DURAS, Louis Durfort de (c. 1640-1709)

Early Life

Durfort de Duras was above all a servant and soldier in the service of James II, although his military competence, both at Sedgemoor in 1685 and at the time of William of Orange’s invasion in 1688, has been calumnied both by his own contemporaries and by later writers. Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, described him as ‘an honest, brave, and good natured man, but weak to a degree not easily to be conceived’. Burnet, History, iii. 50. After the Revolution, Whigs such as Burnet were never going to forgive Feversham his French military background nor his constant loyalty to James II, especially when it could be positively contrasted with the notable disloyalty shown by Feversham’s subordinate, John Churchill, Baron, later earl and duke of Marlborough. Considering the changed climate in England after 1689, and the enmity he had earned from William III and the Whigs, it was remarkable that Feversham brazened it out as long as he did and continued to reside in an unfriendly country and regularly participate in Parliament until his death.

Feversham came from a long-established noble Huguenot family, based in the Agenais region of Guyenne. His paternal grandmother was a daughter of the comte de Montgomery, while his own mother was a daughter of Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, duc de Bouillon, and Elisabeth de Nassau, herself a daughter of William the Silent. This important maternal connection tied him to some of the most famous military families in the protestant cause in Europe and, more immediately, made him the nephew of Henri, vicomte de Turenne, the great general of the French armies whom York admired so much while serving under him in the 1650s. All of Louis’s brothers who survived to adulthood became soldiers. The two elder, Jacques-Henri and Guy-Aldonce, became marshals of the French army, in 1675 and 1676 respectively, and dukes of the realm, Jacques-Henri as duc de Duras in 1689 and Guy-Aldonce as duc de Lorge in 1692. These family connections with two of Louis XIV’s generals did not help Feversham’s reputation in England, and to compound matters they only attained these high positions by converting to Catholicism, as did Feversham’s sister Marie, a lady-in-waiting to Charles II’s sister ‘Minette’, and as did Turenne himself. J. Favre, Précis historique sur la famille du Durfort de Duras (1858); P. Rambaut, ‘Louis Durfort-Duras, earl of Feversham (1640-1709): a study of misplaced loyalty’, Procs. Huguenot Soc. of London, xxv. 244-9. It is not surprising that with these siblings Feversham’s loyalty both to his adopted country and to the protestant religion was always suspect: ‘both his brothers changing religion, though he continued still a Protestant, made that his religion was not much trusted to’, as Burnet commented. Burnet, 49-50.

It is most likely that the young marquis de Blanquefort first met his future patron, York, when they were both serving their military apprenticeships under Turenne. As a younger son he realized the limitations of a career in France and decided to throw in his lot with the restored English monarchy, with which his family had had strong links since the English medieval occupation of Guyenne. Macky stated that he ‘came over with one of the duke of York’s family’, while Clarke, in his biography of James II, claimed that Feversham ‘chiefly owed the kindness the king had for him to that great General’s [Turenne’s] recommendation’. Macky, Mems. 98; Life of James II, ii. 42. He was commissioned a lieutenant in York’s Life Guards in 1662 (if the comte de Grammont is to be believed), accompanied the prince on board his flagship the ‘Royal Charles’ at the battle of Lowestoft in June 1665, and was promoted to captain in the duke’s troop of Guards shortly thereafter. Grammont Mems. ii. 39; Dalton, Army Lists, i. 54. After the act naturalizing him had received the royal assent on 31 Oct. 1665, Blanquefort quickly received more lucrative signs of royal favour in the form of grants of custom duties and a monopoly on lotteries in England and Ireland. W.A. Shaw, Denizations and Naturalizations 1603-1700 (Huguenot Soc. xviii), 96; CSP Dom. 1664-5, p. 438; 1665-6, p. 72; CSP Dom.1666-7, pp. 531-2. He was made keeper of York’s privy purse in 1667 and in June of that year was promoted to colonel of the duke’s Life Guards. York, as warden of the Cinque Ports, even tried (unsuccessfully) to have him chosen for New Romney at a by-election in May 1668 after Henry Brouncker^‡, the duke’s groom of the bedchamber, had been expelled from the Commons. Between 1668 and 1672 Blanquefort accompanied both York and James Scott, duke of Monmouth, on military inspections and duties and personally attended the duke on board his flagship at Southwold Bay in June 1672. HP Commons, 1660-90, i. 498; CSP Dom. 1671, pp. 220, 391; CSP Dom.1672, p. 164.

Parliament and royal service under Charles II

It was not until 29 Jan. 1673 that Blanquefort was able to enter the English Parliament, when he was created Baron Duras of Holdenby, a royal estate in Northamptonshire which York had ‘bestowed’ on him, ‘in whose service he had been the last 10 years, having been a near attendant on him during the present and former wars’. CSP Dom. 1672-3, p. 400. He first took his seat in the House on the opening day of the new session on 4 Feb. 1673, being introduced by Thomas Belasyse, 2nd Viscount Fauconberg, and John Berkeley, Baron Berkeley of Stratton. He attended only the first three meetings of the session, being named to three committees. On 7 Feb. he was given leave of absence, as he was going abroad on the king’s service, duly registering his proxy on that day with Henry Bennet, earl of Arlington. In late January, together with Monmouth, he had been chosen to command the English forces to be sent to the continent to campaign with Louis XIV’s army against the Dutch. He was excused at a call of the House on 13 February. In mid-May it was reported to Sir Joseph Williamson^‡ that Duras’s troop had arrived at Courtrai and were ‘much esteemed’ by Louis XIV, and ‘joined with the Garde du Corps in a brigade, and do equal duty with them’. CSP Dom. 1673, p. 265.

Duras was absent from the short session of October-November 1673, arriving back in London on 12 November. Williamson Letters (Cam. Soc. new ser. ix), 72. He attended on the opening day of the 1674 session on 7 January. He was present on 33 days of the session, 87 per cent of the total and was named to two committees. In the summer of 1674 Duras returned to the continent to observe the French military campaign, where he saw action. SP 29/361/247; CSP Dom. 1673-5, p. 368; Verney ms mic. 636/28, Dr. W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 8 Oct. 1674. He was present when the session of April-June 1675 opened on 13 Apr., attending on 34 days of the session, 83 per cent of the whole, and was named to two committees. In this session Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby, later duke of Leeds, estimated that Duras would support his non-resisting Test bill. Duras was present on 13 Oct., the opening day of the session of October-November 1675. On the second Sunday of the session, 24 Oct., he dined with Arlington, the Dutch ambassador and John Evelyn, who described him as a ‘valiant gent’. Evelyn Diary, iv. 77. He attended on 17 days, 80 per cent of the total, and was named to five committees. As a diligent loyalist, he was an obvious choice to hold proxies. Just prior to the commencement of the session both William Crofts, Baron Crofts (8 Oct.), and Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland (12 Oct.), registered their proxies with Duras. Sunderland’s proxy was vacated on 25 Oct. but Duras had his full complement of proxies again a few weeks later when Henry Jermyn, earl of St Albans, registered his proxy in his favour on 15 November.

