcy to his brothers’ heirs male in the event of his dying without male heirs of his own.25 It was also rumoured that further advancement would follow soon after.26 His new honours notwithstanding, Weymouth’s authority at Longleat was challenged by some of his own tenants, who remained committed to his deceased cousin’s politics. One such, Robert Fitzclothier, was reported to have invited Weymouth to ‘kiss his arse.’27 Weymouth saw the revelation of the Rye House Plot in the summer of 1683 as an opportunity (as he declared to Halifax) ‘to justify all that you have or shall do.’28 The following month, Weymouth was instrumental in the drawing up of a loyal address from the justices and grand jury of Wiltshire in response to the Plot. Weymouth excused his inability to present the address to the king in person, explaining the necessity of his presence at the assizes and of ‘securing the peace and watching the motions of that restless faction.’ Besides responses to ‘the Hellish conspiracy’, the majority of the business occupying the assizes during the summer involved cases involving the proliferation of clipping and coining. Weymouth petitioned the secretary of state, Sir Leoline Jenkins^‡, successfully on behalf of two of the condemned, telling him that although he had ‘no personal knowledge of either nor any concern in the matter than compassion’, ‘most men speak well of them and think them pretty hardly used by the jury.’ He also applied to Halifax to seek his intervention on behalf of a man convicted for manslaughter.29

Weymouth’s activities during the summer brought him into conflict with the other dominant peer in the county, the notoriously unstable Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke. In August 1683 Weymouth visited him at Wilton House in an effort to arrive at some sort of accommodation noting that, ‘he was very ceremonious, but when the wine is in, his jealousy breaks out.’ He predicted that should Pembroke be removed from his joint offices of lord lieutenant and custos rotulorum one of the Hyde brothers, Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, or Henry Hyde, 2nd earl of Clarendon, would expect to replace him.30 When Pembroke died shortly after, though, it was Weymouth who succeeded as custos, while the office of lord lieutenant remained with the Herbert family, being granted to the late earl’s brother and successor, Thomas Herbert, 8th earl of Pembroke.31

Weymouth’s appointment as custos in Wiltshire was almost certainly the result of Halifax’s patronage. In October 1683 amid heightened speculation that a new Parliament would shortly be called Weymouth assured Halifax that he would do nothing without his directions.32 The following year, Weymouth’s brother, Henry, was appointed one of the treasury commissioners.33 This was widely interpreted as further evidence of Halifax’s dominance; Weymouth certainly considered it the result of Halifax’s favour to his family.34 In addition to his increased responsibilities in Wiltshire, Weymouth also remained keenly interested in his midlands holdings. Quo warranto proceedings in Lichfield, close to Weymouth’s Staffordshire estates, led to the drawing up of a new charter in January 1685. Through Weymouth’s influence its issue was delayed for a further 14 months.35 Having made such efforts on the town’s behalf, Weymouth was dismayed not to be chosen recorder as he had been promised. He proposed to Halifax that a new post of high steward might be created for him instead.36 Making no secret of his irritation he wrote fulsomely to the man who had supplanted him as recorder, George Legge, Baron Dartmouth, ‘that they have made an infinitely better and discreter choice of your lordship I do most readily acknowledge, though their carriage towards me is not very obliging.’37 At the general election Dartmouth united his interest with that of Weymouth and Charles Talbot, 12th earl of Shrewsbury (later duke of Shrewsbury), in supporting Richard Leveson^‡.38

The Reign of James II and the Revolution, 1685-90

Weymouth served in the modest office of assistant to the cupbearer to the queen at the coronation in April 1685.39 On 19 May he was finally able to take his seat in the House, introduced between the only two other viscounts then sitting, Thomas Belasyse, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, and Francis Newport, Viscount Newport (later earl of Bradford). Present on 93 per cent of all sitting days in the session, on 21 May he was named to the standing committees for petitions and privileges and to the sub-committee for the Journal. On 10 June he was entrusted with his father-in-law’s proxy, which was vacated by Winchilsea’s return to the House two days later.

The outbreak of Monmouth’s rebellion during the summer threatened to engulf Weymouth’s estates at Longleat. One of Monmouth’s principal followers, John Kidd, had been gamekeeper on the estate under Weymouth’s predecessor. Monmouth’s base at Frome was on the peripheries of Weymouth’s land. At one point during the rising a handful of Monmouth’s soldiers presented themselves at the house. Monmouth’s defeat at Sedgemoor saved Weymouth from further inconvenience and he demonstrated his antipathy to the rebels by ignoring an appeal by William Penn to petition the king for clemency on Kidd’s behalf.40 Weymouth played little part in the assizes held at Salisbury in September, finding, as he told Halifax, ‘the judges so well informed of all things, and so little wanting the assistance of others, that there is no need of my attendance’, though he did stay long enough to provoke a dispute with the judges over precedence. Although Weymouth pretended to be unconcerned on the matter, declaring that precedence was ‘none of the things I regard’, in advance of the assize he had written to Halifax on precisely this issue, being eager to avoid incurring ‘the censure of the House for losing what belongs to the peers’.41 Weymouth resumed his seat in the House on 11 Nov. at Halifax’s prompting, having formerly ‘taken other resolutions’.42 He then continued to attend until the close nine days later.

By the beginning of 1686 Weymouth, his wife and son all appear to have been troubled by poor health. With his family sickening and convinced that his influence was declining, Weymouth resolved to leave the country. In considering possible places of refuge he ruled out France initially as ‘inhospitable’ and soon after expressed a desire to travel to Portugal.43 He hoped that its warmer climate would be beneficial to his health but he professed himself to be worried about the Inquisition and concerned that ‘a heretic family, when not secured by public character may be liable to it, especially when accompanied by a chaplain’.44 Although permission to travel was granted later that year, by July he seems to have rejected Portugal as too remote and by the middle of August, confident that his son was not as unwell as had been feared and his wife much improved, he decided to lay aside his plans for a foreign tour for the time being.45

The death of Weymouth’s uncle, Sir William Coventry, that summer gave him further cause for discontent as he received only a modest legacy of £50 to buy a mourning ring. Weymouth struggled to disguise his disappointment, commenting to Halifax that ‘though he [Sir William] has not expressed it to either of us in legacies at the rate he has to others; yet I suppose he thought we wanted not such evidences of kindness nor expected them from him’.46 Weymouth himself had a reputation for generosity, and when the same year he was approached by Sir Robert Southwell^‡ to donate £200 towards the ransom of one Captain Spurrell, who had been enslaved by Barbary corsairs, he and his mother obliged willingly, though Weymouth subsequently professed himself unable to do anything more for Spurrell following his release claiming ‘my interest is not strong enough in any place to serve either my friends or myself.’47

Poor health was clearly not the only reason that Weymouth had earlier considered quitting the country. By 1687 he found himself increasingly at odds with the king’s religious policies. In January he was noted among those opposed to repeal of the Test. In May he was included in a list of those opposed to the king’s policies and in November he was again assessed as an opponent of repeal. Weymouth was not just opposed to indulgence for Catholics. In March he reported to Halifax the meetings of nonconformists in Wiltshire, swelled by ‘having daily new teachers from London of what complexion I know not.’48 In expectation of the calling of a new Parliament towards the end of the year it was reported that Weymouth had written to Tamworth to desire the return of his brother-in-law, Richard Grobham Howe^‡ (who had previously requested Weymouth’s interest) and John Swinfen^‡.49 The same year, he is said to have rejected an offer from Pembroke’s trustees for a marriage alliance between Pembroke’s daughter and his son, Henry Thynne^‡, a decision that was to have lasting consequences for his own authority in Wiltshire.50

Weymouth’s difficulties were not confined to uncertain health and worries about his influence. Despite his lucrative inheritance and an estimated income of £12,000, he was also plagued by debt and by protracted legal disputes. In April 1688 he complained to Halifax, ‘your lordship knows my condition too well to think I pay debts by good husbandry… like the most insolvent debtors I borrow in one place to pay in another.’51 Among his creditors was Sir John Banks^‡, bt., to whom Weymouth owed £7,500 in the summer of 1688.52

Weymouth was noted once more as an opponent of repeal of the Test in an assessment drawn up early in 1688. The Revolution, however, placed him in a quandary. Although no friend to most of those engaged in the invasion, he refused to sign a declaration abhorring the prince’s actions or to undertake to assist the king to repel the invaders.53 Shortly after William’s landing on 5 Nov., Weymouth joined Halifax, Nottingham, Thomas White, bishop of Peterborough, and William Lloyd, bishop of Norwich, in drafting a petition for the king to call Parliament; Clarendon and Rochester, who had initiated the scheme, objected to the draft.54 Weymouth, along with Halifax and Nottingham then refused to subscribe the alternative petition of 16 Nov. for a free Parliament composed by Rochester and Clarendon.55 Following the king’s flight, Weymouth was among those who assembled at the Guildhall on 11 Dec. when he was nominated with Rochester, Francis Turner, bishop of Ely, and Thomas Sprat, bishop of Rochester, to draw up a declaration explaining the reason for the peers’ meeting. The same day, Weymouth was appointed, along with his local rival Pembroke, the bishop of Ely and Thomas Colepepper, 2nd Baron Colepepper, as one of the commissioners to wait on the Prince of Orange with the Lords’ declaration.56 Weymouth’s frosty reception by the prince offended his vanity and confirmed him in his suspicion of Prince William’s ulterior motives.57 He had returned to London by 22 Dec. when he took his seat in the House of Lords and was then present on the subsequent sittings held on 24 and 25 December.58

Weymouth took his seat in the House at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he was present on approximately 73 per cent of all sitting days. He opposed declaring William and Mary king and queen and on 29 Jan. he joined those voting in favour of the establishment of a regency instead. Two days later he voted against the motion for replacing the clause in the Commons’ vote that said the throne was vacant with another declaring the Prince and Princess of Orange king and queen. On 4 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the Commons’ employment of the term abdicated. He was nominated one of the reporters of the conference to draw up reasons why the Lords did not agree with the Commons on the subject of King James’s abdication. He was then noticeable by his absence from the subsequent division of 6 Feb. when the Lords resolved at last to concur with the Commons and declare the throne vacant.59 With the matter settled, Weymouth resumed his place in the House the following day.

