Early Life under Charles II
Stamford came from a distinctly puritan and radical background. He was directly descended from an uncle of Lady Jane Grey, one of the few survivors from the culling of the Grey family which followed their attempt to put the young Protestant pretender on the throne. His grandfather, Henry Grey, earl of Stamford, had distinguished himself by his opposition to Laudian innovations in the Church and was an unsuccessful military commander for Parliament in The Civil War, while his own father, Lord Grey of Groby, was a more vigorous and radical soldier and administrator for the Independents and the New Model Army. Grey of Groby played a prominent part in Pride’s Purge and was one of the judges in Charles I’s trial, his signature appearing second on the king’s death warrant. He went on to serve as a councillor of state and military officer in the Commonwealth, but in the spring of 1657 died of gout, leaving behind him an only son and namesake. On his grandfather’s death on 21 Aug. 1673, Grey of Groby (as he was styled in the interim) succeeded to the earldom and estate. By this date Stamford may already have been married, for on 29 Oct. 1672 Lady Mary Hastings reported that Lord Grey was to marry Elizabeth Harvey, daughter of the recently deceased Sir Daniel Harvey.
Stamford took his seat in the Lords at the first opportunity after reaching his majority. He had been under age at the call of the House on 12 Jan. 1674, so he first sat on 13 Apr. 1675, the opening day of the session of April-June 1675. He attended on 39 days, all bar two of the session, 95 per cent of the total. On his first day he revealed that he was committed to the cause of the burgeoning ‘Country’ opposition by subscribing to the protest against the resolution thanking the king for his speech, which had referred to ‘the pernicious designs of ill men’ who advocated a dissolution of Parliament. In the weeks following he was nominated to 11 select committees and signed three of the four protests (on 21, 26 Apr. and 4 May) against the ‘non-resisting’ test bill introduced by Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). He was later named by the author of A Letter of a Person of Quality as one of the leading movers in the House against this bill, and as ‘a young nobleman of great hope’.
Stamford missed the opening day of the session of October-November 1675 (13 Oct.), but he was present on the other 20 days, 95 per cent of the total, and was named to five committees. He voted for the motion of 20 Nov. to address the king for the dissolution of Parliament and entered his protest when it was rejected. By December 1675 domestic strife had intruded into his life. As it was recounted by his mother-in-law, Lady Harvey, in a letter referring to Stamford’s ‘follies and impertinences’, after his uncle, presumably Anchitell Grey‡, had made him so ‘impudent’ as to fall out with her, he then made him leave his wife too without saying why, or where he went. The death of his own mother the following year created further difficulties, as Lady Chaworth wrote in October 1676: ‘here is a mighty discourse of the great suits now will be between Mr Grey and Lady Harvey about the estate of Lady Stamford [which] now on her death falls to my Lord’.
When Parliament met again on 15 Feb. 1677 Stamford only attended the first nine days of the session during which he was nominated to 14 committees, and examined the journals twice (the first of many occasions during his career). At the beginning of the session he and his uncle through marriage, George Booth, Baron Delamer, were almost alone in the House in their support for the claims of Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, and three other peers that the prorogation of 13 months had automatically dissolved Parliament, although unlike the others they avoided being sent to the Tower.
Stamford attended all five days of the short sitting of the House in May 1677, thereby vacating his proxy. He was absent when the session resumed on 15 Jan. 1678, first sitting on 28 January. He attended on only 13 days of the session, last being present on 15 Feb. and he was absent from the call of the House made on the following day. He had been appointed to five committees. Stamford was also absent from the session of May-July 1678, registering his proxy two days after its beginning (on 25 May) with the lord chancellor Heneage Finch, Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham, a staunch supporter of the royal prerogative. This somewhat strange choice may perhaps be explained by a family connection: Finch, through his marriage to Elizabeth Harvey, was Stamford’s wife’s uncle. Stamford was again absent when the House reassembled on 21 Oct. for the final session of the Cavalier Parliament. He renewed his proxy with Finch on 2 Nov., which was duly vacated when he attended the House for the first time on 27 December. He attended the last four days of the session, 7 per cent of the total. On his first day in the House he voted to commit Danby during his impeachment and entered his dissent when this motion was rejected.
Not surprisingly Danby considered Stamford an opponent in the period March-April 1679, recording him as such on three separate lists, although on one of them he was deemed unreliable (perhaps meaning uncertain to vote). Stamford attended on all six days of the first, short session of the 1679 Parliament, of 6-13 Mar. 1679, and was again present when the second session began on 15 March. He attended on 45 days of the session, 75 per cent of the total, but he was absent from the House from 29 Mar. to 21 Apr. 1679 and so was not present to vote on the bill to attaint the lord treasurer. Upon his return to the House, he aligned himself with the opponents of the court: he protested against the motion not to amend the bill to remove papists from Westminster in favour of Protestant dissenters (2 May); he voted for a joint committee to discuss the trials of the impeached peers and protesting against its rejection (10 May); he protested against allowing the bishops’ right to stay in court in capital cases until judgment of death was pronounced (13 May); and he protested against adhering to that position (23 and 27 May), and then against the attempt to try the five Catholic lords before Danby (23 May).
Stamford maintained his commitment to the court’s opponents during the long prorogation: he signed the petition of 16 peers on 6 Dec. 1679 asking that Parliament be allowed to meet and was one of those who presented it to the king on the following day. This action led to his removal from the Leicestershire commission of the peace in early 1680.
Stamford’s main estate lay at Bradgate in Leicestershire and it was from here that he exercised some electoral influence on the county. He played a major role in early 1681 in orchestrating the re-election of Sir John Hartopp‡ as knight of the shire, accompanying him to the castle for the poll. Following the presentation of an address to the two Members, Stamford departed to Bradgate taking Hartopp with him.
After the dissolution of March 1681, Stamford continued his opposition outside Parliament. In 1682-3 he was involved with Ford Grey, 3rd Baron Grey of Warke, later earl of Tankerville, and Sir Thomas Armstrong‡ in the tumultuous London shrieval elections and in the triumphant progress through Chichester of James Scott, duke of Monmouth.
The Reign of James II and the Revolution
Stamford attended on the opening day of James II’s Parliament, 19 May 1685. He was one of the few peers to subscribe to the protests against the resolutions of 22 May to reverse the order that allowed the continuation of Danby’s impeachment from Parliament to Parliament, and of 4 June against the bill to reverse Stafford’s attainder. He attended regularly until 19 June, after which, and rather suspiciously, he was absent. In all, he was present on 20 days of this part of the session, 65 per cent of the total, and was named to 11 committees. After the suppression of Monmouth’s Rebellion, warrants were issued for the arrest of both Stamford and his cousin, Henry Booth 2nd Baron Delamer, later earl of Warrington. Stamford was detained in Leicestershire and committed to the Tower on 24 July.
