cr. 19 Oct. 1714 Bar. CARLETON
First sat 21 Mar. 1715; last sat 10 Mar. 1725
MP Tamworth 8 May 1689; Cambridge University 21 Nov. 1692, 1695, 1698, 1701 (Feb.), 1701 (Dec.), 1702; Westminster 1705, 1708., MP co. Cork [I] 1692-3.
b. 12 July 1669, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of Charles Boyle, Visct Dungarvan [I] and Bar. Clifford of Lanesborough, and 1st w. Jane (d. 1679), da. of William Seymour, 2nd duke of Somerset; bro. of Charles Boyle, 3rd earl of Cork [I], and 2nd earl Burlington;1 educ. Westminster, travelled abroad 1685-8, Padua Univ. 1685, Trinity, Camb. 1692, MA 1693, DCL, Oxf. 1720; unm.; d. 14 Mar. 1725; will 3 Apr. 1723, pr. 17 Mar. 1725.2
Commr, Treasury 1699- 1702, union with Scotland 1706; kpr, royal garden, St James’s Palace 1701; chan., Exch. 1701-8; PC 27 Mar. 1701-d.; ld treas. [I], 1704-15; sec. of state [N] 1708-10; PC [I] 30 Sept. 1714-d.; ld pres. of council 1721-d.
Ld lt and custos rot., Yorks. (W. Riding) and city and ainsty of York 1704-15, custos rot. Yorks. (N. Riding) 1704-15; v.-adm., Yorks. 1704-15.
Cornet, Queen’s Horse (later 1 Drag. Gds) 1685-8; coronet and maj., 2 Life Gds by 1691-2.
Commr. Q. Anne’s bounty 1704; trustee, Dr Busby’s charity by 1724.
Associated with: Carleton House, Pall Mall, Westminster.
Likenesses: oil on canvas by Sir G. Kneller, 1703, National Trust, Hardwick Hall, Derbys.
Henry Boyle was the younger of the two surviving sons of Charles Boyle, Baron Clifford of Lanesborough, and was thus well placed to make a successful political career. Aided by a host of aristocratic relations and a natural urbanity and affability, he also possessed a high degree of competence, which ensured that he became a trusted and effective member of any administration.
Boyle sat in the English House of Commons in every session from the time he was returned at a by-election for Cambridge University on 21 Nov. 1692 until the change of ministry in autumn 1710. From 1697 he aligned himself with the court and in the last years of William III’s reign he was adept at shifting with the changing political currents, gaining in the process a number of important, and lucrative, posts. During the reign of Anne he remained one of the ministry’s principal spokesmen in the Commons, and was particularly close to Sidney Godolphin, earl of Godolphin, to whom he stayed loyal as one of the ‘lord treasurer’s Whigs’ during the attempts to oust the minister in 1707-8. As a reward he was appointed secretary of state in 1708 to replace Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, but Boyle later refused to join the new Tory-leaning ministry formed by Harley in the autumn of 1710.
For his support of the Hanoverian Succession while in government, and his steadiness to the Whigs when out of office after 1710, Boyle was created Baron Carleton as part of George I’s coronation honours on 19 Oct. 1714. He thus became a nominal member of the House during the period covered by these volumes, but he did not sit until the first day of George I’s new Parliament, on 21 Mar. 1715. His activity in the House, and in the Privy Council of which he was president from 1721, will be covered in the succeeding volumes of this series. He died in March 1725.
C.G.D.L.