Although reluctant to accept the new regime, Weymouth was equally unwilling to rouse himself on behalf of the exiled king. When he was named a regent by James, along with Nottingham, Philip Stanhope, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, and William Sancroft, archbishop of Canterbury, he declined to act.60 On 13 Apr. Weymouth joined Newport to introduce Richard Lumley, the new Viscount Lumley. Family matters also occupied Weymouth’s time in the House: on 3 May he reported from the committee considering the bill for the sale of the house belonging to his uncle, Henry Coventry^‡, in Piccadilly, which was passed without further amendment. Weymouth was noted as being sick at a call of the House on 22 May 1689 but he resumed his seat on 28 June and thereafter sat without interruption until the close of the session on 20 August. On 2 July he entered his protest at the resolution to proceed with the impeachment of the loyalist activists Blair, Vaughan, Mole, Elliott and Gray and during the same month he was named reporter of a number of conferences concerning the crown’s succession and the judgment of perjury against Oates. On 23 July Richard Boyle, earl of Burlington, registered his proxy in Weymouth’s favour, which was vacated by the end of session. A week later Weymouth voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments over the reversal of the judgment of perjury against Titus Oates, employing Burlington’s proxy on the same issue.

Weymouth returned to the House at the opening of the second session on 19 Oct. 1689 and on 5 Nov. he was entrusted with the proxy of Henry Somerset, duke of Beaufort, the duke ‘not being able by reason of my indisposition to attend the House’. The proxy was vacated by the close of the session.61 In December Weymouth undertook to speak on Chesterfield’s behalf should his absence from the House be questioned.62 The same month he was entrusted with the proxy of John Stawell, 2nd Baron Stawell, which was also vacated by the close. On 23 Jan. 1690 he acted as one of the tellers for the division concerning the peers’ attendance. In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690, the marquess of Carmarthen (as Danby had become) estimated Weymouth to be an opponent of the court.

The Parliament of 1690

News of the dissolution early in 1690 prompted Weymouth to write to his neighbour, James Bertie, earl of Abingdon, to remind him ‘how absolutely the welfare of the church, nay possibly of the monarchy, are concerned at this time’ and to assure Abingdon of his ‘ready concurrence’ in the forthcoming elections in Wiltshire.63 Weymouth and Abingdon consequently joined their interests in support of Sir Thomas Fowle^‡ at Devizes, while Weymouth joined with Pembroke and Clarendon in supporting Edward Hyde, styled Viscount Cornbury (later 3rd earl of Clarendon), as knight of the shire.64 Weymouth’s efforts to bring his interest to bear in a number of other areas met with varying degrees of success. With Beaufort’s consent, he persuaded his brother, James, to stand for Gloucestershire but despite early indications of strong support, James Thynne, hampered by accusations of Jacobitism, was easily defeated by the two Whig candidates. At Tamworth, where he enjoyed the dominant interest, Weymouth ought to have been in a position to dictate affairs, but here his dilatoriness and inconsistent instructions to his agents undermined the campaign. At the same time the alliance of Henry Guy^‡ and Sir Charles Wolseley^‡, who also had approached Weymouth seeking his approbation, further threatened the Thynne interest.65 Although consistent in his support of the sitting member, Sir Henry Gough^‡, Weymouth was unable to make up his mind on a suitable partner. Having at first proposed Edward Repington, who declined to stand, Weymouth then made it known that he would support any ‘Churchman’, thereby encouraging his agent to back Gough’s partner Michael Biddulph^‡, whose candidature was then undermined by Weymouth’s decision to offer his support to Henry Boyle, (later Baron Carleton) instead. Gough, though astonished at Weymouth’s behaviour, offered to step aside for Boyle, but warned that switching candidates so late in the day ‘would infallibly set up [the Whigs] Guy and Wolseley.’66 It was only when it was impressed upon him that the ‘Church’ party was in complete disarray as a result of his vagaries that Weymouth at length agreed to support the Gough-Biddulph alliance.67

Weymouth took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690, after which he was present on approximately 96 per cent of all sitting days. On 8 Apr. he registered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill recognising William and Mary as king and queen and two days later he entered a further protest at the resolution to expunge the reasons given by the protestors from the Journal.68 On 5 May he served as one of the tellers following the report on the security of the crown bill and on 12 May he was appointed one of the managers of the conference considering the bill creating the queen regent during the king’s absence.

Early in June Weymouth predicted a speedy end to the war following the defeat of the Toulon squadron and the collapse of the former king’s campaign in Ireland.69 The death of Maurice Berkeley^‡, 3rd Viscount Fitzhardinge [I], later that month led to some speculation that in the absence of any appropriate peers resident in the county Weymouth might succeed to the lieutenancy of Somerset, though this did not happen.70 In the absence of political advancement Weymouth contented himself with seeing to the advancement of his family with the marriage of his daughter, Frances, to Sir Robert Worsley^‡, 4th bt. which was settled that summer.71 In September he commented on rumours of a general excise, that ‘though the Bishop of Sarum [Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury] tells me without it we must be slaves, for nothing less can resist the French; I know not how we can be secured that will do it without much better management.’72

Weymouth had appeared disinclined to attend the following session, anticipating that with so many members posted to their militia companies little business could be done.73 Nevertheless, he roused himself to leave his garden and took his seat in the session on 6 Oct. 1690. He was present thereafter on approximately 89 per cent of all sitting days during which he was active on a number of committees. On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Henry Mordaunt, 2nd earl of Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower, although he subsequently joined with Charles Montagu, 4th earl of Manchester, in standing bail of £5,000 for Peterborough. On 30 Oct. he entered his protest at the resolution to pass the bill clarifying the powers of the admiralty commissioners.74 On 2 Dec. Weymouth was one of the peers appointed to draw up a controversial order for the vacating and annulling of all written protections and on 9 Dec. he reported from the committee considering a bill to permit Katherine, Lady Cornbury, to assume certain powers to act as if she were of full age. On 17 Dec. he acted as one of the tellers on the division whether to adjourn the debate over the cause Dod v. Burrows and on 5 Jan. 1691 he was one of the reporters of a series of conferences held that day concerning the bill for the suspension of the navigation and corn acts.

Weymouth’s loyalty to the new regime came under greater scrutiny when in 1691 he was named by William Fuller and Richard Grahme, Viscount Preston [S], as one of those peers in correspondence with the exiled king. Weymouth had already drawn attention to himself by offering an annuity and lodgings at Longleat to the nonjuror Thomas Ken, formerly bishop of Bath and Wells, and Henry Sydney, Viscount Sydney (later earl of Romney), certainly seems to have believed the intelligence.75 Other sources mentioned Weymouth as a regular member of a Jacobite group which included Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury. For all this Preston’s account was unclear about the extent of Weymouth’s activity as a result of which he escaped serious censure in spite of his undoubted Jacobite sympathies.76 During the summer he remained at liberty to concern himself with family affairs, particularly the question of a suitable marriage for Charles Finch, 4th earl of Winchilsea, and he even appears to have been considered as a possible replacement for one ailing lord lieutenant.77

Weymouth took his seat in the House shortly after the opening of the session of October 1691 after which he was present on approximately 84 per cent of sitting days. On 13 Nov. he acted as one of the tellers for the division whether to dismiss the appeal from Dashwood v. Champante and on 9 Dec. he reported from the committees considering the bill to secure the debts of the 4th earl of Salisbury. The same day he reported from the committee considering a bill to allow the sale of the manor of Manworthy in Devon as well as introducing a bill to permit his nephew, Winchilsea, to settle a jointure on any future wife. On 31 Dec. Weymouth reported the bill for the more effectual discovery and punishment of deer-stealers as being fit to pass without amendment. Towards the end of the year he was included in a list compiled by William George Richard Stanley, 9th earl of Derby, of those Derby thought likely to support his efforts to recover lands alienated prior to the Restoration.78

