Early career
A man of comparatively humble origins (Jonathan Swift spoke disparagingly of him coming from a ‘very mean’ family) Somers became one of the foremost political leaders of his age. There is some doubt about his date of birth, which is normally given as 1651 but may have been two or three years earlier.
Somers was brought up in an atmosphere steeped in opposition politics. His father was a parliamentarian sympathizer who found it sensible to sue for a pardon at the Restoration, while his patron, Sir Francis Winnington‡, was an exclusionist who had voted against Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), in 1679.
Somers’ own first involvement in national politics was as a polemicist writing in favour of the Whigs during and immediately after the exclusion crisis.
His career in the Commons identified Somers as a skilful and reliable politician who could reconcile service to his party with the demands of the king. A key ministerial supporter, he drafted and managed legislation, often acted as a committee chairman (including committees of the whole, supply, and ways and means), directed government prosecutions such as that against Sir Richard Grahme‡, Viscount Preston [S], who was tried for treason in January 1691, and still managed to find time to maintain an extensive private practice. He was also concerned with aspects of electoral management not just in his home town of Worcester but elsewhere, as in his involvement in the attempt to restore the pre-Revolution charter in Ludlow.
Lord keeper, 1693–7
Somers’ careful and thoughtful conduct during the difficult 1692–3 session stood him in good stead when the king decided to strengthen his administration. In March 1693 Somers was appointed lord keeper, with a salary of £4,000 a year plus the promise of a pension of £2,000 a year for life after leaving office. At the same time Sir John Trenchard‡ was appointed secretary of state for the northern department.
It was perhaps just as well that Somers had a reputation for civility, since almost his first act as lord keeper was to argue with the king over the issue of judicial appointments. On his departure for Flanders William III had left instructions for three appointments: Sir William Rawlinson to succeed as chief baron, Sir William Wogan‡ as chief justice of Chester and Edward Ward as attorney general. Somers and his fellow Whigs wanted the solicitor general, Sir Thomas Trevor‡, to succeed as attorney general and it was an open secret that the king had promised this. Somers stressed that his objections to the king’s appointments had nothing to do with the individuals themselves for ‘it has been to the honour of your reign that your judges have been men of known ability’. Rather it was, as Somers pointed out, part and parcel of the political functions of the lord keeper to dispense legal patronage. This enabled him to command the loyalty of lawyers who ‘were spread over every part of the kingdom’ and exercised great influence. Such patronage:
has always given weight to that office in public affairs; and, if I understand you aright, making the Great Seal thus considerable was one of the effects you expected from placing it in a single hand; but I submit it to you how far it is likely to succeed, or any other of your Majesty’s ends to be answered, when such eminent offices are disposed of in such a manner at my entrance upon this charge. … This being the case let me offer it to your consideration whether if the passing of these patents must be the first use I am to make of the seal it can be supposed I have that credit which ought to go with it, and without which it is impossible it should reach what you aimed at in this change.CSP Dom. 1693, p. 84.
Somers’ threatened resignation was not accepted, and the king refused to back down on the appointment of Ward, although Rawlinson’s appointment was not proceeded with, Atkyns having agreed to stay on as chief baron. Trevor’s promised appointment as attorney general was postponed for nearly two years.
If Somers felt any lingering resentment it did not stop him from joining in the attempts of Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland, to secure the support of the Commons for the proposed new excise. He was nevertheless embarrassed by Sunderland’s attempt to discipline the maverick John Granville, later Baron Granville of Potheridge, by preventing the renewal of the commissions for the lord lieutenancies of Devon and Cornwall to Granville’s father, also named John Granville, earl of Bath. Sunderland pressurized Somers to block the renewals, while Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, questioned the delay. Bath added to Somers’ difficulties by pointing out that without the commissions he would be unable to assemble the militia in case of necessity – a serious issue given the international situation.
Throughout 1693 Somers was active in helping to secure loans from the City, and even before Nottingham’s fall from office in November 1693 he had become a central figure in the ministry. As lord keeper he attended the House assiduously and was rarely absent. John Sheffield, marquess of Normanby (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby), deputized for him at three sittings in late November/early December 1694 when Somers had hurt his head in a fall from his chair.
Since Somers’ appointment as lord keeper meant that he was banished from the Commons but was not yet a member of the House of Lords, his parliamentary influence, despite his exemplary attendance, was necessarily indirect and, given the poor survival of his papers, difficult to trace. Sir Ralph Verney‡ thought Somers ‘carries himself very discreetly in his place’.
As one of the leading politicians of the group that came to be known as the Junto, Somers certainly exercised considerable political influence. In acknowledgment of his prominent role, it was sometimes referred to as the Summerian Whigs.
Deputy lieutenants also came within Somers’ purview, and purges went hand in hand with exhortation. Government policies and requests to examine carefully the activities of justices and other local officials were communicated via Somers’ addresses to the judges before they travelled their circuits.
Somers was closely involved in the various extra parliamentary social activities centring on the Kit Kat Club, race meetings and country-house gatherings that helped cement Whig relationships. His direct electoral influence was limited, being largely restricted to Worcestershire and, after 1697, in Reigate, where, as lord of the manor, he ensured that burgage votes were distributed among loyal supporters of the Junto. Nevertheless his key position within the ministry and the patronage opportunities provided by his office, coupled with his political and social contacts, ensured that he was able to offer considerable support to his political allies and build up something of a parliamentary following of his own. He was involved in the selection of suitable candidates and was kept informed about electoral prospects throughout the country.