Stamford was thus incarcerated when the session resumed on 9 Nov. and was absent from the call of the House on 16 November. On 11 Nov. he submitted a petition to the House complaining that he had been imprisoned without being informed of the specific charges against him and had no means to work on his defence. The peers responded by issuing a writ of certiorari so that the indictment found against him by the grand jury could be examined by the House itself. The indictment was delivered to the Lords by the clerk of the peace for London on the 14th and Stamford was heard in the House on the 17th when the date for his trial before his peers was set for 1 December. Parliament was prorogued on 20 Nov., while still in possession of the writ; the scheduled trial could not, therefore, take place and the scaffolding erected in Westminster Hall was dismantled.
At some point in 1685 Stamford had sued for a divorce.
Unsurprisingly, five contemporary analyses between 1687 and the beginning of 1688 listed Stamford as an opponent of the repeal of the Test or opposed to James II’s religious policies in general. In public, too, he remained a highly visible opponent, who turned out in support of the Seven Bishops in court on 15 June. In September 1688, Henry Compton, bishop of London, consulted him about William of Orange’s planned invasion, and Stamford gave assurances that he would ‘do as the Lord Delamer did’. He took up arms for the prince and was already in Nottingham when William Cavendish, 4th earl of Devonshire, arrived on 20 November. Delamer arrived the following day, and Stamford and Delamer both left on 24 Nov., joining William’s forces at Hungerford on 7 December.
The Convention
Stamford was present when the Convention opened on 22 Jan. 1689. He voted in a division in committee of the whole House on 31 Jan. in favour of declaring William and Mary king and queen, and entered his dissent at the decision not to agree with the Commons that the throne was vacant. On 4 Feb. he voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons in using the word ‘abdicated’ rather than ‘deserted’ to described James’s departure, and protested against the failure of the House to agree. On the 6th, he again supported the motion that James II had abdicated and that the throne was thereby vacant. On 12 Feb. he was named to manage a conference on the proclamation of the new monarchs. Also on 12 Feb. he reported from the committee for privileges to recommend a search for precedents of proceedings against peers in criminal matters, connected to the bill regulating treason trials for peers. On 4 Mar. in a division in committee of the whole House he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles Gerard, earl of Macclesfield, on a clause in the bill; he protested on 6 Mar. against the bill’s passage. On 5 Mar. he was named to manage a conference about assisting the king in reducing Ireland and defending the religion and laws of England. On 21 Mar. he protested against the decision to retain the sacramental test in the oaths to the new monarchs. He protested on 5 Apr. against the rejection of an amendment to the comprehension bill which would have included lay members in the proposed commission to inspect the liturgy, even adding an extra reason to the eight points endorsed by the other dissentients. On the 8th he protested against the addition of a proviso to the same bill.
In April 1689 Halifax recorded on several occasions comments about the king ‘doing something’ for Stamford who ‘talked with discontent’.
Stamford championed the cause of Titus Oates, voting on 31 May in favour of reversing the two judgments of perjury against him and protesting against the loss of that resolution. On 10 July he acted as a teller in opposition to Theophilus Hastings, 7th earl of Huntingdon, at the report stage of this bill against a motion that part of the preamble be postponed and then entered his dissent when he lost the vote. On the 12th he protested against the resolution to agree with the committee’s amendments; on 22 and 26 July he was named to conferences on the bill; on 27 July he dissented to a resolution not to hold a conference at that time and on 30 July he opposed the Lords’ adhering to their amendments to this bill.
On 25 June he entered his protest against the resolution not to reverse the judgment in Barnardiston v Soame. On 2 July he acted as a teller in opposition to Robert Leke, 3rd earl of Scarsdale, in favour of the motion that the House proceed on the impeachment of Adam Blair and others. He was named a manager of the conferences on the succession bill (12, 16, 20, 31 July) and on the tea and coffee duty bill (25, 27 July). On 27 July he was named to draw up an address to the king requesting a proclamation summoning James II’s last peerage creation, Edward Griffin, Baron Griffin, which he reported on the 3rd and was given the task of presenting to the king.
Meanwhile, on 9 May 1689 Stamford was named to a committee to make the amendments made by the Commons to the bill concerning the commissioners of the great seal into a coherent whole. He duly reported the committee’s efforts to the House and was named to draw up reasons for a conference on the matter (subsequently managing conferences on the bill on 20 and 21 June). This particular act had ramifications for Stamford in that it confirmed his appointment by the commissioners (made before 1 May and including Maynard and Sir William Rawlinson) as custos rotulorum of Leicestershire, and thereby thwarted the pretensions of John Manners, 9th earl (later duke) of Rutland.
Stamford was present when the second session of the Convention convened on 23 Oct. 1689. He attended on 71 days of the session, missing only 5 Nov. and 13 December. He was named to 27 committees during the session, the most important of which was established on 2 Nov. to investigate the judicial murders of Armstrong, William Russell‡, Lord Russell, Algernon Sydney‡, Stephen Cornish and others, as well as the advisors of the writs of quo warranto against corporations, their regulators and the public asserters of the dispensing power. He chaired the ‘committee for inspections’ (known informally as the ‘murder committee’) on 11 occasions. On 6 Nov. he reported from the committee to ask for an address to the king to be allowed to inspect the council books for the previous two reigns. On 12, 16 and 21 Nov. he reported a request for the attendance of some Members of the Commons, such as John Hampden‡ and John Wildman‡. On 7 Dec. he reported the committee’s desire for clarification on how Stephen College’s death was to be treated, whereupon the House limited their investigations to the four murders. The House then appointed a separate committee (of which Stamford was not a member) to examine into those who had endeavoured to suborn witnesses against Stamford, Macclesfield, Delamer and Devonshire. On 20 Dec. Stamford reported to the House the fruits of the committee’s labours—57 depositions all of which were entered in extenso in the Journal.