In February 1676 Duras entered into negotiations for a marriage to the eldest daughter and co-heir of Sir George Sondes, a wealthy Kentish merchant who had loaned large amounts to the government in the 1660s. Browning, Danby, ii. 36; Eg. 3338, ff. 69-70. As one observer noted, ‘the lady is not handsome and therefore I suppose the easier got, for he has but £700 a year in land and £2,000 in offices’. HMC Hastings, ii. 169. Sir Ralph Verney^‡ noted the somewhat fortuitous nature of the marriage, ‘Mr. [Edward] Lewis that is dead was to have had her’. Verney ms mic. 636/29, Sir R. to E. Verney, 10 Feb. 1675[-6]. To shore up his position with Sondes, Duras petitioned the king in February 1676 ‘being now about concluding a marriage’ for a grant of £3,000 per annum from the crown to be paid out of the Irish revenue and disbursed over the following seven years. The king actually bettered this by granting £4,000 for the first three years and then £3,000 for the next three. CSP Dom. 1675-6, pp. 572, 577. The marriage articles, which promised Duras a settlement of £3,000 p.a. on the settlement of a jointure on his wife, were signed on 28 Mar. 1676. Lord Nottingham’s Chancery Cases, 637-8; Stowe 211, f. 160. As part of the bargain Duras used his influence at court to have Sondes created a peer, largely in order to receive a title for himself, as the king had promised him an earldom. Charles probably considered it too inflammatory to confer such an honour outright on a Frenchman and preferred to do it indirectly through a special remainder. The letters patent of 8 Apr. created Sondes Baron Throwley, Viscount Sondes and earl of Feversham, and allowed the title to pass after his death to his son-in-law, Duras. Mary Sondes died childless within a year of the marriage, followed shortly thereafter by her father on 16 Apr. 1677. CSP Dom. 1676-7, pp. 14, 16, 490; HMC Rutland, ii. 35. By these deaths Duras gained his coveted earldom, but his receipt of the promised £3,000 p.a. was placed in doubt. The first earl’s only surviving daughter Katherine was now sole heir to the Sondes estate and Feversham’s prospects were further dimmed when she, now a much sought-after heiress, married Lewis Watson, the future earl of Rockingham in July 1677. As the countess of Sunderland wrote on 24 May 1677, ‘Feversham is to have but £800 a year for his life’. Lady Chaworth wrote that following Mary’s death Duras would lose the £3,000 a year of Lord Faversham’s as the daughter did not outlive her father, ‘but the other daughter is now a vast fortune.’ Add. 75375, ff. 42-43; HMC Rutland, ii. 35.

Duras found Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, not guilty of murder at his trial on 30 June 1676. State Trials, vii. 157-8; HEHL, EL 8419. He was present on 15 Feb. 1677, the opening day of the session of 1677-8. He sat on all but three of the 54 days of the session before the adjournment in May (94 per cent of the total), and was named to 11 committees. Crofts had again registered his proxy with Duras before the session began (10 Feb.), it being vacated on Crofts’s death in September. During the short adjournment of April-May, Sunderland ‘from the king’, and Duras ‘from the duke’, went to Calais to compliment Louis XIV ‘upon his coming into those parts’. HEHL, HM 30314 (37), newsletter 20 Apr. 1677. Upon his return Feversham sat in the House for the first time under his new title when the House resumed on 21 May, being introduced by St Albans and Charles Sackville, 6th earl of Dorset.

On 31 July 1677, Feversham and Monmouth went to join the French army. Together with Sunderland Feversham was warmly received by Louis XIV. On 25 Aug. it was reported that he had returned. Verney ms mic. 636/30, J. to E. Verney, 2 Aug. 1677, W. Fall to Sir R. Verney, 26 Aug. 1677; Bodl. Carte 79, ff. 112-13; CSP Dom. 1677-8, pp. 278, 328. In November Feversham was sent back to France as ambassador extraordinary to present to Louis XIV the proposals for a European peace agreed to by Charles II and William of Orange. After the French king had rejected them, Feversham reported back to the committee of foreign affairs on 2 Dec. 1677. Add. 28040, f. 41; 28093, f. 214. The announcement on 3 Dec. 1677 that Parliament would be recalled on 15 Jan. 1678, earlier than had previously been announced, was thus attributed to Feversham having brought back from France ‘not so pleasing an answer from that king as our king expected, upon which there is some little discourse of a war with France ... therefore the Parliament is called sooner to provide money against this war’. Verney ms mic. 636/31, J. Stewkeley to Sir R. Verney, 6 Dec. 1677. In February 1678 Feversham was appointed to command under Monmouth the English forces sent to Ostend to support the Dutch against France and on 5 May he was named lieutenant-general of all the forces, horse as well as foot, to be employed in the king’s service. CSP Dom. 1677-8, p. 682; 1678: p. 156.

The assessment of his fellow peers made by Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, while incarcerated in the Tower in 1677-8, noted Feversham as‘doubly vile’. Feversham was present when the session resumed on 28 Jan. 1678. He attended on 45 days of that part of the session covering January-May 1678 (three quarters of the total) and was named to six committees. He held the proxy of Charles Lucas, 2nd Baron Lucas, from 21 Feb. until Lucas’s return to the House on 4 March. On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. Feversham missed the opening day of the next session, 23 May, but attended on the following day. In all, he was present on 37 days of the session of May-July 1678 (86 per cent of the total), and was named to seven committees

Outside Parliament, on 11 May 1678 Feversham’s bill in chancery petitioning for the £3,000 a year promised in his marriage settlement had been dismissed after a three-day hearing before Heneage Finch, Baron Finch (later earl of Nottingham), the lord chief justice, Sir Francis North, the future Baron Guilford, and the chief baron William Montagu^‡, on the grounds that the execution of the contract on Sir George Sondes’s part was to have been conditional on Feversham’s settlement of a jointure on Mary, which had not been completed by the time of his wife’s death. Lord Nottingham’s Chancery Cases, 637-45. Feversham appealed to the House of Lords against this decision on 19 June, and the House eventually ordered a hearing for 6 July, which took place at the Bar with counsel attending on both sides, although the House adjourned consideration of their decision. As Sir Ralph Verney^‡ wrote of proceedings, ‘Feversham’s cause was heard by the Lords on 6 July, and ’tis to go on again this day [8 July], but what the success will be I cannot say, but I am sure the town says my Lord Rockingham hath the right of his side clearly, but the duke hath a great interest, and he is for Feversham.’ Verney ms mic. 636/31, Sir R. to E. Verney, 8 July 1678. The ‘long and serious’ debate of that day (the 8th) ranged well beyond the actual merits of Feversham’s individual case and became a theoretical discussion of whether the House in its judicial role was bound to follow the same rules of equity as chancery. There is some indication of a split along political lines, as the opponents of Feversham’s patron, York—Shaftesbury, Denzil Holles, Baron Holles, and George Savile, Viscount (later marquess of) Halifax—were ranged against him. Court supporters, such as Danby, Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper, John Frescheville, Baron Frescheville, George Berkeley, 9th Baron (later earl of) Berkeley, and John Pearson, bishop of Chester, were more inclined to favour Faversham. In the division on the question whether Feversham should have relief the contents had the majority and the chancery dismission was overturned, although a few peers entered their dissents, including Shaftesbury, Arthur Annesley, earl of Anglesey, Halifax and Gilbert Holles, 3rd earl of Clare. Lord Nottingham’s Chancery Cases, 646-9; HMC 9th Rep. pt. 2, p. 119. On 10 July the House deliberated upon the relief to be granted to Feversham, ordering, again with some dissents, that the lord chancellor should appoint commissioners to provide Feversham with an annual sum of £3,000 from the first earl of Feversham’s estate and to ensure that he received from Watson the dowry originally promised him at his marriage. According to Charles Hatton, this decision seemed to dissatisfy the Commons so much that there was talk that ‘whenever they meet they will take away the jurisdiction as to appeals’. Judging from a Watson marriage settlement, he was still receiving payments from the estate of £300 per annum in 1708. Add. 29557, f. 1; 29572, f. 10; Rockingham Castle, WR A/1/40, p. 5.