Rumours that Somers was to be raised to the peerage circulated at the same time as Nottingham’s dismissal in November 1693.
During 1696 Somers was at the heart of the decision to bring Sir John Fenwick’s‡ confession to the attention of the Commons and the associated resolution to proceed against him by an act of attainder. Somers was well aware that the evidence against Fenwick was insufficient to procure a conviction in an ordinary court; he was clearly involved in the backstage management of the proceedings, even hosting meetings at his own residence and on at least one occasion spending time with Charles Mordaunt, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough), at the request of Thomas Wharton, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, who wanted Monmouth ‘in good humour’.
If, as seems likely, one of the objectives of the Fenwick affair was to secure evidence against Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, and William Herbert, 2nd marquess of Powis, whose father (also William Herbert, marquess of Powis) had been chamberlain at James II’s exiled court, the prosecution was a lamentable failure. It also provided the opportunity for a smear campaign against Shrewsbury.
Lord chancellor, 1697–1700
In April 1697 Somers was appointed lord chancellor. At the same time, arrangements were made for him to be granted an additional source of income in the form of two Surrey manors and some £2,000 worth of fee-farm rents, a transparent inducement to him to accept a peerage and which would later become the subject of allegations of corruption. When Somers realized that his own grant of fee-farm rents clashed with that of the king’s favourite, Portland, he delayed acceptance.
Somers took his seat as a peer on 14 Dec. 1697, introduced between Charles Berkeley, styled Viscount Dursley, sitting as Baron Berkeley (later 2nd earl of Berkeley), and Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis. His attendance continued to be assiduous but his contribution to the business of the House is no easier to trace as chancellor than as lord keeper. He almost immediately received proxies from Shrewsbury (30 Dec.) and Portland (8 Jan. 1698). On 7 Jan. 1698 the House appointed a committee to consider the proper methods of appealing from the Irish court of chancery in response to the attempt of the Ulster Society (Irish Society of London) to overturn a decision in favour of their opponent William King, bishop of Londonderry, on an appeal from the Irish court of chancery to the Irish House of Lords. Somers was not a member of the committee but had strong views on the subject. When the committee reported on 15 Jan. he told the House that the Irish House of Lords’ decision to hear the appeal was an ‘encroachment’ and an ‘invasion of the rights of England and a breach of Poynings’ Law’. King’s allies, led from the Commons by John Methuen‡, lord chancellor of Ireland, only managed to prevent the matter going to a vote by carrying a question for an adjournment. Methuen then embarked on a campaign of behind-the-scenes lobbying. By early March he was able to report that he had had ‘good success with many of the most considerable Lords’ and that Somers ‘continues to favour us in everything’. It is not clear what the basis was for Methuen’s opinion, as Somers was indisposed and unable to attend either the House or the king for almost the whole of February. His activities when he returned to the House did not endear him to the king. He supported the woollen bill, whose objective was to suppress the Irish trade, although according to Methuen the king himself opposed it and had wanted it rejected out of hand. Methuen’s opinion of Somers’ attitude to Ireland and Irish affairs seems to have changed on an almost daily basis; sometimes he thought that Somers was sympathetic, sometimes he seems to have become convinced of Somers’ duplicity. Methuen’s various interviews with William III suggested that the king and Somers were at odds and that the king ‘did not entirely approve my lord chancellor’s notions about our [Irish] affairs’.
Internecine fighting between ministers continued; in March 1698 Somers was forecast to be in favour of the second reading of the bill to punish Sunderland’s ally, Charles Duncombe‡. He was also named to the committee on the bill and on 5 Mar. as one of the managers of the two conferences held on 7 March. On 20 Apr. Somers’ contribution to the debate on the first reading of the act sent up by the Commons for giving time to those who had failed to qualify themselves for office was decisive in ensuring that it be rejected. The purpose of the bill was to rescue those excise commissioners, such as Foot Onslow‡, who had omitted to qualify themselves under the Test Acts. Somers:
spoke against it as if it were undermining the greatest security we had against popery and as that law had never yet been touched or weakened in Parliament he hoped they would continue it in its native strength, which the whole House consented to and the bill was rejected without opposition.
Northants. RO, Montagu (Boughton) 47, no. 21.
It was feared that the rejection of the bill might, if followed by a bill of the Lords’ own devising, create opposition in the Commons. The standing of the Junto was now sufficiently shaky for the king to find it necessary to speak ‘in particular’ to Somers, and to his Junto allies Edward Russell, earl of Orford, and Charles Montagu, later earl of Halifax, ‘for the removing any suspicions as if he were altered towards them, and for putting the public business into a quicker motion’.
Somers tried to convince the king that he could mend his affairs by appointing Wharton, stressing ‘the necessity of taking men of business into his service, which could not be carried on, as things now stood’.
I have with much ado, with the assistance of my lord chancellor, prevailed to let the matter rest there and hindered the Lords from sending their order to the government to see it executed, having by this means left it in the power of the parties, and indeed of the bishop [of Derry] himself, to compose the matter that no notice need be taken in Ireland of this matter.
Ibid.
Matters then deteriorated still further when ‘the friends of my lord chancellor set on foot a matter much worse’ and the Commons sent for all the bills passed in Ireland since the Revolution, ‘pretending to find great faults and breaches of Poynings’ Law … my lord chancellor is deeply engaged in it & these gentlemen speak his very words’. Somers was also expected to stir the pot still further by bringing Molyneux’s book to the attention of the upper House.