On 2 Jan. 1692 Weymouth entered his protest at the resolution not to send for the original record of a precedent cited during the debate on the Commons’ vote of the previous December concerning the East India Company. On 12 Jan. he entered a further protest at the decision to receive the bill allowing Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk, to divorce. On 25 Jan. Weymouth’s neighbour, Robert Shirley, 8th Baron (later Earl) Ferrers, registered his proxy in Weymouth’s favour, which was vacated by the close of the session. On 2 Feb. Weymouth protested at the resolution not to agree with the Commons objections to the Lords’ amendments on the appointment of commissioners of accounts. The same month Weymouth was shaken by the death of his grandson, Thynne Worsley, but he continued to sit until the adjournment on 24 Feb. and on 22 Feb. he reported from the conference considering the small tithes bill.79

Weymouth appears to have indulged in further Jacobite intrigue during the year: his name appeared on a list of those peers said to have assured King James that they would receive him willingly upon terms.80 Again, Weymouth seems to have escaped any serious consequences. That summer he resolved to send his heir on a foreign tour, commenting to Halifax cynically that his aim was ‘rather to fill up some years which would have lain upon his hands, than that I expect any wonders from it.’81 He was also able to conclude a match between his nephew, Winchilsea, and Sarah Nourse with a portion of £7,000, a considerably more modest alliance than the £20,000 portion some had expected Winchilsea to secure. There were continued doubts about Weymouth’s loyalty: in September Bishop Burnet complained to Nottingham of Weymouth’s flagrant refusal to offer prayers to the king and queen and of his employment of a non-juror as chaplain, which he saw as ‘the most insolent affront that is put on the government in the west of England’. Burnet rounded on Nottingham for protecting him:

The whole neighbourhood cry out of this. They indeed do all tell me that the earl of Nottingham is his great friend who will still maintain him custos rotulorum and master of the Justices of this county though it be the jest of every one in it.82

Weymouth was once again initially disinclined to rouse himself from his Wiltshire retirement to take his seat in Parliament for the session of November 1692, commenting dismissively that ‘my private affairs sufficiently require my stay here, and the slender consideration is had of the House of Lords, or that they have indeed for themselves, makes home and quiet very desirable.’83 Missing at a call of the House on 21 Nov., he did however, overcome his lethargy to take his seat a month into the session on 2 December. He was thereafter present on just under 70 per cent of all sitting days. On 6 Dec. he was again entrusted with Ferrers’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session, and on 17 Dec. he also received that of Fulke Greville, 5th Baron Brooke, which was vacated by Brooke’s resumption of his seat on 20 Jan. 1693. On 30 Dec. Weymouth acted as one of the reporters of the conference considering the conduct of Admiral Edward Russell, later earl of Orford. Weymouth voted in favour of committing the place bill on 31 December. On 3 Jan. 1693 he reported from the committee of the whole House considering the bill and when the measure was defeated he was one of those to subscribe the resulting protest. Shortly before this he had also opposed reading the bill to allow Norfolk to divorce. Weymouth was missing from the House on 10 Jan. when a hastily convened meeting of Herefordshire peers and members of the Commons agreed on recommending Sir Edward Harley^‡ to stand in the by-election triggered by the recent death of Sir John Morgan^‡ but Weymouth later indicated his support for Harley by letter.84 He resumed his seat the following day and on 19 Jan. he entered his protest at the resolution that the Lords recede from their amendments to the bill of supply. On 23 Jan. he may have acted as one of the tellers in the division over the reversal of the decree in Bowtell v. Appleby but it is possible the teller on this occasion was in fact Newport. The following month Weymouth was one of only 14 peers to find Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun, guilty of murder.85

The summer found Weymouth back on his Wiltshire estates, though by the middle of September he was complaining to Abingdon how ‘melancholy’ the county appeared in Abingdon’s absence.86 Enervated by his rural retreat, Weymouth took his seat at the opening of the new session on 7 November. The following day, Ferrers again registered his proxy in favour of Weymouth, which was vacated by the close of the session. On 22 Dec. he entered his protest at the resolution to allow the duchess of Grafton and William Bridgeman to withdraw their petition concerning Bridgeman’s case with Rowland Holt. Towards the close of the year Weymouth approached Sir Henry Johnson^‡, bt. on behalf of one Stephens, who was owed money by the recently deceased John Lovelace, 3rd Baron Lovelace. Weymouth hoped that Johnson, as Lovelace’s executor, would ensure Stephens was paid as ‘an act of charity as well as justice.’87 Weymouth was again nominated reporter of several conferences during January 1694 and in February he voted in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the cause Montagu v. Bath. Weymouth was absent from the House after 17 Feb. but on 24 Feb. he registered his own proxy in favour of Halifax, which was vacated by the close of the session on 25 April.

In March Weymouth received money (to be distributed to ‘such persons as he in his discretion shall think proper objects of his kindness’) in the will of the Tory Sir John Matthewes^‡, whose wife had previously been married to John Mews, brother to Peter Mews, bishop of Winchester.88 During the summer he responded to a complaint from Ferrers about a distribution of Irish lands in which Ferrers believed himself to have been treated unfairly, insisting on his willingness to see the matter corrected and that he ‘would not take advantage of the errors of others’.89 Weymouth was missing at the opening of the new parliamentary session on 12 Nov. 1694 and he was excused at a call of the House on 26 November. Four days later, Winchilsea registered his proxy in Weymouth’s favour despite that fact that Weymouth had not yet taken his seat. Weymouth eventually did so on 17 Dec. and the following day he protested at the resolution to pass the triennial bill. On 20 Dec. Ferrers once more registered his proxy in Weymouth’s favour. Although present in the House on almost 36 per cent of all sitting days in the session, Weymouth failed to attend from 10 Jan. 1695 until 8 April. On 24 Jan. he registered his proxy in Halifax’s favour, which was vacated by his resumption of his seat. Weymouth’s absence may have been caused by negotiations involving the marriage of his son, Henry Thynne, to the heiress Grace Strode, who brought with her a fortune of £20,000, and in March Weymouth petitioned the king to allow Henry Thynne to suffer recoveries of lands in several counties inherited from his late uncle James Thynne despite being under age.90 Towards the end of March it was reported that Weymouth had been sent for from London: shortly afterwards he resumed his seat in the Lords.91 Weymouth’s recall may have been the result of a number of pressing issues coming before the House. On 18 Apr. he entered his dissent at the resolution to exonerate John Sheffield, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham), from censure for corruption and towards the end of the month was engaged in the debates concerning the attempted impeachment of the duke of Leeds (as Carmarthen had since become). The affair troubled Weymouth and he declared himself unwilling to be a member of any joint committee for the impeachment, for ‘though I may believe my share of the thing complained of, cannot join in the design, or method, of the prosecution.’ He was also concerned by the way in which the impeachment had forced him to neglect his own affairs and that his son’s bill would not be dispatched until the following week.92 Even so, he continued to be involved in the House’s business until the close of the session. On 1 May he reported from a committee of the whole house considering a bill for the better encouragement of privateers.

The Parliament of 1695

Weymouth appears to have been in serious financial difficulty by the summer of 1695, though he reassured himself that ‘it is now so commendable a thing to break, that a bankrupt scarce hides his head and therefore I will not pretend to modesty.’93 He continued to attempt to advance his son’s interests and on the dissolution of Parliament in October he resolved to set the young man up for Weobley.94 The small Herefordshire town was one of several constituencies in which he commanded interest but the venality of the borough and Henry Thynne’s clear unwillingness to stand undid Weymouth’s scheme.95 Weymouth had complained that ‘the great difficulty is to get men to stand, who are unwilling, and indeed cannot bear the expense the polls require’ but his initial assessment was that the results would be ‘much the same, not worse, than the last.’ When this proved not to be the case he predicted bleakly that ‘the Church will totter’.96 Following on from disappointing election results, Weymouth joined with Ferrers in prosecuting a case in chancery against William Barton and Richard Hampden and his heirs over the manor of Redcastle in Shropshire and estates in Ireland, which was eventually settled amicably almost four years later.97

Smarting from the Tories’ poor showing in the elections, Weymouth avoided Parliament for the entirety of the session of November 1695 to April 1696. Explaining his resolution to James Grahme^‡, he insisted that the Lords now had:

no share in the government of this world and what the Commons will do no man can guess before they have a little fermented. For that reason I stay here, that if no good can be done I may not have the disquiet of being a spectator.98

Weymouth nevertheless kept an eye on business in the Lords. In January 1696 he wrote to William Savile, 2nd marquess of Halifax (whose father had died in April 1695), to congratulate him for

the heroic vote you have left upon your books, as well as the noble lament upon it, in receding from your amendments, and that for the necessity of saving a bill, which neither the Commons, nor those they represent, will give a clipped sixpence for.99

