829 



SUNDERLAND, EARL OF. 



SUNDERLAND, EARL OF. 



830 



to the see of Llandaff in 1826, with which he hold the deanery of St. 

 Paul's. In 1827 he was translated to the bishopric of Winchester. 



SUNDERLAND, HENRY SPENCER, FIBST EARL OF (of that 

 name), was born in 1623, and was the eldest eon of Henry, second 

 Baron Spencer of Wormleighton, which title be inherited on his father's 

 death in December 1636. While still a minor he married the beautiful 

 lady Dorothy Sidney, daughter of the earl of Leicester, and sister of 

 Algernon Sidney, the Sucharissa of the poet Waller; but on the break- 

 ing out of the civil war, and the erection of the royal standard at 

 Nottingham in August 1642, Lord Spencer conceived himself bound in 

 honour to repair thither, although like many others who took the 

 same course, by no means desirous of setting the prerogative above 

 the law, but rather siding with the king against the parliament as only 

 the least unhappy alternative offered by the crisis. Some confidential 

 and affectionate letters to his wife, which are printed in Collins's ' Sid- 

 ney State Papers,' show the position in which he found himself, and 

 the feelings with which he regarded the royal cause. In one dated 

 Shrewsbury, 21st September 1642, he says : " How much I am unsa- 

 tisfied with the proceedings here, I have at large expressed in several 

 letters. Neither is there wanting, daily, handsome occasion to retire, 

 were it not for grinning honour. For let occasion be never so hand- 

 some, unless a man were resolved to fight on the parliament side, which 

 for my part I had rather be hanged, it will be said without doubt that 

 a man is afraid to fight. If there could be an expedient found to 

 salve the punctilio of honour, I would not continue here an hour. 

 The discontent that I and other honest men receive daily is beyond 

 expression." Very much of the discontent here spoken of seems to 

 have arisen from the influence in the royal councils possessed by the 

 popish party, already strong in the support of the queen. Lord Spencer 

 however, although he did not accept any military commission, drew 

 his sword with the rest, and distinguished himself by his gallantry 

 whin the two armies joined battle for the first time at Edgehill, 23rd 

 October 1642. The following year on the 8th of June, he was raised 

 (it has been said, as a reward for accommodating the king with the loan 

 of 15,000^.) to the title of Earl of Sunderlaud, a title which had become 

 extinct about three years before by the death of Scrope, Earl of Sun- 

 derlaud (previously Lord Scrope), upon whom Charles had conferred 

 it in the beginning of his reign. But on the 19th of September there- 

 after, the new-made earl fell at the (first) battle of Newbury, the same 

 fatal fight which deprived the king of the Earl of Carnarvon, and 

 Clarendon's great hero Lord Falkland. The royalist historian describes 

 the Earl of Sunderland as " a lord of great fortune, tender years 

 (being not above three and twenty years of age), and an early judg- 

 ment ; who having no command in the army, attended upon the king's 

 person under the- obligation of honour ; and putting himself that day 

 in the king's troop a volunteer, before they cauie to charge was taken 

 away by a cannon bullet." By his wife who afterwards married Robert 

 Smy the, Esq., he left a son who succeeded him in the peerage, a daughter 

 Dorothy, who became the wife of Charles II. 's famous minister, the 

 first Marquis of Halifax, and another daughter Penelope, who died 

 unmarried. 



SUNDERLAND, ROBERT SPENCER, SECOND EARL OF, the 

 only son of Henry, the first earl, was probably born in 1641 or 1642. 

 His first entrance into public life appears to have been in 1671, in the 

 latter end of which year he was nominated ambassador to Spain. In 

 1672 he went to Paris in the same capacity, and he was one of the 

 three plenipotentiaries appointed to proceed to Cologne in the following 

 year when England and France were engaged in a war with the Em- 

 peror, Spain, and Holland, to open negociatioiis for a general peace, 

 which however proved abortive. He had already evinced a remarkable 

 talent in the conduct of affairs. "Lord Sunderland," says Burnet, in 

 mentioning this appointment " was a man of a clear and ready appre- 

 hension, and a quick decision in business. He had too much heat both 

 of imagination and passion, and was apt to speak very freely both of 

 persons and things. His own notions were always good [the bishop 

 seems to mean correct or judicious] ; but he was a man of great ex- 

 pense. .... He had indeed the superior genius to all the men of busi- 

 ness that I have yet known." In 1678, on the recall of Mr. Ralph 

 Montague from Paris, at the instigation of the Duchess of Portsmouth, 

 whose enmity and vengeance he had incurred by being detected in 

 making love at the same time to herself and her daughter, Sunderland 

 was again sent ambassador to France ; but on the change of govern- 

 ment at home in the beginning of the following year, he was recallec 1 

 and made secretary of state in the room of Sir Joseph Williamson. 

 From this time at least, if not from an earlier date, Sunderland espe- 

 cially attached himself to the Duchesa of Portsmouth, availing himself 

 of her patronage or instrumentality as one of the principal props of 

 his ambition. At first he and lords Essex and Halifax united in oppos- 

 ing Shaftesbury on the question of excluding the Duke of York, and 

 keeping the chief direction of the state in their hands they were popu- 

 larly styled the triumvirate. " Lord Sunderland," says his friend and 

 admirer Burnet, " managed foreign affaird, and had the greatest credit 

 with the Duchess of Portsmouth." This original triumvirate however 

 did not last long : before the end of the year Sunderland had shaken 

 off both the others ; and the kingdom was now governed by a new 

 junta, consisting of himself, Lord Hyde, and Godolphin. To this date 

 is to be assigned the commencement of Sunderland' s relation to the 

 prince of Orange, afterwards King William. Burnet states that he 



entered into a particular confidence with the prince, "which he 

 managed by his uncle Mr. Sidney, who was sent envoy to Holland." 