Bulstrode reported Feversham’s arrival in Brussels on 28 July 1678 (presumably NS). Eg. 3326, ff. 167-68. He seems then to have returned to England briefly as a subsequent letter noted that he ‘parted hence for Flanders, to command the king’s troops there’ on 28 August. HEHL, HM 30315 (156), newsletter, 30 Aug. 1678. On 9 Sept. Monmouth sent to Feversham to ensure that army officers serving in Parliament were sent back to England in time for the forthcoming parliamentary session. CSP Dom. 1678, p. 399. There were signs of disgruntlement with his command of the English army: in early September it was reported that a number of officers, such as Christopher Monck, 2nd duke of Albemarle, and William Craven, earl of Craven, were threatening to resign their commissions rather than serve under him. Bodl. Carte 103, f. 225. A letter transmitted from Flanders to Sir Joseph Williamson^‡ in November accused Feversham of having ‘a particular secret correspondence with the court of France… Twas the wonder and trouble how he was thought on to have any general command over the English’. CSP Dom. 1678, p. 547; SP 29/408/36 I. The suspicions only increased after the revelations of the Popish Plot when Feversham, with his high military rank, his French background and close connection to the Catholic York and French duchess of Portsmouth, was seen by many as being part of the plot to bring French-style arbitrary rule and popery to England. Eg. 3331, ff. 120-1; CSP Dom. 1679-80, p. 67.

Feversham attended on the opening day of the session of October-December 1678, being present on 57 days (almost 97 per cent of the total), and was named to six committees. He confirmed his loyalty to York by voting on 15 Nov. against incorporating the declaration against transubstantiation into the oaths of the test bill, and to the court by voting on 26 Dec. to insist on the Lords’ amendment to the disbandment bill that the money raised should be paid into the exchequer instead of the chamber of London. One of Danby’s supporters, acting as a spy among Shaftesbury’s associates, reported that the Speaker of the Commons, Edward Seymour^‡, and the Irish vice-treasurer Richard Jones^‡, earl of Ranelagh [I], had persuaded Feversham to convince York not to oppose the impeachment of the lord treasurer, for fear of ‘the great odium he would contract by espousing a man so universally hated’. ‘You must know’, the informant added, ‘that the Speaker, Feversham and Ranelagh often meet and play high together’. Add. 28049, ff. 34-35. Nevertheless, Feversham himself voted on 27 Dec. against committing Danby.

When a fire broke out in the Temple on 26 Jan. 1679, Feversham was on hand to help quell the flames. Together with Monmouth, he supervised the blowing up of houses, but unfortunately owing to a misunderstanding, ‘being so near a house that was blown up, a beam fell upon his head, and broke his skull, to which some say he can not live’. Chatsworth, Devonshire Coll. group 1/F, newsletter, 28 Jan. 1678/9; HMC Ormonde, n.s. iv. 311; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 7-8; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 102. Feversham survived after an operation, being ‘trepanned’, that is having his skull drilled into. Not that he gained much sympathy; as Edmund Verney put it, ‘it’s a pity Lord Feversham should be hurt to death by striving to do us good, but he is a Frenchman, and that takes of[f] all lamentation for him.’ Hatton Corresp. (Cam. Soc. new ser. xxii), 171-2; Verney ms mic. 636/32, E. to Sir R. Verney, 30 Jan. 1678/9.

Danby generally perceived Feversham as likely to support him over the question of his impeachment in the forthcoming meeting of the new Parliament. On one canvassing list, Danby’s son, Peregrine Osborne, Viscount Dunblane [S], the future 2nd duke of Leeds, was given the task of lobbying him, but it seems unlikely that he actually voted for Danby as he did not appear in the House until 21 Apr., probably delayed by his convalescence following his head injury. Browning, Danby, iii. 140-51. On 10 May Feversham voted in favour of the proposed committee of both Houses to determine the method of proceeding in the trial of the impeached Lords, and dissented from its rejection. On the day of the prorogation, 27 May, he probably supported the House’s assertion that the lords spiritual could attend capital trials until a sentence of death was pronounced. He had been present on 31 days of the session (51 per cent of the total).

Having recovered, in June 1679 he was slated to command the dragoons as troops were readied to crush the rebellion in Scotland. Verney ms mic. 636/32, J. to Sir R. Verney, 12 June 1679. Interestingly, there is evidence that he believed that if York changed his religion, he would ‘dash all his enemies’. Despite such views, he was perceived as close to York and according to Sir John Reresby^‡, Feversham was the chief among the small number of about four courtiers (‘so close could the king be when he conceived it necessary’) who knew that York was returning from exile in Brussels when Charles II was in danger of dying in late August 1679. Sidney Diary, i. 12; Reresby Mems, 187. Feversham attended the prorogation of 17 Oct. and was very much involved in measures taken to support the regime in public. On 21 Oct. Feversham and Thomas Butler, Baron Butler of Moore Park (earl of Ossory [I]), ‘walked before the Artillery men... from Bow Church where they heard a sermon’, before joining York for dinner with the company at Merchant Taylors’ Hall. York continued to promote Feversham’s claims to royal favour and in November it was believed that the duke had recommended him to the king as a privy councillor. Verney ms mic. 636/33, J. to Sir R. Verney, 23 Oct. 1679; 636/33, C. Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 20 Nov. 1679; Bodl. Carte 228, f. 157. At the end of 1679 he was made master of the horse to the queen-consort Catherine of Braganza, and in 1680 was promoted to be her lord chamberlain, a position which he kept until her death in 1705. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 30, 54.

Feversham attended the prorogations of 26 Jan. and 15 Apr. 1680. He was then present on the first day of the session, 21 Oct. 1680, attending on 54 days (93 per cent of the total) and was named to three committees. He voted for the rejection of the exclusion bill at its first reading on 15 Nov. and on 23 Nov. against appointing a joint committee with the Commons to consider the state of the nation. On 7 Dec. he voted for the acquittal of William Howard, Viscount Stafford. In response to his perceived influence, the Commons voted on 7 Jan. 1681 to address the king to remove Feversham from his public functions on the grounds that he was ‘a promoter of popery and of the French interest; and a dangerous enemy to the king and kingdom’. Reresby Mems, 209; Life of James II, i. 652. Any further action against him was prevented by the prorogation of the 10th.