Stamford was engaged in a range of other activity in the House. On 25 Oct. 1689 he acted as a teller in opposition to Sidney Godolphin, Baron (later earl of) Godolphin, on whether to go into committee of the whole on the clandestine marriages’ bill. On 23 Nov. he entered his protest against the rejection of a proviso to the bill of rights which would have made royal pardons in impeachments contingent upon the approval of both Houses. On 14 Jan. 1690 he acted as a teller in opposition to Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, on whether to adjourn the debate on the treason trials bill. On 23 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to Nottingham in committee of the whole on the corporation bill in favour of retaining the phrase that the surrenders of the borough charters ‘were and are illegal’. At the report stage he again acted as a teller, again in opposition to Nottingham, against leaving these words out. He then joined in the protest against the rejection of this wording because, as he and his eight fellow protesters argued, ‘the putting out those words seems to be the justifying of the most horrid action that King James was guilty of during his reign’. On 25 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to John Churchill, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, on the previous question concerning an address to the king over his proposed journey to Ireland. In the last weeks of the session, Stamford chaired five meetings of the committee considering a triennial bill, a measure with which he would continue to be associated when it reappeared in William III’s later Parliaments.
The 1690 Parliament
Stamford was present when the 1690 Parliament met on 20 Mar., and attended on every day of the session, bar the prorogation of 7 July. He was appointed to 28 committees during the session. He chaired the committee on the bill to make Worthenbury, Flintshire, a separate parish from Bangor, reporting it to the House on 5 April. On 3 Apr. he chaired the committees on the appeals of Gore and Vincent and the adjournment of the bill for the sale of Halyford House. He was involved in the deliberations over the bill to recognize the Convention formally as a Parliament and William and Mary as monarchs de jure. On 4-5 Apr. he was a teller in six divisions in opposition to Nottingham, Louis de Duras, 2nd earl of Feversham, and Evelyn Pierrepont, 5th earl Kingston, over the wording in the bill ‘confirming’ or ‘declaring’ the Convention valid. When all options discussed were eventually rejected, Stamford and nine other peers protested because ‘to leave a doubt touching the validity of the last Parliament is to shake all the judgments and decrees given in the house of Peers during this reign’. On 5 Apr. Stamford (together with John Egerton, 3rd earl of Bridgwater) introduced into the House two recently promoted Whig followers of William and Mary, Richard Lumley, Viscount Lumley [I], as earl of Scarbrough, and Delamer, recently made earl of Warrington. For a week in April he chaired seven meetings of the committee on the bill for the benefit of the subject, in relation to the practice and execution of the law, which he presumably reported on 21 Apr. although it was then recommitted to a committee of the whole and eventually lapsed. On 2 May he chaired and reported Wynne’s estate bill, and the adjournment of Sir John Hoby’s bill.
Stamford used his local office to bolster the Revolution Settlement, stressing in his charge to the Leicestershire grand jury at the quarter sessions at Michaelmas 1690 that William and Mary were ‘the lawful and rightful king and queen of these realms’, and refuting the notion that ‘the very species of government is of divine right’. To Stamford this last seemed to be ‘contradictory to the nature as well as destructive to the very end and being of government’. The charge was subsequently printed, with copious scholarly notes, in order to protect his reputation from being slandered as a republican. A second charge, at Michaelmas 1691, also found its way into print.
Stamford was missing when the House convened for the next session on 2 Oct. 1690, but attended on the next sitting, 6 Oct. and was added to all standing committees on the 9th. On 6 Oct. he acted as a teller in opposition to Francis Newport, Viscount Newport (later earl of Bradford), on whether to discharge from imprisonment Henry Mordaunt, 2nd earl of Peterborough, and James Cecil, 4th earl of Salisbury, and on 30 Oct. he protested against their discharge from bail. On 21 Oct. he was teller again in a procedural division in opposition to Charles North, 5th Baron North, on the petition of the disgraced admiral, Arthur Herbert, earl of Torrington. He protested on 30 Oct. against the bill brought in by the marquess of Carmarthen to ‘clarify’ the powers of the admiralty commissioners who were to try Torrington. On 9 Dec. he told in opposition to Thomas Tufton, 6th earl of Thanet, in favour of proceeding with a bill for the reversal of a judgment of scandalum magnatum passed against John Arnold‡, a bill that was ultimately rejected by the House. On 30 Dec. he was chosen (with 26 votes) as the third of four peers to be added as representatives of the Lords considering the establishment of the commission of accounts, but in the face of resistance to this interference from the Commons, the Lords backed down.
Around this time it was thought likely that Stamford would remarry, though one letter to the countess of Rutland suggested that he would not agree to do so for less than £20,000.
Stamford was present when the 1691-2 session began on 22 Oct. 1691. He attended on 87 days of the session, 90 per cent of the total, and was named to 54 committees. On 19 Nov. he served as a teller in opposition to Charles Mordaunt, earl of Monmouth, on whether to go into committee of the whole House on the bill to establish procedures for bills of review in chancery. He chaired select committees on the aulnage, and chaired and reported from Mathews’ estate bill, which favoured a daughter of Sir Thomas Armstrong (12 Nov.) and Roberts’s estate bill, which concerned Leicestershire (25 Nov.).
In an attempt to sort out the Maynard inheritance, on 5 Dec. 1691 Stamford petitioned that Henry Howard, 5th earl of Suffolk, should waive his privilege in the case concerning the will of Sir John Maynard‡ (Lady Stamford’s grandfather). Maynard had died in October 1690 leaving the bulk of his vast estate to two of his grandchildren, daughters of his son Joseph, who had predeceased him. He made his fourth and surviving wife, Mary, Lady Maynard, executrix. She had subsequently married Suffolk. Shortly after his own marriage, Stamford brought a bill in chancery to claim the inheritance from Maynard’s widow, who was able to claim privilege through her new husband. The committee for privileges reported on 12 Dec. that Suffolk and his wife could not claim privilege as she was only a trustee of the estate, a decision with which the House concurred. These legal disputes continued until the case was settled by an act of 1694.
On 16 Dec. 1691, following an assault on Henry Yelverton, Viscount Longueville, Stamford urged in the House the suppression of playhouses ‘as being illegal and tending greatly to the increase of debauchery’.
On 8 Jan. 1692 Stamford acted as a teller in opposition to James Brydges, 8th Baron Chandos, on whether to appoint a day for hearing counsel on the petition of Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk, for a divorce bill. On 16 Feb. he protested twice against the decision that proxies could not be used during the proceedings on this bill, while the following day he told in favour of the unsuccessful motion that the bill be read a second time.
