FANE, Vere (1645-93)

According to his son, Thomas Fane, 6th earl of Westmorland, Vere Fane was ‘a very good natured man but affected popularity too much’. Add. 34223, f. 4. He appears to have become attached to the opposition soon after the Restoration, and although a prominent figure in Kent, his first attempt at parliamentary involvement found him contesting Peterborough in 1666 which had become vacant on the succession of his half-brother to the earldom of Westmorland. HP Commons 1690-1715, iii. 1017; Add. 34223, f. 3. On this occasion Fane was defeated, but he succeeded in being returned for the borough in 1671. In the same year he married Rachel Bence, who brought with her a considerable fortune amounting to perhaps £40,000 in all. HMC Westmorland, 48.

A supporter of Exclusion, Fane was described as being ‘very forward and active in the Revolution’, though little evidence remains of such activity. Add. 34223, f. 4. Although he was defeated at Maidstone in 1689, he worked successfully with other Whigs to keep out Sir William Twisden^‡ as knight of the shire, and he was returned for Kent to the Convention along with Sir John Knatchbull^‡. The two men were deputed to present the county association to Henry Sydney, Viscount Sydney (later earl of Romney). Add. 52924, f. 31. As a deputy lieutenant, Fane was active in hunting down and prosecuting suspected Jacobites within his jurisdiction. HMC Finch, ii. 370; CSP Dom. 1690-1, p. 84. In March 1690 he and Knatchbull were again returned unopposed for the county. Add. 52924, ff. 25-29. Knatchbull’s estimate that the combined strength of his, Fane’s and Sir Thomas Roberts’^‡ supporters numbered some 2,000 against their opponent Sir Stephen Leonard’s mere 300 is suggestive of the extent of Fane’s influence within the county, as is the drawing up of a message of thanks by the gentlemen and freeholders of Kent for Fane and Knatchbull’s activities in the Convention. Ibid. f. 48; Add. 42592, f. 94.

Fane succeeded to the earldom of Westmorland on the death of his half-brother in September 1691. With the peerage Westmorland inherited a difficult financial situation, and in March 1692 he was granted administration of the 3rd earl’s will as the executors, Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury, and Charles Bertie^‡ had renounced execution. The 3rd earl had left copious debts, and in his quest to secure preferment at court the 4th earl exacerbated the situation. VCH Northants. Fams. i. 100; Northants. RO, W(A) 6 vi. 3/7. In spite of his apparently advantageous marriage, according to his son, Thomas Fane, Westmorland failed to profit from the alliance and proceeded to squander what resources he had in the quest for preferment at court. Moreover, Lady Westmorland’s fortune was delivered ‘but in small sums’ and ‘supplied only a present occasion to stop some clamorous gap and so the family [were], not the better for it.’ Add. 34223, f. 4.

Westmorland received his writ of summons on 20 Oct. 1691 and took his seat two days later. Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 296. An inactive member of the Commons, Westmorland demonstrated rather greater interest in the Lords. Present on approximately 64 per cent of all sitting days in the session, on 18 Jan. 1692 he was added to the committee for Keeble’s bill, and on 23 Jan. he reported from the committees for the Shadwell waterworks bill and for Vaughan’s bill. The same month he acted as one of the tellers during a vote on the bill for commissioners of accounts, and on 1 Feb. he was named one of the managers of a conference with the Commons on the subject of the public accounts bill. On 5 Feb. he acted as one of the tellers on the question whether to reverse the decree in the cause Gawdey v. Scroggs, and he acted as one of the tellers again four days later on the motion whether to adhere to the Lords’ amendments to the public accounts bill. On 16 Feb. he protested at the resolution that proxies should not be allowed during proceedings over the divorce bill of Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk, and on 23 Feb. he again acted as a teller for a division on passing the poll bill.