Weymouth dismissed efforts to encourage him to attend the second half of the session, insisting that his health would not allow it, and even the revelation of the Assassination Plot and his inclusion in a new list of peers said to have been in contact with the exiled court failed to make him change his mind.100 The incident brought to the fore again Weymouth’s uncertain relationship with the new regime. On 29 Feb. he wrote to Halifax, ‘the saint I pray to’, seeking his interposition with the House to secure his excuse from being called to attend.101 He then wrote to Somers on 17 Mar. insisting that he was too indisposed with gout to attend and hoping that the House would accept his explanation not least because of his former diligent attendance. The same day the House resolved to send him a copy of the Association. Both he and Beaufort then addressed letters to the House expressing their abhorrence of the Plot but maintaining their resolutions not to sign. Insistent that his health would not permit his appearance and seeking once more Halifax’s assistance in getting him excused, Weymouth subsequently refused to obey a summons commanding his appearance on 31 March.102 Adamant that he would not risk the unhealthy air of the capital, Weymouth concentrated instead on private affairs. Desirous of seeing his son established, he decided to quit Longleat and settle at his former home of Drayton Bassett. The resolution was perhaps also driven by his financial problems. In June of the following year Sir Charles Lyttelton^‡ reported that Weymouth had at last left Longleat and removed himself to Drayton Bassett.103

Weymouth was still missing at the opening of the new session in October 1696 and on 14 Nov. the House ordered that he should appear on 23 November. In the event he resumed his seat six days earlier than required. He took the oaths and then sat until the beginning of March 1697, being present on approximately 55 per cent of all sitting days. On 28 Nov. he entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill for further remedying the ill state of the coinage and on 2 Dec. he entered a further protest on the same issue. On 23 Dec. he voted against the attainder of Sir John Fenwick^‡ and entered his protest when the bill was passed.104 On 13 Jan. 1697 Weymouth was able to strengthen the ranks of his associates in the Lords when he introduced his brother-in-law, John Lowther, Viscount Lonsdale, into the House. Weymouth’s experiences at the hands of the electors of Weobley may have led to his subscribing the protest of 23 Jan. against the resolution not to give the bill for further regulation of parliamentary elections a second reading. On 5 Feb. Weymouth reported from the committees considering John Keyser’s naturalization bill and a bill for vesting the lands of William Millward of Hereford in trustees for the payment of debts. The same month, Weymouth rallied to the assistance of Ailesbury, who had been incarcerated for almost a year under suspicion of Jacobite conspiracy, joining with Chesterfield, Ferrers and Thomas Tufton, 6th earl of Thanet, in standing £5,000 bail for him.105 During the proceedings against Ailesbury in King’s Bench, Weymouth was heard to whisper to his friend, John Conyers, one of the prosecuting counsel, ‘Conyers, hold your tongue; you speak against your heart.’ Conyers was then said to have delivered a singularly incoherent address.106

Weymouth absented himself from the House after 6 Mar. 1697 and two days later he registered his proxy with Francis North, 2nd Baron Guilford. When Guilford quit the session on 25 Mar. he attempted to register it afresh with Louis de Duras, 2nd earl of Feversham. Although Feversham wrote on 1 Apr. acknowledging receipt of the proxy, there is no record of its having been entered in the proxy book.107

The summer of 1697 appears to have been taken up with Weymouth’s preparations for moving his establishment from Longleat to Drayton.108 By the winter his dissatisfaction with the state of affairs was made apparent by his commenting to Halifax that ‘I wish your father’s Letter to a Dissenter were reprinted just now, it may be as seasonable a preservation to the penal laws and test, as when first published.’ He also made plain his disinclination to involve himself with politics by absenting himself from the House during the ensuing session. On 4 Dec. he appealed to Halifax once more to make his excuses for him and on 11 Dec. he wrote again enclosing a blank proxy form which he hoped Halifax would fill in either with his own name or that of Ferrers. Intriguingly, the proxy book records the proxy as having been registered in Ferrers’s favour the previous day (10 Dec.): presumably an administrative mistake. The decision to register the proxy with Ferrers was contrary to Weymouth’s inclination but having held the other man’s proxy on several occasions, Weymouth concluded it would have been ‘unkind if not rude’ to have placed it elsewhere. His uneasy relationship with Ferrers persisted and in August 1699 he reacted equivocally to the news that Ferrers had made himself Weymouth’s ‘double cousin’, (Ferrers had just married into the Finch family): it was something ‘which I should not have congratulated a year ago, whatever I may do now.’109 The two peers’ difficult relations probably stemmed from the division of estates in Ireland between them in 1694.

With his proxy settled for the time being, Weymouth remained immoveable from his determination to avoid travelling to London even when he was appealed to by his old Wiltshire ally Abingdon in February 1698 to appear on behalf of Abingdon’s son, James Bertie^‡, one of the principals in the case Bertie v. Falkland which was anticipated in the lords ‘with as much opposition as a party interest can give it’.110 Weymouth excused himself claiming that, ‘this being the time of the year when the gout usually returns to me… a journey to London would certainly throw me into it… the apprehensions of that kept me from coming up this sessions of Parliament and will I hope incline your lordship to put a favourable interpretation upon this just apology.’111 Towards the end of April Weymouth sent Halifax another blank proxy form after his previous one was vacated by Ferrers’ registering of his own proxy with Pembroke on 15 April. Weymouth explained sending in the form blank as he was ‘not only ignorant who have their full number of proxies, but much a stranger to men’s behaviour, for every sessions makes great alterations, I therefore send a blank proxy to be filled up by your lordship with what name you please.’112 On 3 May the proxy was registered in Rochester’s favour.

From the 1698 Elections to the Accession of Anne

The summer of 1698 found Weymouth ‘so harassed with preparations for elections that I have had very few moments of rest.’113 He subsequently failed to take his seat at the opening of the new Parliament later in the summer and it was not until 11 Feb. 1699 that he finally returned to the House, following which he was present on 14 occasions (17 per cent of the whole). During the year, Montagu Venables Bertie, 2nd earl of Abingdon, assumed his seat in the House following the death of his father and gravitated towards Nottingham’s grouping, perhaps through Weymouth’s influence.114

Weymouth was prostrated with severe gout in the early summer of 1699, which was said to have gone to his head.115 He was still on crutches in the middle of July but in September he was well enough to entertain Shrewsbury at Longleat and he recovered in time to take his seat in the House a month into the new session on 11 December. He attended almost 89 per cent of all sitting days.116 On 1 Feb. 1700 he voted in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation and on 8 Feb. he protested at the resolution to put the question whether the Darien colony was inconsistent with the well-being of England’s plantations. Two days later he protested again on the same issue. Weymouth also continued to demonstrate opposition to the duke of Norfolk’s divorce bill and on 12 Mar. he entered his protest at the resolution that the bill should pass.

Preparations for the general election anticipated the formal dissolution of Parliament by several months but Weymouth was distracted by the loss that August of ‘the excellent’ William Savile, 2nd marquess of Halifax. He regarded the coming sessions with a decidedly jaundiced eye believing that ‘nothing is plainer than that their utmost prudence is necessary to give us some consistency, which God grant, to support a sinking trade not to say nation.’117 He took an interest in the election in Westmorland and also determined once again to promote his son’s interest at Weobley.118 In October 1700 it was reported that he had secured the support of Humphrey Humphreys, bishop of Hereford, but although the report was repeated over the next two months, by mid-December Weymouth’s agent expressed his doubts that the bishop would be able to do Weymouth ‘any great service’ and he repeated his assessment a few days later.119 Although Weymouth declared himself ready to ‘push it as far as it will go and not to spare the prevalent methods there’ and the Thynne party was also assured of assistance from Thomas Foley^‡, the news from Weobley was consistently poor with the Thynne cause hampered by mismanagement and the failure of both Weymouth himself and Henry Thynne to appear in the town.120 Although Thynne was also promoted enthusiastically by John Poulett, 4th Baron (later Earl) Poulett, in the election for Somerset, here too his cause was soon overtaken by more popular candidates. An attempt to set him up at Dorchester was also rebuffed. At the poll in January 1701 the Thynne interest again proved itself unequal to the task of dealing with the inhabitants of Weobley as Henry Cornewall^‡ and John Birch^‡ pushed Henry Thynne into third place.121 In the event Thynne was returned at Weymouth and Melcombe Regis where his father and the Strode family were both influential. At Tamworth, Weymouth was successful in employing his interest on behalf of Sir Henry Gough.122

Weymouth took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Feb. 1701, after which he was present on approximately 74 per cent of sitting days. Throughout March he entered a series of protests on the subject of the Partition Treaty and on 20 Mar. he dissented from the resolution not to send the address concerning the treaty to the Commons for their concurrence. On 16 Apr. Weymouth protested at the resolution to appoint a committee to compose an address asking the king not to punish the four impeached lords until they had been tried. Throughout June he continued to enter protests on the same subject. On 28 May he reported from the committee considering the Minehead harbour bill and on 2 June from that for Jasper Cardoso’s naturalization, which was passed with amendments. On 17 June Weymouth voted against acquitting John Somers, Baron Somers, of the articles of impeachment and entered his protest when the resolution to acquit was carried.

In the second general election of 1701 Weymouth was much more cautious in his dealings with Weobley, which he now limited to giving his interest to Robert Price^‡. Weymouth corresponded with Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, during the summer and early autumn, thanking him for ‘keeping so equal a correspondence with one who makes you so unequal returns’ and encouraging him to stand for Herefordshire provided he could ‘secure Radnor to a good man.’123 He also offered support to Sir John Williams^‡ standing again for the other county seat in Herefordshire.124 Henry Thynne stood successfully at Tamworth, buoyed by his family’s dominant interest. He was also returned for Milborne Port, which might have allowed his father to provide John Howe^‡ with the seat at Tamworth: in the event, though, he settled for representing Tamworth himself.