Stamford was present when the 1692-3 session met on 4 November. He attended on 90 days of the session, 88 per cent of the total, and was nominated to 53 committees. On 14 Nov. 1692 he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles West, 6th Baron De la Warr, on whether to agree to a resolution that granted bail to the suspected Jacobites, Huntingdon and Marlborough, because two witnesses against them (as was necessary to convict for treason) could not be found. On 22 Nov. he reported to the House a number of decisions made by the committee for privileges and some general guidelines to prevent disorders in the House. Between 24 Nov. and 5 Dec. he chaired the committee of the whole on the bill providing for an indemnity from suits for those who had acted in the royal service, although when proceedings on the bill were resumed in January 1693, the chair was taken by Cornwallis.
Stamford joined other disgruntled Whigs in supporting the place bill at the turn of 1692-3. On 31 Dec. he voted to commit the bill and on 3 Jan. 1693 voted for its passage, signing the protest at its rejection. On 12 Jan. he was a teller in opposition to Charles Montagu, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, in the committee of the whole House on giving advice to the king concerning the cautionary towns in Flanders. On 17 Jan. he chaired the select committee named to draw a clause in the bill for frequent Parliaments, providing for triennial Parliaments that should meet and sit every year. He reported from it on the 18th.
Stamford served as chairman of the committee of the whole for the bill to prevent malicious informations in the court of king’s bench (10 Feb.), and was later named to report from two conferences on it (1, 3 Mar.); and for the bill to prevent disputes about the royal mines (16 Feb.). He subscribed to a protest on 6 Mar. against the decision not to communicate to the Commons the information on Ireland heard before the House and to another on 8 Mar. against the rejection of several provisos relating to the freedom to print in the bill to continue various laws, including the licensing of the press. As the session progressed, the Lords became very busy with legislation passed by the Commons, so from 10 Feb. Stamford came into his own as a legislative workhorse, chairing select committees on 22 occasions, on a variety of bills, although on some of them he merely adjourned proceedings.
With the end of the session, Stamford was much in the thoughts of Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland, as he tried to construct a viable ministry. Stamford seems to have been on good terms with one of the key men in Sunderland’s plans, Sir John Somers, the future Baron Somers. He was one of the peers who attended Somers to Westminster on the first day of term in May 1693 following his appointment as lord keeper.
Stamford attended the prorogation on 26 Oct. 1693 and was present when the 1693-4 session opened on 7 November. He attended on 112 days of the session, 88 per cent of the total, and was named to 31 committees. In early December he was one of the sponsors of the triennial bill and ‘spoke often’ in its defence in committee of the whole House on 4 Dec. which debated the provision that a Parliament should be held every year.
A bill of much greater personal import to Stamford was given a first reading on 3 Feb. 1694, that for settling the estate of Sir John Maynard. The bill’s contentious nature was perhaps flagged by the order which followed its introduction, that notice of it be given to Sir William Rawlinson, who was married to another grand-daughter of Sir John Maynard by his daughter, Honora. Rawlinson submitted a petition at the next sitting of the House (5 February). On the 7th an order was made for some of Stamford’s witnesses to attend a hearing at the Bar, and counsel was duly heard on the 16th. After repeated adjournments the House does not appear to have made a decision on the petition (probably because the parties had reached a compromise). A second reading was ordered on 3 Mar. and the committee under Manchester sat on 5-8 Mar., with Rawlinson consenting to the bill as amended in committee on the 8th. It was reported that day and the House agreed to the amendments. Following the committal of the bill in the Commons (20 Mar.), a petition was referred to the committee on the 21st from Elizabeth Maynard (Joseph Maynard’s widow) asking that the bill should not be passed until Stamford and Hobart had executed a conveyance allowing her £350 per annum for life. A long-term political ally, Sir Rowland Gwynne‡, reported the bill in the Commons on 26 Mar., and that Elizabeth Maynard had been satisfied, the bill passing its third reading on the 28th and receiving the royal assent on 16 April.
Stamford voted on 17 Feb. 1694 against the motion to reverse chancery’s dismissal of the appeal in the cause Montagu v Bath. On 4 and 5 Apr. he was named to manage a conference defending the House’s amendments to the estate bill of William Stawell, 3rd Baron Stawell, and to manage a conference on the bill for small tithes (16 April). As usual, as the end of the session approached, Stamford was pressed into service as a chair of committees on legislation. He acted as a chairman on eight separate occasions for three private bills, reporting them to the House over the course of a month: Whitley’s estate (16 Feb.); Turner’s estate (19 Feb.); and Chaplin’s estate (17 Mar.).
As the king increasingly turned to the Whigs to form his ministry in 1694, Stamford’s fortunes rose. In April it had been rumoured that he would be made one of the lords of the treasury in the place of Sir Edward Seymour‡, bt. and on 10 May he was sworn in as a privy councillor.
Stamford was named to manage a number of conferences on the treason trials bill (16, 23 Feb., 11, 15, 20 Apr. 1695); on the bill encouraging privateers (1 May); on the bill imprisoning Sir Thomas Cooke‡ and others; and on the impeachment of the duke of Leeds (3 May). On 8 Mar. he joined Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, in the debate on the descent of baronies by writ, following which on 19 Mar. he protested against the decision that if a person summoned to Parliament by writ died after sitting, leaving issue two or more daughters, of whom only one left issue, such issue had a right to demand a summons to Parliament.
The Parliament of 1695
Stamford was said to have coveted the post of secretary of state, left vacant by the death of Sir John Trenchard‡ at the end of April 1695.
Stamford was a candidate for a place on a revamped commission dealing with trade and plantations in December 1695. A warrant for a bill creating this commission was signed on 15 December. John Locke was informed of its membership, including himself and Stamford, two days later. However, it did not pass the great seal and never came into effect. When a commission finally passed the seals in May 1696, Stamford had been replaced by Tankerville (as Grey of Warke had become).
Stamford was present when the 1695 Parliament opened on 22 November. He attended on 109 days of the 1695-6 session, 88 per cent of the total, and was named to 34 committees. On 23 Dec. he spoke in committee of the whole House on the treason trials bill about the date on which the statute was to take effect, although the import of his contribution is unclear.
Stamford attended the prorogation on 28 July 1696, and the opening day of the 1696-7 session on 20 October. He was present on 104 days of the session, 91 per cent of the total, and was named to 39 committees. On 2 Nov. he reported from the committee for privileges on the petition of Ralph Montagu, earl (later duke) of Montagu, and the answer of John Granville, earl of Bath—part of their ongoing tussle over the Albemarle inheritance. On 28 Nov. he reported from the committee of the whole on the low wines bill. On 30 Nov. he was named to manage a conference on the waiving and resumption of privilege.