Over the spring and the summer recess of 1698 Somers was active in planning tactics for the forthcoming election.
Almost contemporaneously with his correspondence with Bath, Somers received the first notification from the king of the negotiations for what became known as the First Partition Treaty. He arranged for James Vernon‡ to communicate the terms of the treaty to Orford, Montagu and Shrewsbury.
As the new Parliament assembled, Somers played a conciliatory role in the negotiations over the choice of a possible Speaker for the Commons, acting to protect Secretary James Vernon from allegations of caballing with the Tories.
The advent of peace had led to increasingly vociferous demands for demobilization. Accordingly, the Commons voted in December 1698 for the disbandment of the army, including William’s Dutch guards. The king, more aware than his subjects of the fragility of the peace and deeply upset by what he perceived as ingratitude, began to talk of retiring from England. Somers, initially sceptical of the king’s intentions, was soon convinced that his master was in earnest and became involved in attempts to persuade Members of the Commons to reject or amend their bill. He was also said to be prepared to advance £10,000 towards the necessary loan.
The question of the appellate jurisdiction of the Irish House of Lords continued to trouble king, chancellor and Parliament. By his own account Somers appears to have gone to considerable lengths to defuse the issues raised by Ulster Society v. Derry, using his influence both in the House and with the Ulster Society itself, but his efforts were undone when on 11 Feb. 1699 the case of Ward v. Meath ‘unhappily renewed the whole controversy’. Ordered on 14 Feb. to write to the lords justices about the matter, Somers notified Galway of the need for a speedy expedient to avoid controversy.
it is a breach of the privilege of this House, for any person whatsoever to print, or publish in print, any thing relating to the proceedings of this House, without the leave of this House; and that the said Order be added to the Standing Orders, and set on the doors of this House.
The entry in the Journal implies that this was merely a protection of the privileges of the House but other sources indicate that at least part of the reason was the claim that the printed cases were ‘imperfectly taken’.
As the Junto weakened, so the political attacks on its members intensified. Somers was now accused of unjustly enriching himself by means of the fee-farm rents granted to him. He was clearly not above using his position to reward his supporters. In March 1699 he wrote to John Lowther, Viscount Lonsdale, thanking him for his ‘repeated favours in respect to the clamours very unjustly endeavoured to be raised upon the account of the fee farm rents’ and telling him that the House had agreed to extend the time for Lonsdale to put in an answer to an appeal, although ‘it seemed not to be very well taken that the first time was not complied with’.
The political situation was now such that Somers could scarcely afford to be absent from his duties or from assiduous attendance on the king but illness kept him from the woolsack on 1 Apr. 1699; apart from a brief reappearance on 18 and 19 Apr. – almost certainly motivated by the need to deal with further developments in the case of Ulster Society v. Derry – he was away from the House until the penultimate day of the session (3 May). Over the next month gossip and rumours about the future of the Junto and of the structure of the ministry abounded but Somers seems to have been most worried about the continuing political fallout over Irish appeals caused by the refusal of Bishop King to obey the orders of the English House of Lords. King’s actions had led to an order of the House for his arrest. Somers claimed that, but for his absence through illness, he might have been able to mitigate the effect of the order and told Galway that ‘the House of Lords here take that business so high that I fear, unless what they have ordered be complied with, it will scarce be practicable to have a session’.
Matters were so serious that Somers involved Thomas Tenison, archbishop of Canterbury, and Narcissus Marsh, archbishop of Dublin, in an attempt to persuade King to give up his case and was personally involved in mediating the matter with the Ulster Society. Insisting that he was not issuing instructions to either Galway or Methuen, and recognizing that King was ‘a very difficult man to be persuaded’, he nevertheless made it clear that the matter had to be resolved outside Parliament for fear of the Lords’ ‘zeal for their judicature … and it is in the power of everybody to stir it’.
Somers was again ill over the 1699 summer recess and missed the three prorogation days in July, August and September. In August, after a summer that had seen the resignation of Orford, Somers planned to visit Bath, where James Vernon tried to arrange a meeting between him and Shrewsbury, telling Portland that ‘[these] two meeting would be of more significancy than if half a dozen more were added to them’. In the event Somers and Montagu visited Orford at Chippenham instead, provoking much curiosity about their motives. Some thought that ‘the d[uke] of Shrewsbury may have been the subject of their conferences, as if they were in doubt whether he were sufficiently attached to them, and some fancy they might have it under consideration whether it were most advisable to have a new parliament’. Negotiations between senior politicians continued throughout the month. Although Somers left for Tunbridge Wells just as Shrewsbury and Montagu (who had spent some time together at Winchendon) came up to London, Vernon had no doubt that Shrewsbury and Somers would meet and that ‘so many meetings will produce resolutions and measures that may be of public benefit’.
The 1699–1700 session started badly for the ministry and especially for Somers. On 28 Nov. 1699, in a transparent attack on the chancellor, the Commons voted to examine all proceedings relating to charters issued during the reign and set up a committee to inspect commissions of the peace and commissions to deputy lieutenants for the previous seven years. The demand made the same day for a proclamation for the suppression of vice and immorality and for a bill against gaming and duelling also reflected Tory demands. The decision to discuss the country’s present trade in a committee of the whole was to prove even more threatening. Attempts to rally the Whigs behind the chancellor did little to prevent the Tory onslaught. On 2 Dec. 1699 the discussion of trade in a committee of the whole in the Commons centred on the depredations of Captain Kidd and resulted in a request for a copy of his commission and other papers, including the complaints of the merchants about his piracies.