Feversham was in Oxford before the start of the session on 21 Mar. 1681, where he was waited on by Edward Osborne^‡, Viscount Latimer, on behalf of his father, Danby. HMC 14th Rep. IX, 423. Danby considered Feversham a supporter of his application for bail from the Tower, and he was one of the signatories to Danby’s petition. Eg. 3358 F. He attended on six of the seven days, and was named to three committees. In May Feversham was a signatory to a petition to the king asking for a pardon for Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke, following the death of a yeoman during an affray. SP 29/415/192.

In June 1681 Henry Sydney, the future earl of Romney, told the Prince of Orange that Feversham had ‘more of the king’s personal kindness than anybody’. Sidney Diary, ii. 219. In August 1681 he demonstrated his support for the regime by attending the feast of the London apprentices at Sadlers Hall. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 114. Conversely, informers singled him out in September as one of the lords who should ‘lose his head’ and as a ‘French fop’ who was to be accused (falsely) of attending mass; there were also reports in December that Feversham would be impeached as one of York’s favourites when Parliament met again. Allegations that he was a Catholic continued to be made. CSP Dom. 1680-1, pp. 450, 461, 559, 615; HMC Ormonde, n.s. vi. 263. One of the many schemes discussed in the assassination plots of 1682-3 involved framing Feversham by placing the pistol used to kill the royal brothers in his pocket, as it was assumed he would be near them at the time. CSP Dom. July-Sept. 1683, p. 269.

On 10 Aug. 1682 Feversham left London on a mission from the king to congratulate Louis XIV on the birth of his grandson, the duke of Burgundy, returning about a month later. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 212, 218; CSP Dom. 1682, p. 412. In November he was made an extra gentleman of the bedchamber and was later promoted to a full gentleman shortly after James II’s accession. When in February 1685, York smuggled in a Catholic priest to the royal bedchamber to give his dying brother the last rites and to hear his confession, he vacated the room of all its occupants, except for Feversham and the groom of the stole, John Granville, earl of Bath, who were the only two Protestant courtiers present at the king’s death and witnesses to his deathbed conversion. Following Charles II’s death he was continued in post as chamberlain to the queen dowager. CSP Dom. 1685, p. 431; HMC Stuart, i. 4; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 509-10, 512.

James II and the Revolution

Feversham was present on the opening day of James II’s Parliament, 19 May 1685. On 25 May he acted as a teller twice in opposition to Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper, in the case of Harvey v. Harvey. He remained active for the first few weeks, attending on 20 days of the first part of the session until the adjournment on 2 July (65 per cent of the total), and was named to 10 committees. He last attended on 18 June, having been appointed commander of the armed forces gathered to repel Monmouth’s invasion. CSP Dom. 1685, p. 211. Although the rebellion was crushed, Feversham came in for some criticism. He was accused of not taking sufficient preparations at the army’s camp on the night of 5 July, thus allowing Monmouth to make his surprise attack. He was also blamed for having been ‘abed without care or order’ and having to be roused from sleep when the battle began in the small hours of the morning. Burnet, iii. 49-50. In his absence it fell to Churchill to defend the camp and rally the troops. The contrast between the two commanders of different nationalities has since become part of Marlborough’s hagiography. W. Churchill, Marlborough, i. 223. Feversham’s reputation has been further blackened by the latitude he gave subordinates such as Percy Kirke^‡ to engage in a policy of terror among the civilians in the areas that had been sympathetic to Monmouth. Feversham himself gave orders on the day after the battle for gibbets to be set up in several towns for the exemplary punishment of the most ‘notorious’ rebels. Add. 32000, f. 91. Immediately after the battle, George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, wrote a short farce on the subject, ‘The Battle of Sedgemoor’, in which the humour relies entirely on the exaggerated French accent and broken English of the Feversham character, and his vain boastings of his incompetent conduct. G. Villiers, duke of Buckingham, Works (1775), ii. 117-24. Burnet judged, ‘the king could not choose worse than he did, when he gave the command to the earl of Feversham … And he conducted matters so ill, that every step he made was like to prove fatal to the king’s service’. Burnet, iii. 49-50. The king saw matters otherwise, and for his action against Monmouth, Feversham was at the end of July made a knight of the garter and promoted to colonel of the first troop of the king’s Life Guards, replacing Albemarle, who felt so insulted that he resigned all his military commissions in disgust. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 355-57; CSP Dom. 1685, p. 291; Reresby Mems, 390; Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 22, f. 211. Feversham attended the adjournment on 4 Aug. 1685 and in mid-September he accompanied the king to Winchester. He attended on each of the 11 days when the session resumed in November. On 14 Jan. 1686 he attended the trial of Henry Booth, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), and found him not guilty. Evelyn Diary, iv. 468; State Trials, xi. 515, 593.

In April Halifax was asked by the queen dowager, through Henry Thynne, to facilitate a match between Feversham and Lady Margaret Cavendish, the daughter of Henry Cavendish, 2nd duke of Newcastle. He quickly realized, though, that Newcastle’s insistence on ‘a considerable estate in land’, would prove to be a stumbling block, Feversham, though he was ‘in more plentiful circumstances than almost any man in England in other respects, cannot in that come up to what is expected’. Add. 75376, ff. 13-15; Halifax Letters, i. 463. According to William Hamilton, 3rd duke of Hamilton [S], Philip Stanhope, 2nd earl of Chesterfield, had been roped in to propose the match as well. NAS, GD 406/1/7179. By June, Sir John Reresby had entered the lists on Feversham’s behalf, but found major obstacles to the match in Feversham’s small landed income (although from offices and land combined Reresby calculated he had £8,000 p.a.), and in the deteriorating relations between the duke and duchess of Newcastle. Negotiations broke down in November 1686, when Feversham ‘now thought himself in his single condition more happy then married into that family’, and at the start of December Feversham declared himself ‘satisfied with his condition and would not I find marry for a million.’ Add. 75360, Reresby to Halifax, 9 Aug., 6 Sept., 4 Dec. 1686. The match was revived in June 1687, by which time Feversham had the king’s backing with an offer of £15,000 to satisfy Newcastle’s concerns. The duchess agreed to this, but despite the advice of Reresby not to snub Feversham, ‘one of the first men of England for quality, alliance, preferments, virtue, etc.’, Newcastle absolutely refused to countenance the marriage. Reresby Mems, 425-27, 429-30, 437-39, 457-63, 465, 471-76; Add. 75360, Reresby to Halifax, 9 Aug., 6 Sept. 1686, 26, 29 June 31 Aug. 12 Sept., 8 Oct. 1687; Hatton Corresp. ii. (Cam. Soc. new ser. xxiii), 69; HMC Rutland, ii. 110, 115.