Following the allegations of Sir John Fenwick‡, 2nd bt., Stamford and Monmouth saw an opportunity to attack their enemies, such as Godolphin. It was Stamford who on 26 Nov. proposed sending for Fenwick to appear at the bar on 1 Dec.: James Vernon‡ was not clear why, though he was suspicious because of Stamford’s ‘intimacy’ with Gwynne and some other Members, ‘who have entertained unintelligible notions of advantages to be made’ from Fenwick’s confession. Vernon wrote on 8 Dec. of his fear that Stamford might also be manipulating the informer Matthew Smith. On 8 Dec. L’Hermitage reported that Stamford was one of those peers who, like Devonshire and Tankerville, argued that the evidence against Fenwick should be heard before any decision was taken as to whether to proceed by attainder. Stamford promoted the attainder of Fenwick energetically, moving for the second reading of the bill on 18 Dec. and voting for its passage on 23 December. He then joined Bolton and ten or so other peers in defending Monmouth after it was revealed that he had continued to try to influence Fenwick’s testimony in order to implicate other peers.
On 12 Mar. 1697 Stamford again received Bolingbroke’s proxy. On that day he chaired and reported from the committee appointed to draw reasons for the Lords insisting on its amendments to the bill to restrain the wearing of imported wrought silks and printed calicoes, and on the 19th he entered his dissent against the House’s insistence on maintaining these amendments to this bill. On 16 Mar. he reported from the committee for privileges on the petition of William Stanley, 9th earl of Derby. He reported from committees of the whole House on the bill for the relief of creditors (20 Mar.), the malt duty bill and the bill for the better relief of the poor (14 Apr.), and the bill to restrain stock-jobbing (15 April). He also chaired several select committees, reporting from the bills on Moyle’s estate (23 Mar.), Crowle’s estate (25 Mar.) and Reigate highways (30 March).
Stamford appears to have stayed in London for part of the summer, attending the prorogations on 13 May, 17 June and 22 July 1697. One of the main reasons for his extended stay was his elevation to the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster. The duchy contained many Leicestershire manors, and may have been an attempt by the ministry to temper his propensity for trouble-making. On 6 May Vernon had recorded that the seals of the duchy would be demanded from Robert Bertie, Baron Willoughby de Eresby (later duke of Ancaster), and Stamford duly took the oaths as chancellor on 11 May.
Stamford was absent from the prorogations of 26 Aug. and 30 Sept. before attending those on 21 Oct. and 23 Nov. 1697. He was present when the 1697-8 session began on 3 December. He sat on 127 days of the session, 97 per cent of the total and was named to 75 committees. On 18 Jan. 1698 Vernon implied that only Stamford, together with Bolton, Peterborough (as Monmouth had become) and Normanby would be ‘troubling the waters’ in the Lords, but that they were ‘so well known as to have all their motions narrowly watched’.
During the session Stamford was again prominent as a manager of conferences. On 13 Jan. he was named a manager for a conference on the bill for continuing to incarcerate those suspected of conspiring to kill the king, and on 7 Mar. for that on the House’s amendments to a bill to further explain recently-passed legislation for the relief of the poor. He was clearly active on the conference concerning amendments to the bill to erect hospitals and workhouses in Colchester, from which he reported on 11 May, although the journals do not record his appointment as a manager on the previous day. On 20 June he was named a manager for the conference on the bill concerning the Alverstoke waterworks of Peter Mews, bishop of Winchester. On 15 Mar. he voted to commit the bill to punish the exchequer official, Charles Duncombe‡, and subscribed the protest against the decision not to do so. He also protested against two resolutions in the cause of Bertie v. Viscount Falkland which benefited the appellants, the Berties (16-17 March).
From May 1698 much of Stamford’s time was taken up in chairing committees. He chaired the committee on the impeachments of the suspected smugglers Goudet and Barreau, which had to consider the demands made by the Commons over the conduct of the trial (13 May, 6-8 June). On 8 June Stamford reported that the committee could find no precedent of members of the lower house standing anywhere in the upper house except below the bar in impeachment trials, but he appears himself to have disagreed with this decision, as on 15 June he was one of only three peers, along with Devonshire and John Thompson, Baron Haversham, to protest against the House’s insistence on this point. Vernon reported on 16 June that Rochester and Peterborough ‘stand very stiff upon the prerogative of the peers’, but that Devonshire, Normanby, Haversham and Stamford were for showing some consideration to the Commons. Nevertheless he was named to the resultant conference and to another on the 20th. After Goudet and Barreau had confessed to the crime, he reported from the committee on precedents for their punishment and the manner of delivering such a judgment. (29 June, 4 July).
Stamford also chaired the committee of the whole House on a number of occasions: on the annuities bill (21 Feb.); on the better payment of lottery tickets (28 May); on the duties on lustrings, and the bills on naval shipbuilding, naval embezzlement (all 20 June); and on the bill explaining the statutes against the export of wool (24 June). He chaired the committee for privileges on Vaughan v. Herbert (18 Feb.) and on Lucy v Bishop of St Davids (23 May), later serving on the court of delegates in the case against the latter (Thomas Watson, bishop of St Davids).
Stamford’s belligerent assertion of his privileges as chancellor of the duchy, brought him into conflict with Devonshire over Needwood Forest. On 22 Sept. 1698 Devonshire complained about the actions of the axe-bearer appointed by Stamford, which led to a dispute over the right to appoint to the office.
The Parliament of 1698
In the elections for the 1698 Parliament, Stamford and Drake were able to ensure the return for Bere Alston of Gwynne and the Whig solicitor-general John Hawles‡. After Gwynne opted to sit for Breconshire, James Montagu‡, brother of the Junto leader Charles Montagu, future earl of Halifax, was returned at the ensuing by-election. Stamford was able to use the duchy interest to nominate Henry Ashurst‡ at Preston, as he did in the following two elections. He had less success in Leicestershire, where the largely Tory gentry were able to force through their own choices, although it was reported that Stamford would insist on a poll for Bird. More favourably, the town of Leicester returned two Whigs.