Weymouth took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 30 Dec. 1701. He was present on 62 per cent of all sitting days. He opposed the attainder of James II’s widow, Queen Mary Beatrice, registering his protest on 20 Feb. 1702 at the passage of the bill. Four days later, he subscribed a further protest against the bill for the further security of the king’s person. The death of William III the following month may have encouraged Weymouth and the Tories to hope for greater preferment. The requirement to take the abjuration oath, which had been approved by the Lords on 24 Feb., proved an obstacle some were reluctant to negotiate. Weymouth and Nottingham absented themselves from London during the celebrations for Queen Anne’s succession to consider their response and a newsletter of 19 Mar. noted Weymouth as one of three peers who had been present in the House during the session but had still not taken the oath.125 On 4 Apr. Weymouth was able to inform Nottingham that he believed he had overcome his scruples and would be ‘proud to follow your lordship to the table’, while adding that he ‘took it for granted that notwithstanding this oath, every man is free to consent to any change… made by Parliament.’126 Accordingly, he resumed his seat in the House after a break of over a month on 20 Apr. and joined Nottingham in taking the oath. He was then named one of the managers of the conference considering a bill for altering the oath only a few days afterwards. Weymouth’s decision to conform no doubt encouraged reports that he was to be made lord privy seal, though these proved to be erroneous.127 On 11 May he was entrusted with the proxy of Robert Carey, 7th Baron Hunsdon, which was vacated by the close of the session, and on 14 May he also received that of Robert Leke, 3rd earl of Scarsdale. Scarsdale’s proxy was vacated by his return to the House on 21 May.

Although Weymouth was overlooked for senior office, he was soon after appointed one of the commissioners for trade, in spite of the opposition of Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, who considered him ‘a man of faction’, and predicted that ‘he is one that will make an noise and give dissatisfaction to many that I believe wish well and could be useful to the government.’128 With the office came a salary of £1,000 that must have been a welcome addition for the indebted peer.129 For all this, he delayed accepting the position as he was affronted at the continued employment of some of the previous commissioners and displacement of another.130 Having overcome his scruples once again he accepted the post and was sworn of the Privy Council.131 Fees payable on the occasion of his swearing in on 18 June amounted to £26.132 Soon after the queen’s accession, Weymouth appears to have been involved in an attempt to offer Thomas Ken the return of his bishopric. The plan was stymied by Ken’s refusal to take the abjuration oath.133 Weymouth’s close association with the venerable former bishop appears to have attracted the attention of Dr Henry Sacheverell, who dedicated the printed version of his 10 June Fast Day sermon preached at Oxford to Weymouth.134

The Parliament of 1702

Weymouth excused himself from remaining in London during the summer months, pleading the July elections: ‘if ever diligence were necessary it is now that all hands and heads are at work to make the new elections suit the interests of the several parties.’ In August he was able to pronounce that ‘we could not wish better elections than those in the north, which shows that the power of some great men sprang from the influence of the government, and that nothing can hurt us if we are not over politic.’ Despite his enthusiasm for the state of the nation, Weymouth’s own financial problems continued to trouble him. The condition of Ireland was particularly sobering and the same month he was forced to concede that he had ‘no prospect of rents’ from his estates there that year.135

Weymouth took his seat in the House for the opening of the new Parliament on 20 Oct. 1702, after which he was present on 65 per cent of all sitting days. He failed to attend the House at all in November and that month he found himself uncharacteristically in disagreement with Nottingham over the latter’s proposal for union with Scotland as a surer way of maintaining the Protestant succession. Weymouth was concerned at the implications that union with a Presbyterian country would have on the Church of England.136 His opinion may well also have been tinged by prejudice as he had made plain his aversion to Scotland five years previously with the withering comment: ‘as to Scotland, it is much easier to keep people in it, than to incline them to go thither when out of it.’137 He returned to the House on 1 Dec. after which he continued to sit without significant interruption until the prorogation on 27 February. Reports that Weymouth and Ferrers intended to sell their estates in Ireland, and rumours that the lords’ prospective purchasers were Catholic, elicited an alarmed missive from Francis Annesley^‡ in December. (Annesley also hoped that Weymouth would use his influence to ensure the selection of a suitable successor to the recently deceased primate of Ireland.)138

Weymouth, predictably, was estimated to be in full support of Nottingham’s bill for the prevention of occasional conformity and on 16 Jan. 1703 he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendment to the penalty clause. Party loyalty may reasonably be assumed to have been the reason why Weymouth entered a protest on 22 Jan. at the dismissal of the appeal of Robert Squire^‡ and John Thompson against Thomas Wharton, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, over the dispute concerning lead mines in the Honour of Richmond. Weymouth, a local landowner, took a leading interest in the promotion of a bill to allow Andrew Hacket to settle lands in Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Lichfield, which he reported to the House on 1 February.

News of a clutch of new promotions in the peerage in the spring of 1703 coincided with reports that Weymouth was to be advanced either to a marquessate or an earldom (it was speculated that he would be earl of Bristol) and his heir called to the House by a writ of acceleration. In the event, neither honour was forthcoming.139 During the summer, Weymouth was faced with fresh cause for anxiety at the news of the queen’s progress towards Bath. Concerned that she might wish to make use of Longleat as a stopping point on her journey, he worried that Longleat would be inadequate to the demands of the royal party.140

Weymouth was present at the opening of the new session on 9 Nov. 1703. He attended on over 45 per cent of all sitting days. The following month he received a letter from Price Devereux, 9th Viscount Hereford, who enclosed a completed proxy form, not knowing ‘any person fitter than yourself to entrust my vote with,’ but no record of the proxy appears in the Proxy Book. When revelations of the Scotch Plot brought Nottingham under threat, Stawell appealed to Weymouth to return from one of his rare absences ‘to be of service to him.’141 Nottingham included him in a list of members of both Houses he drew up during 1704 which may be an estimate of support over the plot. Early in November 1703, in advance of the session, Weymouth had been included by Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, among those thought likely to support the occasional conformity bill. Sunderland repeated his assessment later in the month and on 14 Dec. Weymouth duly divided in favour of the bill and entered his protest when the measure was rejected. The following week, he delivered a report from the commissioners of trade and plantations. In January 1704, Weymouth’s agent at Tamworth, John Mainwaring, reported on manoeuvrings in the town in advance of an expected election. Several candidates were prepared to stand with Weymouth’s approbation. One, John Chetwynd^‡ was already in London seeking both Weymouth’s and Ferrers’s support, though Ferrers was said to have declared that ‘he would not act contrary to his cousin… Lord Weymouth.’142 In the House, Weymouth again exercised his protest on 14 Jan. over the resolution to reverse the judgment in the cause of Ashby v. White.

Rumours circulated following the close of the session that April that Weymouth was to lay down his office as first lord of trade, presumably as a demonstration of solidarity on Nottingham’s dismissal, but it was not until the autumn that he gave up his post.143 In May 1704 he was said to be on the point of purchasing Cobham Hall in Kent from Sir Joseph Williamson^‡.144 His new interest in the area may have been the cause of Winchilsea approaching him in June to help secure the return of Edward Knatchbull^‡ at Rochester in the next election. It also brought him into conflict with Clarendon. Although Clarendon insisted that he was sure that Weymouth was not personally at fault, ‘all your proceedings being so punctual and full of honour’ he remained highly critical of the way Weymouth’s agents had behaved in pursuing the purchase.145

Weymouth responded enthusiastically to the news of the victory at Blenheim in August: he wrote to the captain-general John Churchill, duke of Marlborough, that ‘He is a very scurvy Englishman that does not heartily rejoice at the honour your grace has done the arms of the nation.’ The same month Weymouth exhibited a complaint in Chancery against one William Gore for encroaching upon his manor of Cheddar in Somerset. Weymouth accused Gore of intimidating his tenants, and of boasting that the superannuated witnesses Weymouth relied upon to substantiate his arguments were not likely to live long.146 The death of Weymouth’s younger son in October proved a far greater trial and may have been one of the reasons for his absence from Parliament for the entirety of the session beginning in October 1704. Troubled both by his loss and recurrent poor health, shortly before the opening of the new session he resigned his place as a commissioner of trade.147 On 1 Nov. he was listed as being a likely supporter of the Tack but on 23 Nov. he was excused at a call of the House and on 29 Nov. registered his proxy in Nottingham’s favour.

