POWLETT, Charles (c. 1630-99)

It is not altogether clear quite what (if anything) was wrong with St John (as he was styled until his succession to the peerage). Dubbed ‘the mad marquess’, some thought that his manner was mere affectation, though William of Orange seems to have thought him genuinely deranged and stories abounded of his eccentricities. Ellis, ‘Whig Junto’, (Oxford, D.Phil. 1962), i. 134; Halifax Letters, ii. 225-7. Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, reported some of them, noting how:

he had the spleen to a high degree and affected an extravagant behaviour; for many weeks he would not open his mouth till such an hour of the day when he thought the air was pure. He changed the day into night, and often hunted by torch-light, and took all sorts of liberties to himself, many of which were very disagreeable to those about him.’

Despite this, Burnet also recognized St John as ‘a very crafty public man.’ Burnet, History, iv. 413-14. Sir John Reresby^‡ too saw in his behaviour more method than madness relating that ‘most thought he counterfeited this that he might be free and unconcerned from affairs of that age.’ Reresby Mems. 466-7. Certainly, in his politics St John was a maverick. For the most part he aligned himself with the country opposition and later with the court Whigs but he was also closely connected to a number of prominent court and later Tory figures. His loyalties leave him hard to characterize within any precision. Not everything about St John was so slippery. His poor health, of body if not of mind, was genuine enough. He complained frequently of fits of the stone and it may have been as a result of this agonizing condition that tales of his oddities first circulated. Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII 0616, Winchester to Wiltshire, 12 Oct. 1686. For all this, St John was one of the most influential political figures in England. Through a combination of marriage and inheritance he commanded interests in Hampshire, Yorkshire and Cornwall. CSP Dom. 1685, p. 42. He was also accounted ‘an expert Parliament man’ being a prominent member of the House both as a committee and conference chairman and a frequent speaker in debates. Timberland, i. 155. Thus, according to Burnet, ‘though he was much hated, yet he carried matters before him with such authority and success, that he was in all respects the great riddle of the age.’ CP.

Restoration to the accession of James II

The eldest son of the hero of the siege of Basing Castle, St John was taken away from his Catholic father after Basing by the parliamentarian army and raised as a Protestant. Despite such efforts to remove him from his royalist antecedents, he was imprisoned briefly in 1655 on suspicion of participation in royalist plotting, but he appears to have eschewed any direct involvement with royalist conspiracies. HP Commons 1660-90, iii. 276. Following the Restoration he was returned for the city of Winchester in the Convention and the following year he progressed to the county seat, which he continued to represent until his succession to the peerage. St John’s principal preoccupation during the early years of the restoration was an ongoing dispute with his father over the recovery of family lands sold or sequestered during the Interregnum. Numerous attempts at mediation had little effect and in April 1662 an effort to pass a bill to resolve their differences once more ran into difficulties and was referred to arbitration. LJ xi. 436. The following year another bill was considered in the Commons, but wrangling in the family continued for the remainder of the decade. HP Commons 1660-90, iii. 277.

Always a volatile individual, St John was forced to petition for a royal pardon in 1668 for pulling Sir Andrew Henley’s^‡ nose in Westminster Hall while the courts were in session. Henley was subsequently also compelled to sue for pardon for pushing St John during the scuffle. CSP Dom. 1667-8, pp. 371-2, 514. The price of St John’s escape from censure and (according to Andrew Marvell^‡) from losing his right hand for committing the offence was reputedly his agreement to fund the roofing of Clarendon House. He later supported the impeachment of its owner, Edward Hyde. earl of Clarendon. HP Commons 1660-90, iii. 277.

By the early 1670s St John had come to be closely associated with the opposition grouping coalescing around Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, and George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, such that in the spring of 1673 he was one of those named in the satirical sale catalogue of goods supposedly to be auctioned at the Royal Coffee house, as one of the inventors of the ‘act for stealing away a chancellor’s head from the block and laying a treasurer’s head instead of it.’ Haley, Shaftesbury, 327. On the death of his father in March 1675, he succeeded to the marquessate of Winchester and took his seat in the Lords shortly after on 13 Apr, registering his dissent the same day along with eight other peers (among them Shaftesbury) at the resolution to present a vote of thanks for the king’s speech. Timberland, i. 136. The following day he was named to the standing committees for privileges, petitions and the sub-committee for the journal and on 15 Apr. he was named to that for the bill for preventing frauds and perjuries. Named to a further seven committees in the course of the session, on 21 Apr. he subscribed the protest at the resolution not to throw out the bill for preventing dangers presented to the government by disaffected persons. LJ xii. 664-5, 669-72, 676-8, 683-4, 695-7. On 26 Apr. he subscribed a further protest at the committal of the bill to a committee of the whole House. On 29 Apr. he protested again, at the resolution that the previous protest reflected upon the honour of the House and the following day spoke during the bill’s committee stage to propose an additional oath to be tendered to new members of Parliament on their taking their seats, though this was rejected. Timberland, i. 155; Marvell ed. Margoliouth, ii. 152. On 4 May he protested once more at the decision to adopt the committee’s amendment to the bill allowing peers and members of the Commons to be embraced within its scope. Later that month, on 27 May he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference with the Commons on the Commons’ privilege related to a lengthy legal dispute between Arthur Onslow^‡ and Sir Nicholas Stoughton, the latter of whom had submitted an appeal to the Lords. In the event, the Commons failed to attend the conference and Winchester was not included among the managers of a subsequent conference held on the same subject the following month. LJ xii. 677, 716. Indicative of his continuing association with the opposition, in June it was reported both that he and Shaftesbury had been forbidden the court but also that the two peers had subsequently been reconciled and permitted to kiss the king’s hand. Verney ms mic. M636/28, Sir R. to E. Verney, 14 and 24 June 1675.