Stamford attended the prorogations on 27 Oct. and 29 Nov. 1698. He was present on the opening day of the session, 6 December. In all he attended on 68 days of the session, 84 per cent of the total, and was named to 39 committees. He chaired and reported from the committee preparing the address on the king’s speech on 22 December. He remained active in his usual role of chairing and reporting from committees during the remainder of the session. In total he chaired select committees considering 30 pieces of legislation, reporting on the following bills: Derwentwater’s estate (12 Jan. 1699); repairing Yarmouth piers (16 Feb.); naturalizations (20 Feb., three on 10 Mar., 13 Mar.); Viner’s estate (24 Feb.); Bridges’ estate (16 Mar.); Seliyard’s estate (21 Mar.); the ship Charles Flyboat of Exeter (22 Mar.); Weslyd’s estate (1 Apr.); preventing the export of wool (27 Mar. and 1 Apr.); Price’s estate (3 Apr.); Moor’s estate and Blackwell Market (12 Apr.); Vesey’s estate (13 Apr.); Cowslade’s estate (18 Apr.). He also chaired the committee on a petition from the underage Edward Ward, future 8th Baron Dudley, over an appeal from a legal judgment in Ireland (14 Feb.), the committee on Barailleau’s naturalization, though he did not report it, and one of the meetings of the committee drawing up an address on the Newfoundland trade.
Stamford was closely involved in the bill to prohibit the export of corn or malt: he chaired and reported from the committee of the whole House on the bill on 18-19 Jan., reporting on the 23rd, whereupon the bill was ordered to be recommitted to a select committee, from which he reported later that day.
Following the end of the session, there was much talk of a ministerial reshuffle. At the end of May 1699 Vernon reported that Stamford was being considered for a place on the commission of trade, though he felt that the earl had higher expectations. In the event, he was appointed to the commission, ‘he having asked it at last’ through the agency of Lord Chancellor Somers, and the king ‘was unwilling to refuse one of that humour, who began to show himself very dogged for his being neglected’. Thus, on 9 June Stamford replaced Tankerville, as ‘first lord’ of the board of Trade. He attended the prorogations of 1 June and 13 July, and was active at the board until towards the end of July. He had returned to the board before the end of October. He attended the prorogation of 24 October.
Stamford was present when the 1699-1700 session opened on 16 Nov. 1699. He attended on 73 days of the session, 92 per cent of the total and was named to 35 committees. As a commissioner of trade, Stamford was the conduit whereby documents were transmitted from the board to the Lords. Following the order of the Lords of 16 Jan. 1700, two days later he submitted to the House the Board’s report on the prejudice done to English trade by the Scottish East India Company and the Darien settlement.
The Parliaments of 1701
On 25 May, following the end of the session, and with the ministerial position uncertain, Vernon reported that the king intended to speak to Stamford, among others, to suggest to them that he had no thoughts ‘but of employing the Whigs’.
Stamford attended the prorogation of 6 Feb. 1701 and he was present when the 1701 Parliament assembled on 10 February. He attended on 96 days of the session, 91 per cent of the total, and was named to 43 committees. According to Narcissus Luttrell‡, it was Stamford who on 26 Feb. brought in the bill allowing Ralph Box to divorce and marry again, and on 10 Apr. he acted as a teller in opposition to Warrington at the report stage of this bill on whether to agree to an amendment.
Perhaps of most importance in this session was Stamford’s heavy involvement in the defence of Whig ministers over the partition treaties. On 15 Mar. 1701 he acted as a teller in opposition to Peterborough on whether the second paragraph of the report on the partition treaty, that the Emperor was not a party to the treaty, should stand; on 20 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Nottingham on whether to communicate the Lords’ address on the treaty to the Commons for their concurrence. He was named as a manager on 2 and 10 Apr. to conferences about communicating information on the treaties. On 9 May a committee was established to consider the manner of the Commons delivering articles of impeachment, from which Stamford duly reported. Henceforth, he monopolized the chairmanship of this select committee, further reports being presented to the House on 14, 20 May, 2-3, 7, 9-10, 12, 19-20, 23 June, and through this forum he was able to direct the House’s obstruction of the Commons’ prosecution of the Junto lords.
Meanwhile, Stamford’s feud with Sir Basil Firebrace‡, a ranger of Enfield Chase in the duchy of Lancaster, came before Parliament. This cause had already involved the Council in 1699, and led Secretary of State Vernon to comment that Stamford ‘takes a pleasure in seeing all mankind at variance’. He exasperated the king sufficiently for him to have said (reportedly) ‘that he should never have heard of the duchy of Lancaster if he had not had so busy a chancellor’.
Stamford probably left London as usual in late July 1701, when he stopped attending the board of Trade. He had returned by the end of October, as he was present at the prorogation of 30 October.
The Parliament of 1702
The accession of Queen Anne did nothing to enhance Stamford’s financial or political prospects. He was not a favourite of the queen, doubtless because of his radical Whig past and current association with the Junto. In early April 1702 John Wilkins‡ informed Rutland that Stamford would be removed from office, and there were rumours that he would be impeached by the Commons.
Stamford was expected back in England in September 1702, because his wife was ill, but he probably did not return until the end of November.
Stamford attended the prorogations on 14 Oct. and 4 Nov. 1703, and was present when the next session began on 9 November. He attended on 81 days, 83 per cent of the total, and was named to 38 committees. In November Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, forecast Stamford as a likely opponent of the occasional conformity bill, as he did again in late November or early December, and on 14 Dec. he voted against the bill. On 2 Mar. 1704 he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles Finch, 4th earl of Winchilsea, on whether to agree with the report on the petition of the Hore family relating to abuses in victualling the navy. On 24 Mar. he entered his protest at the decision not to put the question on the motion that part of the narrative relating to Sir John Maclean, and the papers relating to his examination, taken by Nottingham, were imperfect, meaning that no censure at all was passed on Nottingham’s conduct. On 25 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Abingdon in a division concerning the criticism of ministers for failing to prosecute the plotter, Robert Ferguson, in relation to the Scotch Plot.
Again Stamford dealt with an impressively wide range of legislation, chairing many select committees and reporting on bills concerning Grainge’s estate (3 Feb.); Holworthy and Tipping estates (4 Feb.); Legh’s estate (21 Feb.); two naturalizations (22 Feb., 13 Mar.); the Sword Blade Company (24 Feb.); thrown silks (3 Mar.); Hawe and Conway estates (4 Mar.); Cooper’s estate (6 Mar.); and Briscoe’s estate (10 Mar.). One of the more notable select committees he chaired was that which examined the ‘Observations’ made by the Commons’ commissioners on the public accounts, upon which he reported on 6 and 16 Mar., before submitting a long and detailed report on 24 March. He also chaired the committee on the Scotch conspiracy on 28 March.