The Parliaments of 1705 and 1708

Weymouth was assessed as a Jacobite in an analysis of the peerage of 1705. During the general election of that year he engaged his interest in Herefordshire on behalf of James Scudamore^‡, 3rd Viscount Scudamore [I], in spite of not having ‘the good fortune to be known personally’ to him.148 He supported Joseph Girdler^‡ at Tamworth, who was successful in retaining his seat, and co-operated with Abingdon once more at Westbury.149 In Oxford he joined with Rochester and Nottingham in support of Thomas Rowney^‡ and Francis Norreys^‡.150 Weymouth was crippled with gout during the summer but he was determined to be in London for the new Parliament, ‘for though my thoughts are not so sanguine as to hope much good from it, yet I would willingly be upon the spot if possible to contribute anything to our safety.’151 He took his seat accordingly a few days after the opening on 31 Oct, following which he was present on 52 per cent of all sitting days. On 6 Nov. he was outmanoeuvred by Wharton who succeeded in introducing Weymouth’s nephew Richard Lowther, 2nd Viscount Lonsdale, into the House and settling him among the Whig ranks. Weymouth supported fully an initiative led by Rochester and Nottingham to reinvigorate the Church party by attempting to dominate business in the Lords and on 13 Nov. he was one of only eight (mostly Tory) peers to attend a meeting of the committee for the address chaired by Nottingham. On 30 Nov. Weymouth entered his protest at the failure to give the committee of the whole house further instructions on the question of the bill for securing the queen and the Protestant succession and on 3 Dec. he entered three further protests on the same subject. On 6 Dec. Weymouth protested at the resolution that the Church was not in danger. He entered an additional three protests on the subject of securing the Protestant succession on 31 Jan. 1706 but he was heavily criticized by William Nicolson, bishop of Carlisle, for failing the Tories following the debates over the Partition Bill, which was carried by a single vote in a poorly attended House on 26 February.152

Weymouth was removed as custos rotulorum for Wiltshire in May, one of several Tories put out at that time, and replaced by Evelyn Pierrepont, 5th earl (later duke) of Kingston.153 The same month saw the commencement of a case in chancery brought by Charles Bruce, styled Lord Bruce (later 3rd earl of Ailesbury), following his marriage to Lady Anne Savile. Bruce argued that Weymouth, Nottingham and Heneage Finch, Baron Guernsey, who had been named trustees in Halifax’s will, had failed to act in providing him with Lady Anne’s promised £15,000 portion.154 Weymouth entered his answer in February of the following year, together with his co-defendants, arguing that he had never acted as a trustee following Halifax’s death and begging leave to be excused the commission.155

Weymouth took his seat shortly after the opening of the new session on 5 Dec. 1706, and was present on 44 per cent of all sitting days. A consistent opponent of the union of England and Scotland, on 4 Mar. 1707 he entered his protest at the resolution to pass the Union Bill. On 17 Mar. he voted in favour of the rider to the bill which insisted that it was in no way to be interpreted as an acknowledgement of the validity of Presbyterian worship.156 He then took his place once at the opening of the brief April session, of which he attended six of its nine days.

Weymouth was omitted from the new Privy Council of Great Britain in May. He took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Dec. and was present on approximately 53 per cent of all the sitting days in the session. On 2 Mar. 1708 he reported from the committee considering the Watchet Harbour bill. Following the dissolution, Weymouth was again active in the elections. In the middle of May he reported confidently how ‘we do not lose ground though all arts are employed’ and soon afterwards predicted a similar Parliament to the one that had preceded it, ‘unless the North Britons make a change’.157 Joining with Abingdon, he entertained the electors of Westbury at Longleat on behalf of Henry Bertie^‡ and Francis Annesley. He was also able to bring some influence to bear in Somerset in support of John Prowse^‡, son-in-law of George Hooper, bishop of Bath and Wells, while Francis Gwyn recommended that the other candidate, Sir William Wyndham^‡, ‘should be spoken to again to be kept right.’158 As late as early June, Weymouth remained convinced that the elections had progressed well and that ‘we shall not be so much overrun as was threatened’.159 His prognostics proved wide of the mark. Although the Thynne-Bertie interest was successful in Wiltshire, overall Whig successes proved far in excess of Weymouth’s estimates. He now worried about repeal of the Test.160

Weymouth was again afflicted by poor health over the summer, plagued by an ‘itchy disease’ that proved hard to shake off and robbed him of sleep. He wondered whether it originated from Scotland ‘as a reward for being against the Union.’161 Weymouth took his seat in the new Parliament on 14 Dec. but six days later he was devastated by the death of his only remaining son and heir, Henry Thynne.162 It was entirely unexpected, Thynne having told his father only days previously that he was ‘as well as ever he was in his life.’163 Weymouth’s own health deteriorated: after his son’s demise he failed to attend for a month, not returning to the House until 18 Jan. 1709.164 Two days after resuming his place he demonstrated his continuing opposition to all things Scots by joining with the Junto in voting against permitting Scots peers holding British peerages from voting in the elections for Scots representative peers. Several other Jacobite Tories did likewise, among them Guilford.165

By March 1709 Weymouth was said to have been ‘upon his last legs’ suffering from a variety of conditions and only kept alive by being dosed with cordials.166 Galvanized by the loss of his son and no doubt mindful of his own declining health, in May Weymouth successfully negotiated a match for his nephew and heir, Thomas Thynne, with Lady Mary Villiers, daughter of Edward Villiers, earl of Jersey.167 Weymouth returned to the House a month into the second session on 5 Dec. 1709 after which he was present until its close on 5 Apr. 1710, attending approximately 58 per cent of sitting days. On 16 Feb. he protested at the resolution not to require the magistrates of Edinburgh to attend the House over the Greenshields’ case and against the resolution not to adjourn. The same day he also protested at the resolution to agree with the Commons’ request that John Churchill, duke of Marlborough, should be sent to Holland and against a further resolution not to adjourn proceedings.

The following month, Weymouth unsurprisingly rallied to the cause of Henry Sacheverell, a man with whom he had long been on friendly terms, and on 14 Mar. he entered the first of a series of protests over the impeachment.168 On 20 Mar. he found Sacheverell not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours and he then entered a further protest against the conviction. In April Weymouth was again struck by personal tragedy with the sudden death of his heir, Thomas Thynne, a loss only narrowly ameliorated by the birth of Thynne’s son posthumously the following month.169 In June Weymouth, Nottingham and Guernsey were required to enter a further answer in their ongoing dispute with Lord Bruce.170

The 1710 Elections and after

In July 1710 Weymouth found himself ‘as busy as if the writs were sealed’ and, eager not to ‘thwart anything that may be designed by ignorance or inadvertence,’ appealed to Robert Harley for ‘directions how to govern’ himself in the coming elections.171 Weymouth also made use of the opportunity to recommend his former ward, Sir John Pakington^‡, for preferment, while also submitting a plea on behalf of his nephew, Winchilsea, arguing that, ‘no man is more beloved and pitied… or capable of doing more service; and greater sinners must be restored, if they did not offend out of malicious wickedness.’172 Towards the close of September he informed Harley of his willingness to return to office. The following month he was again active in employing his interest in the general election.173 At Tamworth, he and Ferrers joined forces to support the candidacy of Samuel Bracebridge^‡, while at Westbury he and Abingdon were again successful in beating off challenges to their suzerainty in the borough.174 The same month, John Carteret, 2nd Baron Carteret, was married to Weymouth’s granddaughter, Frances Worsley.175

Perhaps in response to his offers of service to Harley’s new administration, Weymouth seems to have been offered an earldom during 1710, which he declined.176 He was reported to be dangerously sick not long after the elections but he rallied sufficiently to take his seat in the House on 7 Dec. after which he was present on almost 80 per cent of all sitting days. On 27 Jan. 1711 he was entrusted with the proxy of William Stawell, 3rd Baron Stawell, which was vacated by the close of the session. The following month, on 5 Feb., Weymouth entered his protest at the resolution to reject the bill repealing the General Naturalization Act.

Weymouth was present in the House at the opening of the new session on 7 Dec. 1711, but sat for just two days before absenting himself for the remainder of the month. On 11 Dec. he registered his proxy in favour of his grandson-in-law Carteret, which was vacated by his return to the House on 2 Jan. 1712. Weymouth’s support for the earl of Oxford (as Harley had since become) was thought to be in doubt during the session, as he and a number of other peers manoeuvred themselves back towards Nottingham. It was certainly noticeable that he divided with Nottingham against the motion to adjourn the House of 2 January. Weymouth’s desire to see Episcopalianism secured in Scotland remained constant and was perhaps one of the factors that led him to support the grants resumption bill.177 On 20 Jan. Christopher Vane, Baron Barnard, registered his proxy in favour of Weymouth, which was vacated five days later, and on 8 Feb. William North, 6th Baron North and 2nd Baron Grey of Rolleston, also entrusted his proxy to Weymouth, which was vacated by North’s resuming his seat on 26 February. On 17 Mar. Hereford again registered his proxy in Weymouth’s favour. The same month Weymouth was appointed warden of the Forest of Dean. The appointment encouraged at least one of his ‘poor Tory’ relations to seek his patronage, eager to secure one of the places under him, ‘proper for a sportsman, and some profit too.’178 Towards the end of May he voted against the opposition-inspired measure to request the queen to overturn the orders restraining James Butler, 2nd duke of Ormond from waging an offensive campaign against the French. The following month he was included on one of Oxford’s numerous memoranda as a possible commissioner for trade.179

