Manners Sutton, like his uncles, owed his seat in Parliament to his family connexion with the Duke of Rutland. His father, the royal choice for Primate in 1805, had provided him with a place in his patronage worth over £600 p.a.
Manners Sutton was induced by Spencer Perceval in October 1809 to quit his profession and become judge advocate-general. He accepted on the understanding that, though appointed to the Privy Council, he might return to the bar on going out of office. The King approved the appointment—indeed, Nicholas Vansittart complained that it was a ‘pretty good specimen’ of Court influence. Lord Auckland commented: ‘Mr Manners Sutton ... is a modest and sensible young man; but the office in which he is now put requires a knowledge of life, of law, and all the weight and character of years and experience’. Creevey quoted Lord Derby, too, as saying ‘from all he hears, he thinks the appointment of so young a man ... has given such offence, that a motion upon that subject would be a good one for the House of Commons at the opening of the session.’
Manners Sutton, by now a great admirer of Perceval, rallied to ministers on the Regency question and was appointed to the House’s deputation to the Lords on the bill, 4 Feb. 1811. Had Lord Grenville returned to power, he was prepared to retain Manners Sutton in his office if it ensured his patron’s support. On 11 Mar. 1811, on the mutiny bill, he denied the necessity for provision of freedom of worship for Catholic soldiers and secured a clause offering the option of imprisonment in lieu of flogging in the army. He justified the reappointment of the Duke of York as commander-in-chief, 6 June. He rebuffed Sir Francis Burdett’s allegations about a soldier’s suicide to avoid flogging, 18 June, 1 July 1811. On 4 Feb. 1812 he opposed Morpeth’s critical motion on Ireland, claiming that the time was ‘completely unfit’ to concede Catholic relief. Francis Horner nevertheless thought his speech an omen:
I mention it as one of the signs of the time that my friend Sutton, the archbishop of Canterbury’s son, declined in express terms committing himself to an opinion, one way or the other, whether there might be a time when the Catholic petition could safely be granted. The strong sentiments which I have heard him formerly avow contrasted with this forbearance, render it in his situation no equivocal token of the present indifference of the heads of the Church; the Regent has only to manifest a sentiment either way, and the breath of his mouth will be to the bishops the word of God.
Phipps, i. 401; Grey mss, Grenville to Grey, 22 Jan. 1811; Horner mss 5, f. 162.
Manners Sutton voted against sinecure reform, 7, 21, 24 Feb. 1812, but his only further contribution to debate that session was on flogging in the army, raised by opposition in the discussion of the mutiny bill, 6 Mar. He pointed out that it had declined since the year before, but that the alternative of imprisonment was not practicable during active service and there could be no question of abolishing flogging. On 13 Mar., 15 Apr. and 14 July he resisted Burdett’s and Bennet’s efforts in this direction, admitting ‘that no man ought to be liable to more lashes at one time than he could bear’, but declining to give Bennet a guarantee that, if a sentence was not fulfilled on one occasion, there would not be a second one to complete the number of lashes imposed. (He repeated this refusal on 15 Mar. 1813.)
The assassination of Perceval released him from his political allegiance and he was mentioned for high office in Lord Wellesley’s plans for an administration—in one list as chancellor of the Exchequer with the duchy of Lancaster, in another as Irish chief secretary, in a third account as Home secretary. But he was satisfied with the status quo; on 29 May 1812 he was ‘loud in ... praises of the Prince, and said that no human being ever showed more firmness than he has done’.
In the House, nevertheless, his speeches were confined to his official business. On 29 Nov. 1813 he conceded to Romilly that if a first flogging produced all the suffering intended, the completion of a sentence on a second occasion would be ‘improper, unjust and even illegal’, but he declined to insert a clause in the mutiny bill to that effect. He refuted an allegation of Bennet’s about an abuse of flogging reported in the press, 23, 27 June 1814. His speech against Charles Palmer’s motion against his colonel, 17 Nov. 1814, was described by Vansittart as ‘a masterly specimen of close reasoning, and of discreet management of a delicate statement’.
On 2 June 1817 Manners Sutton, the ministerial choice, was elected Speaker by 312 votes to 150. He cast his vote for his opponent Charles Williams Wynn. There had been reports of William Sturges Bourne, Canning’s friend, replacing him as the official favourite, but nothing came of it. Williams Wynn wrote afterwards:
In fact there was no one recommendation of Sutton except his high connections which does not equally attach to twenty more. He is a very amiable man of excellent character, but had never taken the slightest part upon any question which concerned the privileges or orders of the House or appeared to pay any attention to them. Some inconvenience will at first arise from his want of knowledge but a very moderate degree of industry will enable any one soon to acquire it.
As if to forestall such criticism, his proposer Sir John Nicholl, after paying tribute to his performance as judge advocate, added:
Although he has not usually taken a leading part upon matters of order, and the course of our proceedings, yet I have reason to believe, that he has not been an unattentive observer of these subjects; that the law of Parliament and the rights, privileges, and usages of this House, have been particular objects of his private study.
In accepting nomination, he had admitted that the Chair was the object of his ambition; but he
certainly did appear very soft indeed, and actually broke down in his speech and protestation from the chair. However, it was enough no doubt to sweat any man, luckily he was at the end of a sentence when his presence of mind failed him, and he stood for about a minute blushing and silent and with quaking knees, and then gave in and sat down after undergoing a premature Hear! Hear!
The observer, William Henry Lyttelton, wrote again two days later:
In good earnest I am assured that Sutton must fag hard during the vacation, or he will be forced to resign ... from sheer incapacity. Lord Lonsdale is at the bottom of the whole affair, he wanted Sutton’s place for his accomplished son-in-law Beckett.
Fortescue mss, Newport to Grenville, 18 Apr.; Add. 45036, f. 137; NLW mss 4814, Williams Wynn to Southey, Wed. [1817]; Canning and his Friends, ii. 51.
Manners Sutton nevertheless conciliated the House. Contrasting him with his predecessor, Lord Glenbervie noted:
The person and voice particularly are in favour of the new Speaker. Indeed there is a particular grace and appropriate solemnity in his voice, as well as sweetness of tone which reminded me of the late Lord Camden’s and of his eccentric nephew George Hardinge’s. But Mr Sutton is awkward in his person and gestures.
He added that he could not match Charles Abbot for business acumen. He made up for this by enlisting Abbot’s counsel until he felt secure. According to a later critic, Edward John Littleton, 21 Feb. 1818, ‘The manner in which he lives—his house—his table—his demeanour—render his receptions the most pleasing and magnificent possible’. Lord Folkestone wrote on 23 Feb., ‘We all like our new Speaker most extremely: he is gentlemanlike and obliging’. Peel, proposing his re-election in 1818, claimed, ‘He has sought, and he has obtained, the confidence of the House’. On 2 June 1818 he called for a tighter enforcement of the orders of the House on private business. The circumstances of the prorogation prevented him from making the Speaker’s usual prorogation speech, 10 June 1818. He continued to display much to commend himself to the House until his party feelings eventually obtruded.
It was not, perhaps, necessary that their laws and regulations should always be observed to the letter; but unless the spirit of them was preserved, they would not be able to preserve their own dignity, or to carry on the business of the public with that celerity and regularity which was absolutely necessary.
He died 21 July 1845.