Stamford was present when the 1704-5 session opened on 24 October. He attended on 89 days of the session, 90 per cent of the total, and was named to 45 committees. On 15 Nov. he was present at the select committee on the records, and on 17 Nov. was one of eight peers that visited the Tower to examine the organization and preservation of the records there. On 29 Nov., with the queen present incognito for the debate on the Scottish act of security, Stamford moved that the House remain sitting, rather than going into committee of the whole because ‘the debates would be the more regular and solemn’, which was ‘understood as an intended respect’ to the queen, but nevertheless the original order of the House was adhered to. He was named to manage conferences on 28 Feb. and 7 Mar. 1705 on the contentious case of the ‘Aylesbury men’. He also chaired on 10 Mar. an adjournment meeting of the select committee entrusted with drawing up an address to the queen on the matter.
Once again, much of Stamford’s parliamentary work revolved around committees. He reported from committees on the following bills: four naturalization bills (29 Nov. 1704, 24 Jan. and two on 8 Feb. 1705); Hacche’s estate (20 Dec. 1704); Gould and Pile estates (12 Jan. 1705); Williams’ estate (24 Jan.); Grainge’s estate (1 Feb.); Coke’s estate (2 Feb.); Worsopp’s estate (8 Feb.); Nodes’ estate (14 Feb.); earl of Bath’s estate (15 Feb.); Bludworth’s estate (16 Feb.); Kenyon’s estate (22 February).
The Parliament of 1705
Following the end of the session, an analysis of the peerage in relation to the succession marked him as a Hanoverian. On 23 Oct. 1705 Stamford was one of those who attended the new lord keeper, Cowper, to the law courts.
Stamford was present when the 1705 Parliament convened on 25 October. He attended on 89 days of the session, 94 per cent of the total, and was named to 50 committees. On 19-21 Nov. Stamford chaired and reported from the committee of the whole House considering how best to preserve the government and the Protestant Succession. The resulting resolutions formed the genesis of the regency bill, and on 30 Nov. and 1 Dec. he again chaired and reported from the committee of the whole House on the bill. When the bill was returned from the Commons, complete with a ‘place clause’, to which the Lords did not agree, Stamford was named to the resultant conferences on 7, 11 and 19 February. At this point Stamford was embarrassed by his associate Gwynne, who published an open letter of support for the ‘Hanover motion’ addressed to Stamford, to almost universal condemnation.
On 28 Nov. Stamford chaired and reported from the committee of the whole House concerning the bill to repeal certain clauses in the Alien Act. On 4 Dec. he chaired and reported form the committee of the whole House on the bill to naturalize the Electress Sophia. On 6 Dec. he chaired the committee of the whole again on the queen’s speech and he reported the controversial resolution that the Church of England was not in danger under the queen. As chairman he was not recorded in the division on the bill.
Stamford was also the only chairman of the nine meetings of the select committee which met from 25 Jan. to 20 Feb. 1706 (when indefinitely adjourned) on the petitions of several of the inhabitants of Barbados against the island’s governor Sir Bevill Granville‡.
In October 1705 and again in May 1706 there were rumours that Stamford would be restored to the chancellorship of the duchy, but James Stanley, 10th earl of Derby, was appointed instead.
Stamford attended the prorogations on 22 Oct. and 21 Nov. 1706 and was present when the 1706-7 session met on 3 December. He attended on 75 days of the session, 87 per cent of the total, and was named to 43 committees. On 30 Dec. Stamford and Sunderland introduced the newly promoted Thomas Wharton, earl of Wharton, into the House. Stamford chaired the committee of the whole House on the West Riding registry bill (13-14 Mar.); duties on low wines (27 Mar.); a bill for the apprehension of housebreakers (28 Mar., 3 Apr.); the Brerewood-Pitkin bill (2 Apr.); preventing frauds from bankrupts (4 Apr.); and Rice’s estate bill, a bill continuing laws and a subsidy bill (8 Apr.). He also continued to chair a large number of select committees, reporting on bills concerning Lee’s estate (24 Feb.); the Hockcliffe to Woburn road and the Royal Lustring Company (3 Mar.); Von Holte naturalization (11 Mar.); the Fornhill-Stony Stratford road (13 Mar.); Lady Rich’s charities (14 Mar.); free ship (15 Mar.); Pierrepont’s estate (19 Mar.); Drake’s estate (26 Mar.); and Crosse’s estate (7 Apr.).
Stamford attended every day of the short session of April 1707. He was named to two committees and chaired the committee of the whole House on the bill preventing gunpowder from being brought into London, from which he reported on 23 April. Whig pressure for office evidently benefitted Stamford, for on 25 Apr., the day after the prorogation, he was reinstated as first lord of the board of Trade. He brought his usual attention to the post, first sitting on 29 Apr. and attending all meetings bar one until mid-July 1707 when he decamped from London.
Stamford chaired the committee of the whole House considering the bill relating to the statutes of cathedrals and collegiate churches (19 Feb.), a debate which Nicolson described as ‘beginning in a heat’.
The Parliament of 1708
In about May 1708 Stamford was classed as a Whig on a printed list. He was back attending meetings at the board of Trade on 25 Oct., again barely missing a meeting until June 1709.
Stamford returned to London before the following session began, attending the board of trade on 7 Nov. 1709.
Stamford’s main preoccupation from mid-February to the end of March 1710 was the petition he brought to the House on 18 Feb. for the reversal of a decree found against him by Lord Chancellor Cowper in chancery in December 1709 in favour of his underage nephew, Sir John Hobart†, 5th bt. (future earl of Buckinghamshire), the orphaned child of Stamford’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth Maynard. Upon the death of the 5th earl of Suffolk in December 1709, his widow (also Sir John Maynard’s widow and executor), guardian of the young Hobart heir and his eight siblings, had successfully managed to overturn part of the Maynard Estate Act of 1694 so that the children could be more amply maintained. Stamford’s petition was met with counter-petitions on 9 Mar. from one of the recently deceased earl of Suffolk’s sons, Charles Howard†, future 9th earl of Suffolk, who in 1706 had married Henrietta, one of the many Hobart daughters, and on 22 Mar. from the dowager countess of Suffolk herself. Counsel was heard on the case on 29 and 30 Mar., with Northey one of those appearing for Stamford, and Spencer Cowper appearing for the dowager countess, after which the House dismissed Stamford’s petition.