Westmorland attended the two prorogation days in April and June before resuming his seat in the ensuing session on 11 Nov. 1692. Again present on approximately 64 per cent of all sitting days, on 19 Dec. he presided at a session of the committee considering Powell’s bill. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/5, 123. On 31 Jan. 1693 he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to proceed with the trial of Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun, and the following month he was one of only 14 peers to find Mohun guilty. The same month Westmorland acted as one of the tellers for the votes in the House over whether the fine imposed on Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, for failing to attend the trial should be remitted.

Having attended the prorogation day on 26 Oct., Westmorland resumed his place in the House in the new session on 7 Nov. 1693 after which he was present on just 18 days before sitting for the final time on 9 December. His only notable action in the session was on 23 Nov. when he subscribed the protest over the resolution that the House would not receive any petitions for protecting the king or queen’s servants.

By the end of his life, Westmorland was in dire financial straits. Having lived continually beyond his means, he had been forced to mortgage his estates. Add. 34223, ff. 3-4; HMC Westmorland, 48. Parts of Westmorland’s holdings in Kent were mortgaged for £4,100 but this clearly failed to cover his debts, and in July 1693 Arabella, Countess Rivers, agreed to lend him £4,000. TNA, PROB 11/418; HMC Ancaster, 435. Not everyone believed that Westmorland’s financial situation was as precarious as his heirs later made out. Following his death two creditors obtained letters of administration for the personal estate of the 3rd earl arguing that he had left a considerable personal estate ‘amounting to several thousand pounds’ which had been seized by the 4th earl and the 3rd earl’s widow. Northants. RO, W(A) 6 vi. 3/7. Thomas Fane, 6th earl Westmorland, was in no doubt of his father’s poverty, and he was highly critical of Westmorland’s actions, arguing that the 4th earl had ‘found himself greatly deceived’ in his quest for office and treated his disappointed hopes as ‘a warning to all not to spend their estates to serve a court in expectation of being afterwards repaid or rewarded; ’tis an action all courtiers smile at …’ Add. 34223, f. 4.

The 6th earl’s comments were not quite fair. As a result of his careful cultivation of the court the 4th earl was chosen to carry the sword before the king and queen on at least three occasions, which may have been a deliberate attempt to put himself forward for further preferment. Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 355, 378; iii. 95. In 1692 he became joint lord lieutenant of Kent with Viscount Sydney, and he was also rumoured to be likely to succeed John Lovelace, 3rd Baron Lovelace, as captain of the gentleman pensioners in November of the following year. Browning, Danby, ii. 225; CSP Dom. 1693, p. 397. In July 1693 Westmorland faced difficulties within his lieutenancy when several of the deputy lieutenants quit their commands in the militia, forcing him to find replacements but such difficulties do not appear to have deterred him from seeking further positions of responsibility. CSP Dom. 1693, p. 212. In 1693 Westmorland petitioned to be granted the keepership of the Cliffe bailiwick of Rockingham Forest, which had been held by his predecessor. TNA, T1/84/87, cited in P.A.J. Pettit, Royal Forests of Northamptonshire, (Northants. Rec. Soc. xxiii), 21.

Hopes of further preferment were blighted by illness. Before his succession to the peerage, Westmorland had been described as being in a ‘very ill and dangerous … condition’, suffering from diabetes ‘a distemper which is newly found out.’ He was subjected to a strict diet in an effort to control the condition; his countess was eager to emphasize that he had not drunk ‘one drop’ of beer or wine and was confined to ass’s milk and eighteen pills a day. Ancestor, xi. 148-9. Despite this rigorous regime and the constant attentions of his physicians, towards the end of December 1693 Westmorland was reported to have been ‘given over’ and he died of the condition shortly after. Add. 70121, A. Pelham to Sir E. Harley, 29 Dec. 1693; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 247. In his will, dated the day before he died, Westmorland directed that his daughter, Lady Rachel Fane, should have £2,000 as a portion on her marriage or attainment of the age of twenty-one. In view of the perilous state of his finances it must have come as some relief to the dying earl to note that his remaining children’s fortunes had been taken care of by their grandfather. He was buried at Mereworth, and succeeded by his son, also Vere Fane, as 5th earl of Westmorland.