Feversham spent much of the remainder of the reign with the army at its camp on Hounslow Heath, where he indulged his taste for fine food and wine. He did, however, also combat the daily celebration of mass there by ensuring that Henry Compton, bishop of London, supplied ‘good preachers’ to the camp. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 131, 150, 162, 201, 213Add. 72516, ff. 33-34. He was still an integral member of the court, and in August 1687, Thomas Cartwright, bishop of Chester, recorded attending the ‘king’s levee at six in the morning’, before bringing Feversham, Churchill, and Tyrconnell ‘to drink coffee in the study’. Cartwright Diary, pp. 74-75.

In January 1687 Roger Morrice reported that Feversham was one of the peers who would not ‘declare’. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iii. 338. A newsletter at the beginning of July 1688 also stated that it was generally said that Feversham was one of those who would ‘not declare’ themselves of the Roman faith. Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs, 43, ff. 142-3. His name appeared on four lists of 1687-8 relating to the king’s religious policies: in one, he was grouped with those lords seen as likely to support the repeal of the Test Act; in another, about May 1687 he was classed as doubtful; in about November 1687 he was classed as being in favour of repeal; and in about January 1688 he was listed as in favour of repeal.

When a Dutch invasion became certain, Feversham was designated commander of the royal army to repel the invaders and on 18 Oct. 1688 James further appointed him as lord lieutenant of the vulnerable coastal county of Kent. A few days later he enlisted him to testify formally to the legitimacy of the Prince of Wales. CSP Dom. 1687-9, pp. 322, 327; Add. 34510, f. 159; 32095, ff. 281-2. On 20 Oct. Feversham sent to speak with Sir John Knatchbull^‡, 2nd bt. about the lieutenancy, saying that ‘he was very sensible of his incapacity by reason of his being a stranger and not residing in the county and also not being known to them’. He insisted ‘he would immediately capacitate himself according to law, that he had orders to admit no papist, and that if the gentlemen would accept of him they should govern him in every thing’. Add. 52924, f. 8. In late November Feversham urged James to join the army at Salisbury to keep it loyal; but early in December Feversham warned the king at the camp at Salisbury of the potential disloyalty of the troops, and it may have been this information that convinced James to return to London and make plans to flee the country. On 4 Dec. Roger Morrice reported that Feversham came to court. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 476; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 339, 351, 365, 369.

On 11 Dec. Feversham, now at Uxbridge, received a letter from James informing him of his flight and advising him that, as the troops’ loyalty could not be counted on, ‘I do not expect you should expose yourselves by resisting a foreign army and a poisonous nation’. Add. 75366, James II to Feversham, 10 Dec. 1688; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 377. Feversham took this letter as an instruction to avoid battle with William’s troops and formally disbanded the army, without paying them or taking away their arms. This action, releasing thousands of unpaid and well-armed soldiers on the unsuspecting country, was almost universally condemned. HMC Dartmouth, i. 229; iii. 135; J. Childs, The Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution, 195. William of Orange himself suspected that the disbandment had been done deliberately to destabilize the country and to prevent him from taking over the English army intact. ‘I am not to be thus dealt with’, he exclaimed angrily upon learning of this development. Clarendon Corresp. ii. 224-25.

Feversham attended the meeting of peers at the Guildhall on the morning of 12 Dec.; he was absent in the afternoon being at Somerset House to defend the queen dowager from any threat from the mob. He again attended at the Guildhall on 13 Dec. (morning and afternoon). That afternoon, the peers debated their response to the detention of the king at Faversham. Feversham argued that some of the peers should be sent to meet the king with the King’s Guards, although the king ‘should be allowed to do as he pleases’. He added later that although he wished to see the return of the king, and ‘would do as much towards it, but nothing would induce him to it, but a request of the Lords’. The peers duly sent Feversham to the king, including at his request the order that he was ‘to receive his commands and protect his person from insolence’. Before he went, Feversham was able to show the peers a letter from James indicating that he was still under restraint. This letter was more fully discussed by the peers, with Feversham still present on 14 December. R. Beddard, Kingdom without a King, 74, 81, 85, 92-95, 97-99.

When Feversham arrived in Kent, he assured James that ‘he would die in his quarrel’, or conduct take him either to the sea, or to London. James opted to return to London, arriving on 16 December, sending Feversham to William with a letter inviting the prince to join him at St James’s for discussions on the distracted state of the nation. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 396; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 488. William, already furious with Feversham for the disbandment of the army, was even more angered by the news of the king’s imminent return to the capital, and promptly arrested Feversham upon his arrival at the camp on 15 Dec. on the trumped-up charge of travelling without a passport. There were even rumours that Feversham was to be charged with the murder of Arthur Capel, earl of Essex, or with the orders for summary executions he had given Colonel Percy Kirke in the aftermath of Sedgemoor. Clarendon Corresp. ii. 226-27; HMC Dartmouth, i. 235. James was enraged at the unlawful arrest of his emissary, but it persuaded him to embark on his second, and permanent, flight. Feversham remained imprisoned until the end of December, and was only set free after the queen dowager complained to William of his absence as her chamberlain. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 493; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 459-60. Feversham continued in this role after the Revolution, and ensured that the secretary of state Charles Talbot, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, was unable to acquire the queen dowager’s residence at Somerset House. Periodically searches were made for suspected Jacobites and their arms thought to be concealed there. Thus on 28 Oct. 1689 Shrewsbury gave Feversham prior warning of a search of the quarters of a man lodging in Somerset House Yard, as he did again in January 1690, and in May 1696. CSP Dom. 1689-90, pp. 306, 424; 1696, p. 181.

Following Feversham’s enlargement, it was reported on 3 Jan. 1689 that the prince had released him without bail and indeed that he had been at St James’s the previous day, where there was ‘a mighty confluence of nobility and gentry’. Beinecke Lib. OSB mss fb 210, ff. 321-22. Feversham was present at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan., attended on 122 days of the session (three quarters of the total), and was named to 18 committees. He consistently opposed William’s claim to the throne, voting in favour of a regency on 29 Jan. and against the motion to declare William and Mary king and queen two days later. On 4 and 6 Feb. he opposed the resolution that James had ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was ‘vacant’, formally protesting when that wording was adhered to on the 6th. One of the men accused of murdering Essex in the Tower attempted to solicit Feversham’s aid by informing him on 26 Feb. of a design to accuse him of a role in the death, but this was the only time the old rumours surfaced. HMC Lords, ii. 28. On 5 Apr. he acted as a teller in opposition to John Egerton, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, at the report stage of the bill for uniting Protestants. On the 8th, 16th and 17th he was named to manage conferences on the bill for removing papists from London. On 31 May he opposed the reversal of the judgments against Titus Oates and on 12 July acted as teller in opposition to Cornwallis on whether to accept the amendment disabling Oates from giving evidence in future trials; on 30 July he voted in favour of adhering to the Lords’ amendments on the bill. On 2 July he dissented from the decision to proceed with the impeachment of the printers of James’s declaration to his supporters. He also acted as a teller in opposition to Bath on 16 July on the proposed reversal of the judgment against the Whig Thomas Pilkington^‡, who had been elected sheriff of London in 1681 in controversial circumstances, and on 23 July in the case of Ashfield v. Ashfield.