The Parliament of 1710 and after
The loss of the chancery case and the appeal seemed to provoke a quarrel between Stamford and Cowper, which threatened the parliamentary seat of Spencer Cowper at Bere Alston. At the same time, a local dispute over a plan to create more voters in Stamford’s interest threatened to upset the electoral balance between Drake and Stamford. At one point Drake denounced Stamford as ‘a person of so little temper and principle and so great ingratitude I will comfort myself seeing he intends it, that [I] am like to have no more to do with him’. Drake claimed to have ‘spent some hundreds of pounds in his service which have brought him both credit and money in his pocket, and [I] have never myself been a saver in anything have had to do with him’. In the event, Cowper did not contest the election and the dispute between Drake and Stamford was patched up; King and Lawrence Carter‡ junior were returned for the seat.
After attending the board of trade on 1 June 1710, Stamford left London for the summer. On a list compiled on 3 Oct. Harley considered Stamford as certain to oppose the new ministry, but this was qualified by a query. The next day a commission was sealed for a new board of trade with Stamford remaining as first commissioner. His decision to remain in office, while most other Whigs resigned, may well have been dictated by his poor financial situation, which must have been made worse by the recent chancery decision and the failure of his appeal to the Lords. Stamford was back in London to attend the board of trade on 24 Oct., barely missing a meeting until his departure from office in June 1711.
Stamford was present when the 1710 Parliament met on 25 November. He attended on 106 days of the session, 94 per cent of the total, and was named to 31 committees. From 18 Dec. he held the proxy of George Booth, 2nd earl of Warrington. Warrington returned to the House to vacate this proxy on 15 Feb. 1711, but then registered it with his cousin again on 30 March. Stamford’s uncomfortable position as a Whiggish member of the ministry was exposed by the Tory-led attack on the failures of Spanish war under the previous ministry. On 11 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to Abingdon against rejecting the petition of Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], one of the allied commanders in Spain. He then subscribed to a protest against the rejection of the petitions of Tyrawley and Henri de Massue de Ruvigny, earl of Galway [I], as he did to a resolution that Galway, Tyralwley, and James Stanhope†, the future Earl Stanhope, were responsible for the defeat at Almanza and subsequent allied losses. On the following day he subscribed to a further protest that an offensive war had been approved and directed by ministers, who were therefore to blame for the failed attack on Toulon as well as the misfortunes of the allies in Spain. A month later the controversy over the campaign was still continuing, and on 3 Feb. he signed two protests against resolutions explicitly condemning the Whig ministers for the ‘neglect of their service’ in not sufficiently supplying Spain with troops. On 8 Feb. he signed two further protests, one against the wording proposed for the address on the war in Spain (which again blamed the allied commanders for the defeat at Almanza) and another against the resolution to present the resulting address to the queen. On the 9th he signed three protests against a resolution which expunged some of the previous protests of 3 February.
Stamford continued his usual duties as chairman of the committee of the whole House. He chaired the committee during discussions on bills to preserve American pines (16 Apr. 1711; he also reported from a conference on the bill on 10 May); to lay a duty on hops and to expedite the draining of Lindsey Level (both reported 14 May); to preserve fishing in the river Thames (2 June), and to raise two million pounds (7 June). He continued to chair select committees, including Clarges’s estate bill (reported 9 Mar.); Viscount Montagu’s bill (1 May); Weston’s bill (7 May); and Brideoak’s bill (9 May). Notably, in one committee on 17 Mar. Nicolson recorded him as being ‘sharp on the Low Church’s roasting a priest the last winter; and High-Church’s Carbanadoeing a Bishop in this Session’.
Stamford’s loyalty to the Whigs on party matters made him a marked man. He was replaced as custos rotulorum of Devonshire in January 1711, when John Poulett, Earl Poulett, took over the lieutenancy, and was omitted when a new board of trade was commissioned on 12 June. The loss of office must have made his financial position even worse and he retired to the country. He did not attend the 1711-12 session, although with the crucial issue of the peace coming to a head, he registered his proxy with Somers on 30 Nov. 1711. On 2 Dec. Oxford listed Stamford as one of those peers to be canvassed before the expected division on the peace at the opening of the session. Oxford hoped that Stamford’s financial plight would make him amenable to following the ministry’s lead, but in response to Oxford’s approach, Stamford noted that although the lord treasurer had made him ‘many promises which were very surprising and unexpected’, he insisted that ‘I only hoped to have my arrears of salary paid, which truly after your Lordship got me turned out, I expected’.
Stamford was absent from the House when the 1714 session convened on 16 February. He sat for the first time in the session on 28 Apr. and attended just 23 days in all, 30 per cent of the total, and was named to seven committees. At the end of May and beginning of June Nottingham predicted that Stamford would oppose the schism bill. He acted as a teller on 7 June in opposition to Scarsdale in a privilege case. He last attended the House on 10 June, registering his proxy with Henry Clinton, 7th earl of Lincoln, on the following day. Stamford was probably absent from London when the queen died on 1 Aug., for he was not present for the short session convened on the queen’s death until the 12th. He was present for nine days of the session, 60 per cent of the total. He chaired the committee of the whole House on 18 Aug. when it considered the act for the better support of the king’s household. He stayed in London, receiving a visit from William Wake, bishop of Lincoln, and Sir Peter King†, the future Baron King, on 31 Aug. and was present at the prorogation on 23 September. When the king attended chapel at St James’s on 26 Sept., Stamford carried the sword of state.
Stamford died on 31 Jan. 1720. His will revealed that he had owed £2,500 to Carter. The first call on Stamford’s limited real and personal estate was to pay this and other debts, while the remainder was to go to his widow.
Stamford had a long and busy parliamentary career, demonstrating in political ideology and vigour that he was his father’s worthy successor. From the time of the Convention, Stamford became one of the leading members of the House, a parliamentary workhorse, who until 1711 maintained a consistently high level of attendance and activity—and this despite the fact that ‘by reason of a defect in his speech [he] wants elocution’. Some people saw him as lacking in judgment. Ailesbury referred to him as ‘that poor-headed earl’, whose ‘reasonable paternal estate, but entailed’ had seen him ‘cut down all the vast fine woods, ruined the mansion house, and took money by advance on his estate and spent it, and was after little better for it during his life; his maternal estate, upwards of £3,000 per annum, he ate up absolutely and all sold’. Some of estate may have been spent on scholarly pursuits, for as well as his record as a regular scrutineer of the journals and work on the committee examining into the keeping of Parliament’s records, he possessed a collection of manuscripts of sufficient interest for Peter le Neve in April 1698 to arrange for Thomas Tanner to have ‘the liberty of his house to make’ a catalogue of them.