Somers’ health may still have been fragile, as he was absent from the House for three days in mid-January 1700. He was, however, able to return to Parliament for the hearings of 19–23 Jan. in the Bankers’ case (Williamson v. Regem in error), in which questions of parliamentary supremacy, fiscal policy and sovereign immunity collided with each other and which raised more than a suspicion of Somers’ willingness to manipulate the law for political purposes. The case arose from the crown’s default on payments to a group of bankers (repaying loans made in 1667) as a result of the stop of the exchequer in 1672. The bankers had made various attempts to recover their loans and arrears of interest since that time but in 1690 turned to the court of exchequer for redress. A judgment in their favour was issued in 1692. Matters of law and principle apart, this was a serious blow to the crown’s finances as by the 1690s the debt amounted to some £2 million. Sir George Treby, then attorney general, and Somers, then solicitor general, had opposed the claim on behalf of the crown but had been overruled. By the time the crown appealed the decision, Somers was lord chancellor and thus sat in judgment on the validity of a decree that he had personally opposed. He was assisted by the common law judges, who now also included Treby. Treby and Somers agreed that the decision should be overturned; almost all the remaining judges, including Sir John Holt‡, disagreed but Somers was not bound to take their advice. In 1696, using an elaborate and sophisticated argument to mask what might otherwise have been seen as a politically motivated decision, he overturned the verdict, releasing the crown from any obligation to repay the bankers. The decision of the House on 23 Jan. 1700 to follow the advice of the judges and reverse Somers’ decree was a severe blow to his prestige as chancellor and to his reputation as a lawyer, as well as to his usefulness to the king. ‘These things with other concomitants are observed to have provoked the king to more than a usual degree of expressing himself in angry manner.’
On 1 Feb. 1700 Somers voted against adjourning the House into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments to the East India Company bill. In February he was again the target of an attack during a debate on the state of the nation in the Commons, but the attempt failed when the Whigs and even a few Tories rallied to his support, extolling ‘his boundless merit’.
Somers had offered to resign at or near Christmas 1699 but when William III sent Edward Villiers, earl of Jersey, to take the seals from him he refused to comply without an express warrant from the king; he was formally dismissed on 27 Apr. 1700. The legal establishment was horrified, partly because, despite setbacks, Somers’ reputation as a lawyer and judge remained high but perhaps more significantly because his dismissal in the middle of the term created chaos in the courts. Finding a replacement proved to be extremely difficult. Sir Thomas Trevor and Chief Justice Holt both refused to take the seals, Holt doing so twice. Other candidates mentioned (and possibly even approached) included Methuen, Sir Thomas Powys, Sir William Trumbull‡ and Nottingham.
Somers’ sister Mary Cocks welcomed his loss of office, pointing out that his poor health was the result of ‘the constant fatigue’ of his post.
Impeachment, 1701
The new Parliament met early in 1701; during its only session Somers was present on 86 per cent of sitting days. His weakened position was immediately apparent when Sir Richard Onslow‡, regarded by some as his candidate for the speakership, was overwhelmingly defeated in favour of Harley.
If a letter to Somers from his brother-in-law Sir Joseph Jekyll can be taken at face value, the impeachment was greeted with popular indignation.
Somers denied all charges and after much wrangling was acquitted on 17 June, when the Commons, rushed by the Lords, failed to present any evidence against him. Bonfires in the City suggested popular support for Somers.
that never man behaved himself with that insolence this little fellow has done upon this occasion He was the chief manager of the debate concerning himself and not content to have penned with the assistance of Jekyll and Clarke all the messages and answers which have been sent down to our House ’twas he that framed the question of his own acquittal, and be pleased to observe what an odd sort of question it was. That John Ld Somers be acquitted of the charge exhibited against him, and all the crimes therein contained, and that this impeachment be dismissed, and then content or not content, so that if the first carried he was acquitted, if the last he was but in statu quo, he might be discharged, he could not be condemned. And all this done without hearing any evidence to those facts he denies in his answer or judging whether those he has confessed be crimes or not. I believe no age can parallel such proceedings as these are.
HMC Downshire, i. 803.
Harley was equally appalled, considering that Somers’ replication amounted to a confession, that the acquittal was unparliamentary and that it laid the basis for future oppression ‘by rendering all impeachments impracticable’.
The strain of the trial evidently affected Somers’ health but this did not prevent his involvement in electioneering over the summer. His experiences at the hands of the Commons proved to be an electoral asset. George Martin told Somers that ‘the whole country are your friends’, while Jekyll reported that William Lloyd, bishop of Worcester, had specifically mentioned ‘the hardship of your lordship’s case at a meeting of his clergy’.
Somers’ attendance during the second 1701 Parliament fell to 71 per cent of all sitting days. Nearly half of his absences were concentrated in January 1702; his response to a call of the House on 5 Jan. indicates that he was again ill. On 6 and 11 Feb. he acted as one of the managers of the conferences on the bill for the attainder of the pretended Prince of Wales. On 26 Feb. he also reported from the committee considering the bill for Job Marston’s charity. Despite his fall from power, his influence with the king still seems to have been high, for that same month he acted as intermediary for John Manners, 9th earl (later duke) of Rutland, in his quest for a dukedom.