Reign of William III

Feversham was in an invidious position post-1688. Though known for his loyalty to King James, he had thrown in his lot with the English polity early in the Restoration and had family obligations and property in England. A return to the France of Louis XIV was not an attractive proposition, and he could hide behind his obligations to Charles II’s queen to remain in England.

Feversham was present when the second session of the Convention began on 23 Oct. 1689, sitting on 62 days, 85 per cent of the total, and was named to nine committees. in a list compiled by the marquess of Carmarthen (as Danby had become) between October 1689 and February 1690, he was classed as among the supporters of the court, though to be spoken to. On 15 Jan. 1690 he acted as a teller in opposition to George Berkeley, earl of Berkeley, on the motion to reject Colepeper’s bill. Feversham’s one clear attempt at electoral patronage occurred at the election of 1690 when at the request of Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, he unsuccessfully recommended Christopher Yelverton, younger brother of Henry Yelverton, 15th Baron Grey of Ruthin (later Viscount Longueville), for Higham Ferrers in Northamptonshire, part of the queen dowager’s jointure lands. In future elections the task of nominating candidates fell to Queen Catherine’s steward, Robert Shirley, Baron (later Earl) Ferrers. Add. 29594, f. 198; HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 438.

Feversham was present on 20 Mar., the opening day of the session of March-May 1690. He attended on 53 days (all but one) of the total and was named to 13 committees. He acted as a teller twice on 4 Apr. in opposition to Thomas Grey, 2nd earl of Stamford, on procedural matters in the committee of the whole on the recognition bill. He then acted as a teller in opposition to Stamford at the report stage in the House on 5 April. HMC Lords, iii. 3. He dissented from the passage of this bill on 8 April. On 3 May he acted as a teller on three occasions on the abjuration bill, in opposition to Stamford (twice) and then John Lovelace, 3rd Baron Lovelace, and once more on the 5th in opposition to Warrington (as Delamer had become). On 13 May he told twice more in opposition to Warrington in divisions on whether to allow the City of London more time to prepare its case for quashing the quo warranto proceedings against its charter.

Feversham’s role as the queen dowager’s lord chamberlain again evoked controversy in June, when the chaplain of the Protestant chapel in Somerset House left off praying for King William’s success in Ireland. This was attributed to the queen dowager, who had the power to shut the chapel, but Feversham took responsibility for the order, before reinstating the prayers. Queen Mary was less than impressed by his actions and it led to a very uncomfortable interview for Feversham with her, although she did admit, privately, ‘I pity the poor man for being obliged thus to take the queen dowager’s faults upon him’. Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 61-62; HMC Finch, ii. 305-6; iii. 380-81; Dalrymple, Mems. iii. 70-72.

After attending the prorogations of 28 July, 18 Aug., 8 and 12 Sept. 1690, Feversham was present on the opening day of the 1690-1 session on 2 October. He attended on 59 days in total, almost 86 per cent of the total, being named to 17 committees. Carmarthen predicted that Feversham would oppose the release of the Catholics Henry Mordaunt, 2nd earl of Peterborough, and James Cecil, 4th earl of Salisbury, from the Tower, when the matter came before the House on 6 Oct., although he would ‘comply’ if the king spoke ‘one word’ to him. Browning, Danby, iii. 180. On 30 Oct. he acted as a teller in opposition to Thomas Thynne, Viscount Weymouth, on the motion to pass the admiralty commission bill. On 5 Jan. 1691 he acted as a teller in opposition to Bridgwater on the passage of the bill prohibiting trade with France. His duties as a servant of Queen Catherine also occupied his time. Thus, on 28 Jan., when the queen dowager went to Euston, she was accompanied by Feversham even though he had had a fit of the gout a couple of days beforehand. HMC Finch, iii. 4. Then, on 4 Apr. it was reported that Feversham would shortly be in London for 12 to 15 days, before returning to Euston after Easter [12 April]. Add. 75364, E. Diaz to Halifax, 4 Apr. 1691. He attended the prorogation on 3 August.

Feversham attended on 22 Oct., the opening day of the 1691-2 session. He was present on 78 days, 80 per cent of the total, and was named to seven committees. On 25 Nov. 1691 he was appointed a teller, only for both tellers to be found on the same side of the question (the other being Viscount Longueville). Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, was then appointed to tell in Longueville’s stead and in future the House decided that the contents in any question should go out below the bar. On 9 Dec., the informer William Fuller had named Feversham as one of those in favour of French intervention to restore King James. On 12 Jan. 1692 Feversham protested against the resolution to receive the divorce bill of Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk and on 16 Feb. he acted as a teller in two divisions on Norfolk’s divorce bill. On 22 Feb. he acted as a teller twice in opposition to Charles Bodvile Robartes, 2nd earl of Radnor, on the bill concerning the commissions and salaries of judges. The following day Fuller again implicated Feversham in the Commons, this time as one of the signatories of a petition asking Louis XIV for his assistance in restoring James II. Ailesbury thought that he was involved in plotting, revealing that Feversham often ate with other of the exiled king’s adherents, such as himself, George Legge, Baron Dartmouth, and Weymouth: Ailesbury wrote that ‘I always took my leave of them towards the dusk of the evening, telling them smilingly that I would not hinder their rendezvous; and they would have me to believe they knew not what I meant by that expression’. Luttrell Diary, 67, 202; Bodl. Carte 130, ff. 337-38; Ailesbury Mems. 276.

When Queen Catherine left to return to Portugal in April 1692, the government put pressure on Feversham to leave the country as well. While others were arrested, Feversham was sent for in May and told that by reason of the great obligations that he owed to King James, ‘the government could not be satisfied with his conduct, unless he would retire to Holland till the storm was over’. He refused. He claimed that he had much business in England, both his own and the queen’s and stood on his privilege as a peer. Hatton Corresp. ii. 177. He remained in England until his death, acting as a trustee of the queen dowager’s interests and property in England. Not that he was free from the attention of informers; in March 1693 Dr. Richard Kingston implicated Feversham as one of the key officers ‘chiefly depended upon by the Jacobites’. HMC Finch, v. 61, 70.

Feversham attended the prorogation on 22 Aug. 1692 and attended on the opening day of the 1692-3 session, 4 November. He was present on 84 days of the session, 82 per cent of the total, and was named to nine committees. On 31 Dec. he voted in favour of the committal of the place bill, and on 3 Jan. 1693 he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles Berkeley, Baron (later 2nd earl of) Berkeley, on five occasions in the committee of the whole on the bill. He also told for the motion that it pass the House, being recorded as doing so on a division list. At the end of December 1692 Ailesbury correctly forecast that Feversham would again oppose the Norfolk divorce bill, and he duly opposed the 2 Jan. motion to give it a first reading. On 14 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles Montagu, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, on whether to proceed with the debate on the claim of Charles Knollys to the earldom of Banbury. On 21 Jan. he acted as a teller in opposition to Bridgwater on the Englefyld v. Englefyld case. On 4 Feb. he voted Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. On 13 Feb. he told twice in opposition to Vere Fane, 4th earl of Westmorland, on the question of remitting the fine on Ailesbury for failure to attend the House. On 20 Feb. he acted as a teller in opposition to John Ashburnham, Baron Ashburnham, on whether to proceed with the business appointed for that day. On 13 Mar. he told in opposition to Marlborough on whether to agree to an amendment at the report stage of the bill preventing the false and double return of Members. He attended the prorogations on 19 Sept. and 26 October.