 He and Godolphin now also followed the Duchess of Portsmouth in 

 declaring openly for the exclusion. But immediately after the disso- 

 lution of the last of the exclusion parliaments, in March 1681, another 

 change of government suddenly threw Sunderland, with the rest of 

 the popular members of administration, out of office. Evelyn has a 

 notice of him immediately after this, which is interesting : " 16 May 

 (1681). Came my Lady Sunderland to desire that I would propose a 

 match to Sir Stephen Fox for her son Lord Spencer to marry Mrs. 

 Jane, Sir Stephen's daughter. I excused myself all I was able. She 

 was now his only daughter, well bred, and likely to receive a large 

 share of her father's opulence. Lord Sunderland was much sunk in 

 his estate by gaming and other prodigalities, and was now no longer 

 secretary of state, having fallen into displeasure of the king for Biding 

 with the Commons about the succession ; but this I am assured he did 

 not do out of his own inclination, or for the preservation of the Pro- 

 testant religion, but by mistaking the ability of the party to carry it." 

 Evelyn pressed by the lady, went through the form of executing her 

 commission ; but his interview with Sir Stephen merely ended in an 

 understanding between them that nothing more should be done in the 

 matter, and that he should" "put it off" as civilly as he could. Sun- 

 derland's fortunes however soon brightened again. In January 1682, 

 he was recalled to office : " the king," says Burnet, " had so entire a 

 confidence in him, and Lady Portsmouth was so much in his interests, 

 that upon great submissions made to the duke, he was again restored 

 to be secretary." Hyde, now created Viscount Rochester, was, it 

 seems, the person who prevailed upon the duke to accept the said 

 submissions, for which he incurred the implacable enmity of Halifax, 

 who, Burnet tells us, " hated Lord Sunderland beyond expression, 

 though he had married a sister ; " but this did not prevent Sunderland 

 from, a few years after, becoming Rochester's rival and enemy. He 

 remained in power during the rest of this reign ; and notwithstanding 

 that he had again been detected towards its close in intriguing, along 

 with the Duchess of Portsmouth, Godolphin, and the French ambas- 

 sador Barillon, for the exclusion of James from the throne, when that 

 prince became king he was not only retained in office, but acquired 

 a greater ascendancy in the administration than ever. This extraor- 

 dinary fortune he owed in part to his admirable talents for business, 

 which made him almost indispensable; in part to his equally unrivalled 

 skill in the art of insinuation, a skill moreover which he practised with 

 the great advantage of being utterly unrestrained either by principle 

 (at least as commonly understood) or by any attempt to preserve the 

 appearance of consistency. 



He now found a new patron in the queen, to whom he professed to 

 give himself entirely up. When the Marquis of Halifax was turned 

 out for' refusing to vote for the repeal of the Test Act, Sunderland 

 was. in the beginning of December 1685, declared president of the 

 council, still retaining his place of secretary. " Lord Sunderland," 

 writes Evelyn, in February following, " was now secretary of state, 

 president of the council, and premier minister." And again, on the 

 12th of May 1687 "Lord Sunderland, being lord president and 

 secretary of state, was made knight of the garter and prime favourite." 

 It is worthy of notice that all this success in political life was 

 achieved by Sunderland without the faculty of public speaking : he 

 scarcely ever opened his lips to express more than a simple assent or 

 dissent either in parliament or at the meetings of the cabinet. There 

 is a curious account of his drawling, affected mode of utterance, when 

 he did say a few words, in North's 'Examen,' p. 77. One of his 

 methods of despatching business also was sufficiently singular, if we 

 may believe Lord Dartmouth, who, hi a note upon Burnet's ' History,' 

 tell us, on the authority of one of Suuderland's clerks, that " he never 

 came to the secretary's office, but they carried the papers to him, at 

 his house, where he was usually at cards, and he would sign them 

 without reading, and seldom asked what they were about." 



Throughout James's unhappy reign the principal direction of affairs 

 was in the hands of Sunderlaud ajid father Petre (whom he made 

 use of with his usual dexterity), they two constituting what was 

 called the secret council. At last Suuderland, about the end of the 

 year 1687, fairly turned Roman Catholic. " He made the step to 

 popery," says Burnet, " all of a sudden, without any previous instruc- 

 tion or conference ; so that the change he made looked too like a 

 man who, having no religion, took up one rather for to serve a turn 

 than that he was truly changed from one religion to another." To 

 make matters even however Lady Sunderland took to professing a 

 hotter Protestantism than ever. The Princess (afterwards queen) 

 Anne writes to her sister the Princess of Orange, 13th March 1688 : 

 " This worthy lord does not go publicly to mass, but hears it privately 

 at a priest's chamber, and never lets anybody be there but a servant 

 of his. His lady too is as extraordinary in her kind ; for she is a 

 flattering, dissembling, false woman ; but she has so fawning and 

 endearing a way that she will deceive anybody at first, and it is not 

 possible to find out all her ways in a little time. She cares not at 

 what rate she lives, but never pays anybody. She will cheat, though 

 it be for a little. Then she has had her gallants, though maybe not 

 so many as some ladies here ; and, with all these good qualities, she 

 is a constant churchwoman : so that to outward appearance one 

 would take her for a saint, and, to hear her talk, you would think she 