The early years of Anne, 1702–7
Despite the Tory renaissance that followed Anne’s accession, Somers was still a leading member of the House. On 7 May he was named as one of the managers of the conference on the bill for the oath of abjuration, as well as that arising from the Lords’ amendments to the bill for privateers. He held the proxy of Charles Cornwallis, 4th Baron Cornwallis, from 16 May. Later that month he was approached to assist the passage of a bill through the Irish Parliament to restore John Bourke, Baron Bourke of Bophin [I] (later 9th earl of Clanricarde [I]), in blood and estate. Contrary to normal practice, ‘a complicated necessity’ had required the bill to be introduced in the Commons rather than the Lords and it was feared that this might prejudice its chances of passing the Upper House.
Somers was again active in the elections of the summer of 1702 and was once more noted as meeting with fellow members of the Junto.
Over the summer Somers was in correspondence with Shrewsbury about affairs in Scotland, where ‘Presbytery and Revolution principles have the ascendant … and there is reason to apprehend things may be carried too far, though it be pretended to be done only in order to force England to think of coming to a Union with them in good earnest.’ He wondered whether events in Scotland were responsible for the postponement of the Irish parliament.
During the 1703–4 session Somers was present on 66 per cent of sitting days. His absences were concentrated in blocks (November 1703 and late February/March 1704), in a way that again suggests periods of illness. Poor health notwithstanding, he was required to mediate between his colleagues Halifax and Orford over the parliamentary investigation of the latter’s accounts at the Admiralty. Orford was acquitted but Halifax risked his ire by pointing out that Orford’s accounting left much to be desired.
Over the next week his attendance was irregular and was followed by a prolonged absence. He was back in the House on 17 Mar. to report from the committee to which he had been named as early as 20 Jan. and over which he had presided since the beginning of the second of week of February to consider the address from the Irish House of Commons regarding linen manufacture. There was also a gap in his appearances at the head of this committee between 22 Feb. and 23 Mar. but on the latter day he both chaired and reported from the committee with the address that the committee had drawn up.
The 1704–5 session saw Somers present in the House on only 62 per cent of sitting days. Once again his absences were heavily concentrated in a block: his last attendance of the session was on 3 Feb. 1705 (Parliament was not prorogued until 14 March). He held the proxy of Cornwallis from the beginning of the session to 27 Jan. 1705 and that of Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd earl of Shaftesbury, for the whole of the session. Early in the session John Thompson, Baron Haversham, moved for a day ‘that he might be heard as to many things he has to complain of and are amiss and seems very full and hot to bring out some thing’. To Haversham’s fury, Somers was instrumental in delaying the day assigned for over a week.
In mid-December 1704 Somers opposed the Occasional Conformity bill, using Shaftesbury’s proxy in the vote against it. In January 1705 he was in correspondence with Sir Patrick Hume, earl of Marchmont [S], on the subject of a union of England and Scotland, something he claimed always to have wanted. The immediate impetus to his actions was the need to soothe and to hope for ‘temper and moderation’.
The question of union with Scotland continued to occupy the political agenda but whether Somers and the rest of the ‘managing Whigs’ were or were not in favour remained unclear to some observers who believed that it was in the Whigs’ interest to prolong Anglo-Scots quarrels ‘because it is by the present confusions and difference that they make themselves necessary to a court that in their heart hates them’.
The ministerial reconstruction was complete by the time that Parliament resumed on 25 Oct. 1705, although Godolphin was still uneasy about the rapaciousness of Whig demands for favour. During this, the 1705–6 session, Somers was present on just over 89 per cent of sitting days. He held Shaftesbury’s proxy from 10 Nov. for the rest of the session and that of Cornwallis from 1 to 13 November. On 15 Nov. he opposed the Tory motion that the Electress Sophia be invited to England.
more becoming the dignity of the parliament of England to repeal all the clauses which tended to distress Scotland, rather than that one only … [to do which] would look like an act of compliance and submission to them: whereas to do more than they required would appear to proceed purely from a friendly and generous disposition towards the Scotch nation; and would take away all colour of opposition from those who found pretences to hinder the treaty, because they did not like the Union itself.
Cowper, Diary, 18.
The only part of the measure that Somers proposed should be retained was that giving authority to the queen to nominate commissioners for negotiating the Union.
At the end of the Church of England in danger debate on 6 Dec. 1705, Somers summed up the arguments and insisted that ‘the nation was happy under a most wise and just administration, wherein the public money was justly applied … and the success of her majesty’s arms gave the nation greater honour and reputation that had been known’.
Somers also worked with Cowper to amend procedures for private bills. On 16 Jan. 1706 Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, remarked on the ‘suspicious contents’ of a private bill that had been introduced into the House. Cowper commented similarly on another. Then on 12 Feb., when a bill for the sale of the estates of John Barnes deceased was introduced to the House, Cowper ‘laid such an emphasis on the peccant parts of the breviat, that the Lords took notice of the roguery; and threw it out with indignation’. Somers then took advantage of the opportunity thus presented to make a speech against the ‘perfunctory and careless passing of such bills’ and it was agreed that a committee of the whole should ‘consider of the best means to prevent the increase of private bills in parliament, and the surprising the House in their proceeding thereupon’.