Feversham was present on 7 Nov., the opening day of the 1693-4 session. He attended on 107 days, 84 per cent of the total and was named to nine committees. He acted as a teller in opposition to Bridgwater on 5 Jan. 1694 for the division on whether to agree with the Commons on the place bill. On 17 Feb. he supported Bath, by voting against reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the case Montagu v. Bath. On 23 Apr. he acted as a teller in opposition to Richard Lumley, earl of Scarbrough, in the committee of the whole on the tonnage bill.

Making provision for family members, especially his siblings and their children, who had emigrated to England to escape the anti-protestant measures of Louis XIV, was a further preoccupation for Feversham. On 18 Sept. 1694 he left London to escort his niece, Henriette, northwards for her marriage to the aged William Wentworth, 2nd earl of Strafford. Feversham had been heavily involved in the negotiations for this match. Bodl. Carte 79, f. 624; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 372; Add. 75361, Strafford to Halifax, 16 June, 10, 24 July, 3, 16, 20, 25 Aug. 1694. Two of his nephews, Frédéric-Guillaume de la Rochefoucauld, later styled earl of Lifford [I], and Armand de Bourbon, marquis de Miremont, were prominent military commanders in the wars with France. Indeed, in November 1704 Feversham apparently approached Godolphin with ‘two requests from his mother’: that she might have the ‘advantage of selling his place’, and that the queen might be spoken to so that ‘to’ther son might be her page’, only the second of which Feversham thought a realistic proposition. The identities of those involved are not clear. Rambaut, 255; Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 398-99.

Feversham attended the prorogation of 6 Nov. 1694, and was then present on the opening day of the 1694-5 session on 12 November. He attended on 107 days (89 per cent of the total) and was named to 17 committees. On 8 Jan. 1695 he acted as a teller on three occasions in opposition to Manchester in the committee of the whole on the treason trials bill on the question of the date upon which the legislation would come into force, and on 23 Jan. he entered his dissent from the resolution to postpone the implementation from 1695 to 1698. During this session, the Commons investigated the testimony of John Lunt, taken in June 1694, part of which implicated Feversham in the Jacobite intrigue known as the Lancashire Plot. CJ xi. 183, 222-3; HMC Kenyon, 299-300. He attended the prorogation on 8 Oct. 1695

Feversham was present when the 1695 Parliament opened on 22 Nov. 1695. He attended on 93 days of the 1695-6 session, 75 per cent of the total, and was named to 12 committees. On 8 Jan. 1696 he acted as a teller in opposition to Charles Mordaunt, earl of Monmouth, on whether to adjourn the House rather than proceed with the amendments to the bill regulating the coinage. On 17 Jan. he acted as teller in opposition to Henry Herbert, Baron Herbert of Chirbury, on whether to hear at the Bar the petition of Sir Richard Verney, the future 11th Baron Willoughy de Broke, for a writ of summons. On 24 Jan. he acted as a teller twice in opposition to Monmouth on the bill to prevent false and double returns of Members. He refused to sign the Association of February 1696, objecting that while he was ready to sign that William was ‘rightful by the law’ and that James had no right to the crown, he was not able to subscribe to the wording about the ‘pretended’ Prince of Wales, as he had been one of those to testify the validity of the child’s birth. He was reassured that ‘pretended’ here did not refer to the prince’s birth but to his claim to the throne. Feversham held out from signing nonetheless. Add. 17677 QQ, ff. 298-99; 36913, f. 266; HMC Portland, iii. 574; Browning, Danby, iii. 190. On 9 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Manchester on the bill for further regulating elections. He attended the prorogations on 28 July and 1 September.

Feversham was present when the 1696-7 session convened on 20 October. He attended on 87 days, 76 per cent of the total, and was named to 18 committees. The fate of Sir John Fenwick^‡ was always likely to interest Feversham, as earlier that summer he had been suspected of hiding Fenwick in Somerset House. On 15 Dec. Feversham acted as a teller in opposition to Scarbrough against allowing Goodman’s testimony to be read, and duly protested against the decision to do so. On 23 Dec. he voted against the passage of the Fenwick attainder bill, again entering his protest against it. On 26 Jan. 1697 he acted as a teller in opposition to Ford Grey, earl of Tankerville, on the motion to adjourn the House following the reading of the petition of Lady Mary Fenwick. On 23 Jan. he protested against the rejection of a bill to regulate parliamentary elections. On 19 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Tankerville on whether to adhere to the amendments made to the wrought silks bill. On 6 Apr. he received Weymouth’s proxy, but promised not to register it ‘till I see some business worthy of it, which I believe would not happen this session in our House.’ Longleat, Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 12, f. 115. Apparently no matters of sufficient importance arose before the prorogation on 16 Apr. as the proxy was never registered.

Feversham was present when the 1697-8 session opened on 3 December. He attended on 88 days (67 per cent of the total) and was named to 23 committees. On 15 Mar. 1698 he voted against committing the bill to punish Charles Duncombe^‡. He attended the prorogation on 29 Nov., and was present again when the 1698-9 session opened on 6 December. He attended on 60 days (74 per cent), and was named to 13 committees. On 11 Feb. 1699 he made a collection in the Lords, ‘for a poor French minister, who was condemned to be hanged with the late marquis Brausson [perhaps the Huguenot Claude Brousson, executed in 1698] and who had found means to get into England, and his Lordship garnered but 50 guineas’. Bodl. Carte 228, f. 284. On 26 and 29 Apr. he was named to conferences on the bill making Billingsgate Market a free market and on the Legg naturalization bill.

Feversham was present when the 1699-1700 session began on 16 November. He attended on 57 days, 72 per cent of the total, being named to seven committees. In February 1700 he was forecast as being in favour of continuing the East India Company as a corporation, and on 23 Feb. he voted in favour of adjourning into a committee of the whole to discuss amendments to the bill. On 8 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Peterborough (the former Monmouth) on whether to adjourn a debate on Norfolk’s divorce bill. He attended the prorogations on 23 May, 1 Aug. and 12 September. On the latter occasion he showed the ceremony to the son of the visiting duke de Duras. He also attended the interment of the duke of Gloucester on 9 Aug. 1700. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 686; Add. 61101, ff. 68-69.

Feversham missed the opening day of the 1701 Parliament. He first attended three days into the session on 11 February. He was present on 80 days of the session, over three quarters of the total, and was named to 25 committees. He acted as a teller in opposition to Ferrers on a motion on 18 Mar. to adjourn the debate on the partition treaties. On 16 Apr. he entered his protest against the decision to expunge the reasons given for the protest earlier that day which opposed an address in favour of the impeached Whig peers. On 17 June he protested against the decision to proceed with the trial of John Somers, Baron Somers. He voted against his acquittal and entered a protest to that effect. Feversham still attended the court, being named as a card player in April 1701 with such favourites of the king as Romney and Arnold Joost van Keppel, earl of Albemarle. HMC Rutland, ii. 166.