Winchester took his seat in the new session on 13 Oct. 1675, when he was again named to the standing committees. Present on each of the brief session’s 21 sitting days, Winchester was named to three committees and on 19 Nov. he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference with the Commons for the preservation of good understanding between the houses. LJ xiii. 12-13, 21-22, 27-28. The following day, he voted in favour of presenting the king with an address requesting a dissolution of Parliament and subscribed the protest when the House refused to adopt the measure. Add. 35865, f. 224; LJ xiii. 33. Winchester’s prominence within the opposition was no doubt the reason for rumours circulating in March of the following year that he was to be put out as lord lieutenant of Hampshire. Later that month he was indeed replaced by Edward Noel, later earl of Gainsborough. Bodl. Tanner 42, f. 225; Verney ms mic. M636/29, W/ Fall to Sir R. Verney, 16 Mar. 1676.

Winchester returned to the House at the opening of the new session on 15 Feb. 1677. Although he did not support the contention of his allies, Shaftesbury and Buckingham, that Parliament had been de facto dissolved by the long prorogation, and refused to join with their efforts to force the king to call fresh elections, he did speak in favour of the dissenting peers and recommended to the House that they should be thanked rather than reprimanded. Haley, Shaftesbury, 413; Carte 79, ff. 37-88. In doing so he appears to have demonstrated greater loyalty than Shaftesbury showed him, as one of Shaftesbury’s lieutenants, Lemuel Kingdon^‡, had written to an associate of the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds) only days before, warning him that it was Winchester, George Savile, earl (later marquess) of Halifax, and James Butler, duke of Ormond, who were Danby’s ‘professed enemies’, rather than Shaftesbury himself. Browning, Danby, i. 213n; Eg. 3330, ff. 71-72. The following month Winchester was named in information given by one Major Ogilvy about the activities of Shaftesbury’s agent, Robert Murray, and the opposition’s efforts to reveal the ministry’s willingness to allow Scots troops to serve abroad in the ranks of the French army. Shaftesbury and his associates hoped by doing so to destabilize the administration of John Maitland, duke of Lauderdale [S] and earl of Guilford, in Scotland. Haley, Shaftesbury, 424-6. Ogilvy claimed that he had overheard a conversation between Murray and Winchester in the court of requests, in which Murray asked Winchester ‘to stir in this business’. Murray was said to have emphasized the number of friends the marquess had in Scotland and that by acting he would ‘make to yourself many more.’ Winchester was reported to have assured Murray in turn that he should not trouble himself, ‘for if this business go on, we’ll swing him for you.’ CSP Dom. 1677-8, pp. 16-17. Named to a dozen committees in the course of the session, Winchester certainly interested himself prominently in matters regarding the conflict on the continent and on 13 and 15 Mar. he was nominated one of the reporters of the conferences with the Commons concerning the address to the king for the preservation of the Spanish Netherlands. In May Winchester was noted as doubly worthy by Shaftesbury. LJ xiii. 43-44, 49-53, 62-64, 77-79, 90-91, 94-95, 103-6. In October 1677 Winchester was one of those allowed access to Shaftesbury in the Tower. CSP Dom. 1677-8, p. 688.

Winchester played host to Arthur Annesley, earl of Anglesey, on at least two occasions in the summer of 1677. Add. 18730, ff. 23, 25. In January 1678 Winchester’s lawyer was one of several complainants forced to appeal to the Lords for their adjudication over a protection granted to one John Farrington, a prisoner for bankruptcy in the King’s Bench, with whom Winchester was involved in a legal action. Farrington’s protection had been given to him by Thomas Cromwell, 3rd earl of Ardglass [I], who attended the House by virtue of his English barony of Cromwell. The case spawned a broader debate concerning the extension of peers’ privileges to their retainers as well as Ardglass’s particular actions in granting protections to people such as Farrington who were not his menial servants. On 31 Jan. the House ordered that Farrington’s protection should be ignored and that the law should be permitted to run its course; Ardglass was reproved for granting protections on 6 February.