On 2, 11 and 19 Feb. Somers was one of the managers for the conferences on the bill for the security of the queen’s person and the Protestant succession. On 28 Feb. he was named to the committee to draw up reasons for the Lords’ amendment to the Commons amendment to Lord Conway’s bill (Francis Seymour Conway, Baron Conway) and on 2 Mar. he was one of the managers of the conference on the subject. He was also named to manage the conferences on 6 and 11 Mar. over the pamphlet A Letter from Sir Rowland Gwyn to the Right Honourable the Earl of Stamford, which was deemed to be a scandalous and seditious libel. He was again a manager for the conference on the militia bill on 13 March. Over the course of the session he had reported from two committees on issues relating to clothing contracts for the armed forces: the bill for making clothes with cloth buttons for export to the allied armies and that for the relief of Sir Stephen Evance‡ and Henry Cornish‡; and from four other committees on bills with no obvious political connection: one for settling the impropriate tithes of St Bride’s, London, and three estate bills (for John Williams, Thomas Deane and Henry Hare, 2nd Baron Coleraine [I]).
During the recess, in April 1706, Somers was appointed as one of the commissioners for union with Scotland.
Act is attended with all possible marks of honour and respect from the queen and nation. It extends to all the posterity of her royal highness the Princess Sophia, born, or hereafter to be born, and wheresoever they are born, which is a privilege that was never yet granted in any case till in this instance.
Stowe 222, f. 386.
Somers was now regularly briefed on foreign policy issues by Godolphin, even to the extent of being considered as a potential plenipotentiary in the forthcoming peace negotiations, although, as Marlborough pointed out, Somers’ French was so poor that it was unlikely he would be up to the task.
During the 1706–7 session Somers was present on 80 per cent of sitting days and once again held Shaftesbury’s proxy. Nearly half his absences were concentrated in the second half of January 1707. A central figure in the ministry, he corresponded with the somewhat prickly Richard Savage, 4th Earl Rivers, on aspects of military strategy and foreign affairs, including Rivers’ quarrel with his rival, Galway.
Somers’ importance meant that he was approached by those seeking to influence all aspects of policy, including fiscal initiatives.
I wish I could remove your lordship’s scruples, but indeed I am not able, for I never so much as heard of that gentlewoman whose consent your lordship thinks is not sufficiently obtained nor do I know where to look after her: and whereas you would have me send a catalogue of such as may be commissioners by virtue of the Act, I protest solemnly I have not yet thought of half their number.
Surr. Hist. Cent. 371/14/D19.
Despite his protest, Hough sent a list of commissioners the very next day and the bill received its first reading on 19 Mar. 1707.
Hough was not the only person to try to influence Somers. So too did Colonel John Rice, who faced a punitive act obliging him to account for debentures granted him in the previous session. On 7 Apr. the bill, which had already passed the Commons, was referred to a committee of the whole; that same day Rice wrote to Somers, attacking the character of the witnesses against him as ‘a crowd of Irish evidence’ and beseeching Somers ‘to save me and my family from ruin by delaying the bill’ so that he could get his own rebuttal witnesses together.
Somers was present on all but two days of the short April 1707 session. Rumours that he was to be appointed president of the Council abounded and some thought that the delay in announcing it was caused by the need to assuage Wharton’s resentments, not realizing the depth of the queen’s opposition.
The duumvirs under siege, 1707–10
Over the summer, Tenison was in touch with Somers about the latest developments in the bishoprics crisis that had been unfolding since the death of Peter Mews, bishop of Winchester, in November 1706.
if time be lost, or if modesty prevails, it will (as in all other cases) be wrong disposed of & the Church and state will be undone. The Archbishop of Canterbury cannot be used ill always, unless he will be party to it in some measure himself … I have been not a little vexed, when I have remonstrated pretty strongly upon occasion of the talk of supplying late vacancies, to have been told that the archbishop is principally in fault who does not speak plainly and fully to the Queen, when the archbishop of York never suffers her to rest.
Christ Church, Oxf. Wake mss 7, ff. 346–7.
Whig insistence on the appointment of Whig bishops caused something of a nightmare for the ministry, caught between Junto demands and Harley’s antipathy to them, and desperately afraid that the Whigs were prepared ‘to tear everything in pieces if they can’t have their own terms’.
In August 1707 the Junto lords met at Sunderland’s seat, Althorp, to plan for the approaching session. Later that month Somers was caught up in discussions over the calling of a convocation, when he was lobbied by the Whig bishops to state that there was no legal necessity to do so.
Somers was again prominent in the debates of 19 Dec. concerning the prosecution of the war in Spain, when he put a question, ‘that he thought all would agree in, viz., that no peace could be safe or honourable, till Spain and the West Indies were recovered from the House of Bourbon’. His proposition elicited no opposition and was then followed up by a request from Wharton for an address to the queen.
Despite Harley’s resignation and continuing difficulties in Parliament, the queen was still set against bringing Somers into the cabinet council, even without a specific portfolio. To those concerned to shore up the tottering position of Marlborough it seemed likely that only by bringing in Somers would there be any chance of inoculating the queen against what they perceived as the pernicious influence of Abigail Masham.
With the dissolution of Parliament on 15 Apr. Somers was again involved in electioneering, not only for membership of the Commons but also for Scots representative peers.
In the meantime, the new Parliament had met on 16 Nov. 1708. During the 1708–9 session Somers was present on 70 per cent of sitting days. Early in the session he complained of the lord register’s delay in sending the papers concerning the election of Scots peers. He was also involved with assisting Godolphin and Marlborough over peace negotiations.