Weymouth was appealed to by North and Grey during the summer of 1712 to employ his interest with Oxford to secure for him the governorship of Dunkirk but Weymouth’s support for the ministry seems gradually to have petered out over the next few months.180 He was forced to accept the loss of the conservatorship of the Forest of Dean, which was normally combined with the wardenship. In October he was said to have been active in attempting to build up one Mr Helier in opposition to the court candidate.181 In spite of this, he assured Oxford of his pleasure at the news of the peace. In December asked that one Mr Clapcott be excused from being pricked sheriff of Dorset to ensure the return of suitable members for Weymouth.182 He was also active in promoting the claims of Adam Ottley, later bishop of St Davids, to the bishopric of Hereford and of Viscount Hereford to one of the stewardships formerly held by John Vaughan, 3rd earl of Carbery [I] and 3rd Baron Vaughan.183 In March 1713 he was still estimated to be a likely supporter of the ministry but during the same year it was speculated that he would desert over the French commerce bill. The financial implications of the peace seem to have been at the heart of Weymouth’s concerns.184 The profound party divide in Wiltshire preoccupied him towards the end of his life. In August in advance of the elections he offered Oxford his cautious prediction on the state of the county: ‘the party are far from laying down the cudgels, they are active in all places, most especially in this country, where they will succeed in one or two boroughs, and struggle hard for the shire, but there they will be defeated.’185 The results left him cautiously optimistic, though advising Sir James Grahme of the Tory successes he wrote that ‘if we do not act wisely, the stream will turn.’186

Weymouth’s gout returned to trouble him in the winter of 1713 but he recovered sufficiently to take his seat a fortnight into the new Parliament on 2 Mar. 1714.187 In advance of the session he predicted in one of his regular long letters to James Grahme that it was in the Lords that the ‘great struggles’ of the session would be located.188 Present on almost 86 per cent of all sitting days in the first session, in May Weymouth’s name appeared on the list of those thought to be in favour of preventing the growth of schism. On 29 May he was again entrusted with Hereford’s proxy. On 3 July, shortly before the close, he summed up the state of affairs gloomily: ‘our ministers are far from agreeing and I fear will scarce unite again which will end in their and our utter confusion’.189

Weymouth sat for the last time on 9 July, the final day of the session. On 24 July he was said to be ‘very ill’ and three days later thought likely to be dead before the night was out.190 He died the following day. The cause of death was said to have been gout.191 On 29 July a notice in the Post Boy described him as having been, ‘a true friend to monarchy and episcopacy… very generous and compassionate to the poor’, and blessed with an ‘abundance of other good qualities.’192 His body was carried back to Wiltshire and buried at Longbridge Deverill.193 In his will of 4 Nov. 1709 Weymouth made a number of substantial bequests totalling over £7,450.194 In an undated codicil, Weymouth made additional grants including an annuity of £2,500 to his wife and £7,000 to his granddaughter Lady Carteret towards her marriage portion. To his other granddaughters, Jane and Elizabeth Worsley, he left £7,000 to be shared between them, while Frances and Mary Thynne were given £10,000 each.195 Nottingham, Rochester and Jersey all received small marks of remembrance. Weymouth’s annual charitable donations in Wiltshire, Somerset and Gloucestershire amounted to some £442 and at his death, in addition to over £1,000 designated for charitable purposes he required that a further £1,000 should be set aside for the construction of a church at Frome in Somerset as the current structure was inadequate for the needs of the parish.196 Carteret, Sir Robert Worsley, and Weymouth’s faithful retainers John Mainwaring and John Ord were named executors. The peerage descended to his four-year-old great-nephew Thomas Thynne, who succeeded as 2nd Viscount Weymouth.

R.D.E.E.