Feversham was present when the 1701-02 Parliament opened on 30 December, attended on 70 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 24 committees. On 20 Feb. 1702 he protested against passing the bill to attaint Mary of Modena of high treason, and on 24 Feb. against the passage of the bill ‘for the further security of’ the king’s person, through the imposition of an abjuration oath.

Feversham under Queen Anne

At the time of Anne’s accession, Feversham was, according to Macky, ‘a middle statured brown man, turned of fifty years old’. Swift later commented on this pen-portrait, ‘he was a very dull old fellow’. Macky, Mems. 98. He was present when the 1702 Parliament convened on 20 October. He attended on 69 days (80 per cent) of the first session, and was named to 23 committees. Feversham had a personal stake in the bill of January 1703 granting Prince George, duke of Cumberland, a settlement of £10,000. A clause was proposed in committee of the whole on 11 Jan. that provided that after Anne’s death George would be able to continue to enjoy preferments in England, regardless of the provisions of the 1701 Act of Settlement which appeared to prohibit foreigners from holding office in England after a Hanoverian succession. The debate centred on whether the terms of the act forbade foreign-born peers from sitting in the House and holding office after the succession. As all of the foreign peers in the House at that time were, with the exception of Prince George and Feversham, Dutch followers of the late William III, the Whigs were keen to insist that all sitting foreign peers could continue their employment after the queen’s death. They rejected the proposed clause which, in its specific dispensation of the prince consort, seemed to imply that all other foreign-born members of the House would be excluded. Initially, Feversham sided with the Whigs to save his own position. William Nicolson, bishop of Carlisle, recorded his response as: ‘Then… be gar I am kick out too [sic]; and therefore I will stick to the prince, and the prince shall stick to me’. The House then ordered a bill allowing those foreign-born peers made before 1701 to continue to sit but this failed in the Commons. When the House returned to the subject on 19 Jan. and a clause was proposed in favour of the prince, and it was suggested that the other six foreign-born peers should agree to it and so pave the way for their own relief, Feversham declared that he was now in favour of the clause, explaining ‘he should be sorry that His Royal Highness should suffer on their [the other foreign peers’] accounts’. Nicolson thought the resulting laughter from Feversham’s erstwhile allies ‘somewhat inconsistent… with the gravity of so wise and great an assembly’. Nicolson, London Diaries, 165, 178. The controversial clause eventually passed the House. Feversham was seen by Nottingham as likely to support the bill against occasional conformity. However, on 16 Jan., although in attendance that day, he ‘chose to be absent’ at the division on the penalties amendment to the bill.

Feversham attended the prorogations on 22 June and 4 November. He was present when the session of 1703-4 began on 9 Nov., attending on 54 days, 55 per cent of the total, and being named to 30 committees. When the occasional conformity bill came up again in the winter of 1703 Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, tentatively classified him as an opponent of the measure, and Feversham did vote against the bill on 14 December. His opposition can perhaps be accounted for by his own roots as a member of a persecuted religious minority, and his acquaintance with the large Huguenot exile community then in the capital, who would have been affected by this measure. His name was included in a list of members of both Houses drawn up by Nottingham in 1704 which may indicate support for him over the ‘Scotch Plot’.

Feversham was present when the 1704-05 session began on 24 October. He attended on 68 days, 69 per cent of the total, and was named to 29 committees, including that of 27 Feb. 1705 to prepare heads for a conference on Ashby v. White. In a forecast of November 1704 he was listed among those thought likely to support a tack of the occasional conformity bill to a money bill from the Commons. On 23 Nov. the marchioness of Granby wrote to her father-in-law, John Manners, duke of Rutland, informing him of a speech by Feversham ‘expressing dissatisfaction with the conduct of affairs at sea and in regard to the Scotch succession’. At the end of August 1705 Marlborough explained Feversham’s dalliance with Tory peers such as Rochester, Nottingham and John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham, as so that his nephew Miremont ‘may play the fool to their liking’ with his project for military action in the Cévennes. HMC Rutland, ii. 182; Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 481.

Feversham was present when the 1705 Parliament opened on 25 October. He attended on 43 days, 45 per cent of the total, and was named to 18 committees. On 6 Dec. he voted that the Church was not in danger under the current administration. He last attended that session on 8 Feb. 1706, nearly five weeks before the end of the session. In May Marlborough told his wife that he would never recommend Feversham’s nephews to the queen, ‘for I think their behaviour noways deserved it’. He also he expressed an interest in buying Feversham’s estate, presumably Holdenby, an interest revived after Feversham’s death. Marlborough-Godolphin Corresp. 559, 1283. Feversham was absent from the beginning of the 1706-07 session, first attending on 21 Jan. 1707. He was present on 41 days (48 per cent of the total) and was named to 18 committees. He also attended the short session of April 1707, being present on seven of the nine days. Feversham was present on the opening day of the 1707-08 session, 23 October. He attended for 67 days of the session (63 per cent of the total) and was named to 20 committees. About May 1708 he was classed as a Court Whig. Feversham was present on 16 Nov., the opening day of the 1708-09 session. He was then present on 38 days, 41 per cent of the total, and was appointed to 11 committees. On 21 Jan. 1709, he voted in favour of the motion that a Scots peer who possessed a British title had the right to vote in the election of the Scottish representative peers. He attended for the last time on 24 March.

Feversham died at Somerset House ‘of gout in his stomach’, on 8 Apr. 1709, aged 68. Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 428; Le Neve, Monumenta Anglicana, 1700-15, pp. 165-66; An Elegy on the Much Lamented Death of the … Lord Feversham (1709). He had continued to reside there with a host of relatives even after the death of the queen dowager in 1705. By his will Feversham requested to be buried in Westminster Abbey. He ordered his estate to be sold and the proceeds devoted to bequests totalling £1,030, with the residue to be divided between his nephews Lifford and Miremont and his niece Charlotte de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Mauleuse. By the time of his death, though, there had been a depletion in his estate. In a codicil of 6 Apr. 1709, ‘having at present much less money than I had heretofore’ he had to diminish the amount left to Lifford to only £2,000. He also now requested to be buried in the French church in the Savoy with a minimum of expense. In March 1740, his body was disinterred and reburied with those of the marquis de Miremont and Mademoiselle de Mauleuse in Westminster Abbey, as he had originally requested. Registers of Westminster Abbey, ed. J.L. Chester, 355-56. With no children of his own, Feversham’s title became extinct and the various estates he had acquired went to other owners. The honour of Grafton, part of Catherine of Braganza’s jointure, went to Charles Fitzroy, 2nd duke of Grafton, while that part of the Sondes estate awarded to him in 1678 reverted to Lewis Watson, now 3rd Baron Rockingham, husband to the last Sondes heiress. Holdenby was sold by his executors to Marlborough. Bridges, Northants. i. 528.