Meanwhile, relationships between the Junto and their Scots allies the Squadrone were unsettled too, particularly after the controversy over the role of James Douglas, 2nd duke of Queensberry [S] and duke of Dover, in the election of the Scots representative peers. At a meeting in mid-December the Whig leaders and prominent Scots members of the Squadrone tried to thrash out their difficulties. Over the course of four hours, Somers and the Junto tried to reassure their Scots allies that they had ‘a great inclination to do all they can for Scotland and to make union easy’.
The duumvirs still hoped that Somers would follow ‘good sense’ and allow himself to be separated from his Junto allies.
that it has quite broke all the Scotch from Lord Somers and his English friends. They say he finds himself sinking so fast he will go out of court and turn in opposition so as to make a Hanover party… All parties are separated in division among themselves and everything is in such perfect confusion that scarcely three men have confidence in one another.
Add. 72540, ff. 159–60.
The Junto was divided too, with Somers and Sunderland suspicious of Wharton’s activities in Ireland.
At the beginning of September 1709 Somers was again ill but he was well enough to be paying calls towards the end of the first week and at the end of the month he visited the queen in another attempt to persuade her to appoint Orford to the admiralty. Arthur Maynwaring had speculated earlier that if the question of the admiralty could not be settled to his satisfaction Somers was likely to resign. Negotiations about the make-up of the admiralty commission that Orford was to head persisted into the autumn, with Somers continuing to take a leading role in the discussions. By the beginning of November the awkward pace of the discussions and difficulties raised were said to have put him ‘out of all patience’. In the interests of ensuring a working majority in the House of Lords, Somers and Sunderland attempted to build an alliance with Charles Seymour, 6th duke of Somerset; Marlborough and Godolphin continued to hope that the Junto could be broken up and that relationships between its members, especially between Halifax and Somers, were deteriorating. Certainly by the middle of November Halifax was displaying open irritation with Somers. The same month Somers and Wharton made a point of apologizing to Charles Hay* , Lord Yester [S] (later 3rd marquess of Tweeddale [S]), for the ‘ill usage honest men had met with’.
Harley in the ascendant, 1710–14
During the 1709–10 session Somers attended for 70 per cent of sitting days. Half of his absences were concentrated in January and February 1710 and another quarter in the closing weeks of March and are again suggestive of periods of illness. On 5 Dec. 1709 he reported from the committee investigating the petition of Robert Hitch concerning his action against Sir Nicholas Shireburne. By this time Henry Sacheverell’s inflammatory sermons, particularly that delivered at St Paul’s Cathedral on 5 Nov., had created yet another political dilemma for the beleaguered ministry, who regarded his opinions as subversive and seditious. Prosecuting Sacheverell in the ordinary courts was considered to be problematic but the ministry was determined to punish him. Jonathan Swift related how Somers told him a few months after it was all over that he had attempted ‘earnestly and in vain’ to dissuade the ministry from pressing on with the trial.
I said many years ago that the government is to be taken care of, and that good laws ought to be provided, lest such men as this should sometime or other kindle a flame to the destruction of our country, our religion, our property, our allies: and this evil, I said, was of such a nature that unless ye provided against it, it would be in vain to have recourse to prosecutions. At that time it behoved us to look to ourselves: but now the dangerous situation of affairs admonishes us rather to take care that such offenders do not hurt us, than to consult how to proceed against them. Ye trusted before in the royal favour and your own fortune; but where are these now? And as to the great number of noble lords, if they should absent themselves, or the members of parliament should revolt to the other party, ye will certainly find it too late, and to no purpose now to have recourse to judiciary proceedings: for when your adversaries perceive you to grow feeble, they will become the more daring … for my own part, indeed, I look upon those which Dr Sacheverell has done to the ministry, to be very great; but in the punishment thereof let no hatred, revenge, anger, or passion interpose; for where these take place, the mind does not easily discern the truth … and that which would pass among others as anger only, our people would call cruelty in the government, which is odious to all men. If however, a condign punishment can be found out for this man’s offence, and suitable to the greatness of the danger, I approve of the extraordinary method of proceeding; but if the greatness of the offence exceeds the constitutions of our ancestors, and the conceptions of men, I think it best to make use of that method of process which our laws have provided.
A. Cunningham, The History of Great Britain (1787), ii. 277–8.
His views were not shared by Sunderland or Marlborough and on 13 Dec. 1709 Godolphin’s ally John Dolben‡ secured a motion of censure in the Commons. Sacheverell was impeached the next day. Harley’s allies were delighted, believing that ‘So solemn a prosecution for such a scribble’ would make the affair even more notorious than it was already and that Dolben was acting as an agent for Somers and Halifax.
In January 1710 Godolphin persuaded Somers to intercede with the queen in an attempt to repair the damage resulting from Marlborough’s quarrel with her over the appointment of Rivers as constable of the Tower. Somers saw the queen on 16 Jan., when he claimed to find her ‘very reserved’ and unreceptive to his arguments. He waited on her again three days later and, as he informed Marlborough, ‘represented the fatal consequence of any unkindness appearing on her part towards’ the duke. This time she appeared more conciliatory and willing to assure Marlborough of her continuing friendship.