• 1 Staffs. Pedigrees, (Harl. Soc. lxiii), 222-3.
• 2 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 100, ff. 204-5.
• 3 Longleat, Bath mss, Coventry pprs. 85, f.13.
• 4 SCLA, DR 671/89, p. 27.
• 5 TNA, PROB 11/541, sig.169.
• 6 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 68, f. 67; Luttrell, Brief Relation, v. 185.
• 7 CSP Dom. 1702-3, p. 488.
• 8 CSP Dom. 1682, p. 356.
• 9 Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 46.
• 10 HMC Portland, iv. 693-4.
• 11 Worcester RO, Pakington mss, 705:349/4739/2/vii.
• 12 CSP Dom. 1700-1, p. 358.
• 13 Collins, Peerage, ii. 497; J. Jackson, History of Longleat, (Devizes, 1857), 6, 14.
• 14 D. Hainsworth, Stewards, Lords and People, 16.
• 15 Add. 75376, f. 11; HMC Finch, iii. 419-20.
• 16 D. Burnett, Longleat: the story of an English Country House, 72.
• 17 HMC Bath, iv. 358-5.
• 18 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs 17, f. 93.
• 19 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs 17, ff. 119-20, 124-5.
• 20 Add. 75363, Sir Thomas Thynne to Halifax, 9 Mar. 1680.
• 21 Seventeenth-Century Oxford, 832.
• 22 HP Commons 1660-90, i. 242; Add. 75363, Thynne to Halifax, 13 Aug. 1681.
• 23 VCH Wilts, v. 164.
• 24 Verney ms mic. M636/37, newsletter, 30 Nov. 1682; Morrice, Ent’ring bk. ii. 335.
• 25 CSP Dom. 1682, p. 554.
• 26 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs 21, f. 394.
• 27 Burnett, Longleat, 74.
• 28 Add. 75353, Weymouth to Halifax, 25 June 1683.
• 29 CSP Dom. 1683 July-Sept., pp. 110, 212; Add. 75353, Weymouth to Halifax, 20 Aug. 1683.
• 30 Add. 75353, Weymouth to Halifax, 4 Aug. 1683.
• 31 Morrice, Ent’ring bk. ii. 382.
• 32 Add. 75353, Weymouth to Halifax, 29 Oct. 1683.
• 33 HMC 5th Rep. 187.
• 34 Add. 75363, Weymouth to Halifax, 25 July 1684.
• 35 HP Commons 1660-90, i. 385.
• 36 Add. 75363, Weymouth to Halifax, 10 Jan. 1685.
• 37 HMC Dartmouth, i. 122.
• 38 CSP Dom. 1685, p. 121.
• 39 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 12, f. 55.
• 40 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs 12, f. 59, Thynne pprs. 22, f. 189; Burnett, Longleat, 80.
• 41 Notts. Arch., Savile of Rufford mss. DD/SR/212/36/16; Add. 75353, Weymouth to Halifax, 25 July 1685.
• 42 Add. 19253, f. 146; Letters of Chesterfield, 306-9.
• 43 Notts. Archives, Savile of Rufford mss. DD/SR/212/36/17; Add. 75363, Weymouth to Halifax, 26 Apr. 1686; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 113, 118.
• 44 Add. 28569, f. 58.
• 45 Add. 75363, Weymouth to Halifax, 10 July 1686, 15 Aug. 1686, 4 Sept. 1686; Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 12, f. 238.
• 46 Add. 75363, Weymouth to Halifax, 3 July 1686.
• 47 Bodl. Rawl. A 189, f. 30; Add. 28569, f. 63.
• 48 Add. 75353, Weymouth to Halifax, 15 Mar. 1687.
• 49 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 18, f. 181; Morrice, Entring Bk. iv. 187.
• 50 Burnett, Longleat, 84.
• 51 Add. 75353, Weymouth to Halifax, 16 Apr. 1688.
• 52 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 99, f. 211.
• 53 Add. 34510, ff. 166-7.
• 54 Horwitz, Rev. Pols. 56-57.
• 55 Add. 34510, ff. 166-7.
• 56 Kingdom without a King, 39, 70, 72; Verney ms mic. M636/43, J. to Sir R. Verney, 13 Dec. 1688.
• 57 Burnett, Longleat, 85.
• 58 Kingdom without a King, 158, 165.
• 59 Clarendon Corresp. ii. 261.
• 60 Horwitz, Rev. Pols. 83n.
• 61 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 12, f. 86.
• 62 Letters of Chesterfield (1832), 359.
• 63 Bodl. ms Eng. Lett. d. 310, f. 219.
• 64 HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 648, 660.
• 65 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 24, ff. 140, 182; HP Commons 1690-1715, v. 641.
• 66 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 24, ff. 148, 150, Thynne pprs. 28, ff. 268, 270.
• 67 HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 541.
• 68 HEHL, Ellesmere mss, 9909; Bodl. Carte 79, f. 306.
• 69 Add. 75363, Weymouth to Halifax, 7 June 1690.
• 70 HMC Finch, iii. 303.
• 71 Add. 75363, Weymouth to Halifax, 9 Aug. 1690.
• 72 Add. 75353, Weymouth to Halifax, 20 Sept. 1690.
• 73 Add. 75353, Weymouth to Halifax, 20 July 1690.
• 74 Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 113.
• 75 Luttrell Diary, 68; HMC Finch, iii. 9-10; HMC Portland, iii. 459.
• 76 Ailesbury Mems. i. 276; Surr. Hist. Cent. Somers, 371/14/J3.
• 77 Add. 34566, f. 52; HMC Finch, iii. 111; Add. 70234, Sir E. to R. Harley, 20 Oct. 1691.
• 78 Lancs. RO, DDK 1615/9.
• 79 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 17, f. 233.
• 80 HMC Finch, iv. 115.
• 81 Add. 75353, Weymouth to Halifax, 2 Aug. 1692.
• 82 HMC Finch, iv. 442.
• 83 Add. 75353, Weymouth to Halifax, 10 Oct. 1692.
• 84 Add. 70014, P. Foley to Sir E. Harley, 10 Jan. 1693; Add. 70235, Sir E. to R. Harley, 28 Jan. 1693.
• 85 Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 30; Add. 70081, newsletter, 4 Feb. 1693.
• 86 Bodl. ms Eng. lett. d. 310, f. 220.
• 87 Add. 63466, f. 46.
• 88 HP Commons 1660-90, iii. 33.
• 89 Staffs. RO, Ferrers pprs. D3794/7/5.
• 90 HMC Portland, iii. 562; CSP Dom. 1694-5, pp. 412, 413-4.
• 91 Hants. RO, Jervoise mss, 44M69/08.
• 92 Add. 75368, Weymouth to Halifax, 27 Apr. 1695.
• 93 Add. 75368, Weymouth to Halifax, 22 July 1695.
• 94 Add. 70252, J. Powle to R. Harley, 3 June 1695.
• 95 Add. 70226, T. Foley to R. Harley, 31 July 1695.
• 96 Add. 75368, Weymouth to Halifax, 21 Oct, 2 Nov. 1695.
• 97 WCRO, CR 2131, vol 16, f.11.
• 98 Bagot mss, Levens Hall, Weymouth to James Grahme, 24 Nov. 1695.
• 99 Add. 75368, Weymouth to Halifax, 14 Jan. 1696.
• 100 Add. 75368, Weymouth to Halifax, 31 Jan. 1696; CSP Dom. 1696, p. 111.
• 101 Chatsworth muniments, 92.0, Weymouth to Halifax, 29 Feb. 1696.
• 102 HMC Lords, ii. 206-8, 212-13; HEHL, HM 30659 (62); Add. 75368, Weymouth to Halifax, 26 Mar. 1696; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 37.
• 103 HMC Rutland, ii. 159-60; HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 541.
• 104 Staffs. RO, Persehowse pprs. D260/M/F/1/6, ff. 96-8.
• 105 Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 183; HEHL, Stowe (Chandos) MS 26, vol. 1, p. 9.
• 106 Ailesbury Mems. ii. 428.
• 107 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs 12, f. 115.
• 108 Add. 25368, Weymouth to Halifax, 21, 29 May 1697; Add. 75370, F. Gwyn to Halifax, 9 June 1697.
• 109 Add. 75368, Weymouth to Halifax, 4, 11, 31 Dec. 1697, 28 Aug. 1699.
• 110 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 12, f. 136.
• 111 Bodl. ms Eng. Lett. D. 310, f. 222.
• 112 Add. 75368, Weymouth to Halifax, 21 Apr. 1698.
• 113 Bagot MSS, Levens Hall, Weymouth to J. Grahme, 22 July 1698.
• 114 Pols. in Age of Anne, 273.
• 115 Add. 75370, F. Gwyn to Halifax, 31 May 1699.
• 116 Add. 75368, Weymouth to Halifax, 17 June 1699; Bagot mss, Levens Hall, Weymouth to J. Grahme, 16 July 1699; Carte 228, f. 321.
• 117 HMC Portland, iii. 626, 629-30.
• 118 Cumbria RO, D/Lons/L1/1/44.
• 119 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 25, ff. 46, 50.
• 120 HMC Portland, iii. 634; Add. 70226, T. Foley to R. Harley, 9 Dec. 1700.
• 121 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 25, ff. 47, 58; TNA, PRO 30/24/20/38.
• 122 HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 541, 639-40.
• 123 Add. 70020, f. 105; HMC Portland, iv. 24, 26.
• 124 HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 868.
• 125 Add. 70073-4, newsletter, 19 Mar. 1702.
• 126 Add. 29588, f. 22.
• 127 Add. 70073-4, newsletter, 18 Apr. 1702.
• 128 Add. 70073-4, newsletter, 2 June 1702; Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. i. 62.
• 129 Horwitz, Rev. Pols, 182-3; Luttrell, Brief Relation, v. 180; CTB 1702, part 2, p. 380.
• 130 Add. 29588, f. 47.
• 131 Add. 70073-4, newsletter, 18 June 1702.
• 132 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs 68, f. 71.
• 133 Lansd. 987, f. 202.
• 134 G. Holmes, Trial of Dr Sacheverell, 18.
• 135 Add. 29588, ff. 39, 129, Add. 22130, ff. 1-2.
• 136 Nicolson, London Diaries, 136.
• 137 Add. 75368, Weymouth to Halifax, 7 Nov. 1697.
• 138 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs 25, f. 104.
• 139 Atterbury, Epistolary Corresp. iv. 389-90; Add. 70075, newsletter, 9 Mar. 1703, newsletter, 13 Mar. 1703.
• 140 Add. 29589, f. 22.
• 141 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 12, f. 140, Thynne pprs. 25, f. 170.
• 142 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs 28, f. 328.
• 143 Luttrell, Brief Relation, v. 417.
• 144 Add. 70075, newsletter, 6 May 1704.
• 145 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 17, ff. 294-5, Thynne pprs. 25, ff. 350-1.
• 146 TNA, C9/464/78.
• 147 HMC Portland, iv. 140.
• 148 C115/109, n.8922.
• 149 HMC Portland, iv. 176.
• 150 J. Richard, Party Propaganda under Queen Anne (1972), 73.
• 151 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs 13, f. 346.
• 152 Nicolson, London Diaries, 298-9, 302, 385.
• 153 Cornw. RO, Antony House mss, CVC/Y/2/28.
• 154 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 99, f. 247.
• 155 C6/379/38.
• 156 Bodl. Ballard 31, f. 61.
• 157 Ballard 10, f. 73; Bagot mss, Levens Hall, Weymouth to J. Grahme, 17 May 1708.
• 158 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs 25, f. 441.
• 159 Ballard 10, f. 74.
• 160 Pols. in Age of Anne, 105.
• 161 Bagot mss, Levens Hall, Weymouth to J. Grahme, 11 July 1708.
• 162 Add. 70025, f. 146; Add. 70144, A. Hadley to A. Harley, 21 Dec. 1708.
• 163 Add. 70144, K. Hadley to A. Harley, 30 Dec. 1708.
• 164 HMC Downshire, i. 863.
• 165 Add. 72488, ff. 47-8.
• 166 Add. 70144, A. Hadley to A. Harley, 16 Mar. 1709.
• 167 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 46, f. 3; Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 437.
• 168 Add. 72494, ff. 106-7.
• 169 Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 574, 582; Add. 61475, f. 8; Add. 72495, ff. 6-8.
• 170 C6/360/13.
• 171 HMC Portland, iv. 551.
• 172 Pols. in Age of Anne, 193.
• 173 Add. 70260, Weymouth to Harley, 26 Sept. 1710.
• 174 Worcs. RO, Cal. Wm Lygon Letters, 340, S. Bracebridge to W. Lygon, 28 Aug. 1710; Pols. in Age of Anne, 175.
• 175 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 47, ff. 67-8.
• 176 HMC Portland, v. 33.
• 177 Horwitz, Rev. Pols. 235; Ballard 20, f. 74; D. Szechi, Jacobitism and Tory Politics 1710-14, 113.
• 178 Worcs. RO, Hampton mss, 705:349/4739/2 (vii) /1.
• 179 PH, xxvi. 177-181; Add. 70332, memorandum, 16 June 1712.
• 180 Bodl. North mss, c.8, ff. 193-4.
• 181 Add. 70279, R. Robins to Oxford, 1 Aug. 1712; Add. 70252, Poulett to Oxford, 5 Oct. 1712.
• 182 Add. 70260, Weymouth to Oxford, 18 Aug, 11 Dec. 1712.
• 183 NLW, Ottley corresp. 1499, 1612, 1613, 1617; Add. 70260, Weymouth to Oxford, 1713.
• 184 Add. 70260, Weymouth to Oxford, 2 Apr. 1713.
• 185 HMC Portland, v. 325.
• 186 Bagot mss, Levens Hall, Weymouth to Sir J. Grahme, 11 Sept. 1713.
• 187 Add. 70149, G. Thynne to A. Harley, 6 Nov. 1713; Add. 70260, Weymouth to Oxford, 22 Nov. 1713.
• 188 Bagot mss, Levens Hall, Weymouth to Sir J. Grahme, 5 Jan. 1714.
• 189 Northumberland mss at Alnwick, vol. 22, i. f. 81.
• 190 Add. 70197, J. Foulks to Oxford, 24 July 1714; Stowe 242, ff. 54-5.
• 191 Add. 70070, newsletter, 29 July 1714.
• 192 B. Botfield, Stemmata Botevilliana (1858), cccxlix.
• 193 HMC Portland, v. 485.
• 194 PROB 11/541, ff. 307-8.
• 195 Botfield, Stemmata Botevilliana, cclvii.
• 196 Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 68, f. 96.