During Sacheverell’s trial Somers took a prominent part in arguing for Sacheverell’s conviction. He was also one of those to speak in favour of sending one of those taken during the riots at the beginning of March to the Tower. He joined several of his colleagues in defending the Revolution and on 18 Mar. batted down a motion proposed by Heneage Finch, Baron Guernsey (later earl of Aylesford), that the peers should be permitted to offer their judgment article by article.
we have always followed the example of the wisest judges; considering chiefly what is equity, and what the public good, the common safety, and the constitution of the kingdom necessarily require. We know that the judgments as well as the pleadings, must be according to law: but it does not thence follow that we are tied up to the forms of the inferior courts, or bound to proceed according to those laws which we prescribe to others; for every court has it particular custom, and we have ours.
Cunningham, History, ii. 297.
Not surprisingly, on 20 Mar. 1710 Somers voted Sacheverell guilty; he was then absent from the House, probably through ill health, for the whole of the following week and so was not present to vote on the question of Sacheverell’s punishment, though he had participated in a meeting held in the Prince’s Chamber on the day of the conviction, when the terms of Sacheverell’s censure had been agreed. During the ensuing storm of support for Sacheverell, Somers judged it safest to ‘wait with patience till the humour of abetting and applauding Sacheverell should cool of itself’.
Soon after the conclusion of the proceedings against Sacheverell the Junto were faced with a new threat to their position with the appointment of Shrewsbury as lord chamberlain. The news was of sufficient moment to cause Somers to re-open a letter that he had just finished to Marlborough to insert the information. Over the coming weeks the ministry was once more plagued by in-fighting. Somers and Sunderland quarrelled towards the end of May and during the summer recess Somers was again ill: on 6 June 1710 he told Marlborough that he had been confined to his chamber for nearly a month.
Sunderland was dismissed on 14 June. Somers and the Junto then assured Marlborough of their determination to keep him in office.
In August, the dismissal of Godolphin followed by the long-anticipated dissolution left Somers and the Whigs with ‘no greater usefulness than that of taking care of elections’. Harley’s hopes of winning Somers over had by then all but evaporated. Harley described Somers as ‘grown extremely angry’ with the Tories but also as pretending to be angry with Godolphin, Cowper and Halifax. In a letter of 12 Sept. Harley laid the blame for Somers’ anger on Cowper’s influence but he also thought that ‘the rage of not being chief minister seems to be the cause of it’.
During the 1710–11 session Somers’ attendance fell to 56 per cent of sitting days. The pattern was yet again suggestive of bouts of illness, with over two-thirds of his absences taking place between 6 Mar. and 29 May 1711. He held the proxy of Charles Powlett, 2nd duke of Bolton, from 23 Dec. 1710, vacated by Bolton’s attendance on 12 Jan. 1711 and a second proxy from Bolton dated 25 Apr. 1711 and vacated on 7 May. He also held that of James Stanley, 10th earl of Derby, from 22 Dec. to 2 Feb. 1712. Late in December 1710 or early in January 1711 Somers was included in a list drawn up by Nottingham, probably concerning the imminent debates on the ministry’s peace policy. Not surprisingly, given the Whig commitment to the war, he was also listed as one of those who intended to vote in favour of presenting the address containing the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion in the abandoned division of 8 Dec. 1710. During January 1711 he took a leading role in the various debates on the war in Spain.
Somers was clearly still regarded as possessing useful influence for on 13 Feb. he was approached by William Wake, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of Canterbury), and Charles Trimnell, bishop of Norwich, about the affairs of convocation.
During the recess rumours of the forthcoming peace abounded, as did gossip about Harley’s success in splitting the Whigs, Somers’ possible return to government (reports of which had been current since at least the latter part of April) and fresh parliamentary elections.
Over the 1711–12 session Somers was present on only 35 per cent of sitting days. On 25 Nov., shortly before the session began, Halifax referred to Somers having been so ill that he had been housebound for a week and in December he described Somers as ‘really very much out of order and in pain’.
there were many Lords had more experience in the law of parliament than he, but that for a great part of his life he had made it his study to be versed in the records of both houses, and in all his reading he could never find that any such command ever came single to either house from the crown. He confessed that such a command had been often sent to both houses at the same time and complied with. He said it was a matter of such consequence that he hoped lords would come to some resolution that their books might be searched … and if there was no such precedent found he did believe her majesty would thank them for doing their duty to her and themselves in endeavouring to be rightly informed and did not doubt but they would find her majesty would readily recall her command.
The ensuing debate turned into a transparent attack on the ministry in which leading Whigs were joined by Nottingham and a disgruntled Godolphin, but the motion to adjourn was carried by a comfortable majority.
In April 1712 Somers was one of several prominent Whigs to speak out against William Carstares’s patronage bill, though it was carried thanks to the court’s support for the measure.
The third and final session of the 1710 Parliament convened on 9 Apr. 1713. Somers was present on 52 per cent of sitting days, his absences being concentrated in April, May and July. Although he did not take his seat until 4 May he was clearly deeply involved in discussions of opposition strategy because, on 15 Apr., ‘a great crew’ of peers, including Nottingham as well as leading Whigs, was seen to arrive at Somers’ house in Leicester Fields, where they stayed for nearly two hours.
Following the dissolution, Somers joined Cowper in standing godfathers to the son of Bishop Trimnell.
Final years, 1714–16
The death of Anne on 1 Aug. 1714 ushered in a brief session of which Somers attended only 3 of 15 possible days. He was reputedly offered a place in the new ministry but declined it.
Whig propagandists portrayed Somers as something of a hero. Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, declared that as lord chancellor he was ‘in all respects the greatest man I had ever known in that post’, while Joseph Addison‡ praised him as ‘one of the most distinguished figures in the history of the present age’.