Besides his own legal struggles, Winchester’s attention was dominated by his efforts to support his disgraced colleagues Buckingham and Shaftesbury. On 28 Jan. 1678 Winchester intervened on Buckingham’s behalf to request that he might be allowed to read his apology at his place in the House rather than kneeling at the bar but was overruled. Add. 33278, f. 52. A little over a week later (7 Feb.), Winchester again appealed to the House to uphold his privilege over a case involving the arrest of one William Norgrave by William Cobden (rector of Lurgashall in Sussex). Again, the House resolved in Winchester’s favour that the offending parties should appear at the bar to explain their actions. On 14 Feb. Winchester’s mother, the dowager marchioness, was also successful in demanding that her privilege be upheld over the arrest of one of her servants. Winchester presented the House with a petition from his imprisoned ally Shaftesbury on 20 February. Shaftesbury acknowledged his errors and sought to be pardoned but without success. Haley, Shaftesbury, 439. Nominated one of the reporters of the conference concerning the address demanding war with France on 22 Mar., on 30 Apr. Winchester was named one of the reporters of the conference considering the growth of popery. On 25 Mar. he received the proxy of William Stanley, 9th earl of Derby, who had previously been noted ‘worthy’ by Shaftesbury; this was vacated by the session’s close. On 4 Apr., he voted, along with Shaftesbury, that Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke, was not guilty of murder.

Winchester returned to the House that summer for the brief session that began on 23 May, during which he was named to eight committees. LJ xiii. 217-19, 226-7, 239-41, 244-5, 248-9, 259-61 264-6. On 7 June he subscribed the protest at the resolution to proceed with consideration of Robert Villiers’ petition to be recognized as Viscount Purbeck. On 19 June he was nominated one of the managers of a conference with the Commons concerning the latest developments in the negotiations with France over the Spanish Netherlands. Nominated a reporter of the conference with the Commons over the supply bill on 25 June, once the House had resumed following the conference, he was one of five peers to subscribe a protest at the House’s failure to adopt an amendment proposed by the Commons. Three days later he was added to the committee for the bill to prevent the illegal coursing and killing of deer, in which he may have had particular interest as a former warden of the New Forest. On 5 July he joined with Shaftesbury ‘and the rest of that gang’ in entering a dissent at the resolution to grant relief to the petitioner in the cause Darrell v. Whichcot. At the head of the list of dissenters was James Stuart, duke of York. Carte 228, f. 143.

The revelations surrounding the Popish Plot and the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey again brought Winchester to the fore and he proved to be one of the most significant committee chairmen managing the business that grew as a result of Godfrey’s assumed assassination. Having taken his seat in the new session on 21 Oct. 1678, on 26 Oct. Winchester passed on information relating to the coachman who was said to have conveyed the murdered justice out of town, to the committee investigating Godfrey’s murder. Two days later he was named to a sub-committee to undertake a fuller investigation of the murder. HMC Lords, i. 1, 46, 48, 75. On 1 Nov. Winchester was appointed to report a conference with the Commons concerning the preservation of the king’s person and on 12 Nov. he again received Derby’s proxy, which was vacated when Derby returned to the House on 23 December. On 14 Nov. Winchester reported from the committee examining Godfrey’s murder, informing the House of the disappearance of a merchant named Powell, who it was suspected had also been murdered. He requested that two men should be secured, who were believed to be involved in Powell’s killing. The same day Winchester was involved in an argument with Henry Hyde, 2nd earl of Clarendon, but they were forcibly reconciled by the interposition of the lord chancellor (Heneage Finch, Baron Finch, later earl of Nottingham). The next day (15 Nov.) Winchester voted in favour of making the declaration against transubstantiation to be under the same penalty as the oaths. Carte 81, f. 380. Again named one of the managers of a series of conferences concerning the king’s safety on 23, 26, 27 and 28 Nov., on 27 Nov. Winchester reported from the committee for examinations on the failure to attend one of its hearings by one Beacon, a merchant, who was consequently ordered to be attached. During the lengthy discussions that lasted all day on 28 Nov. Winchester’s evidence to the committee of examinations was reported to the House and he and Clarendon once more traded insults. While Clarendon was speaking in the House during the debates on the removal of the queen from Whitehall, Winchester was heard to mutter ‘he lies he lies’, provoking an angry response from Clarendon as well as from Henry Mordaunt. 2nd earl of Peterborough, who was reported to have said ‘if he had the lie given him he would stab him as gave it’. Although Winchester protested that he had not directed the remarks to Clarendon, the House was again compelled to intervene to reconcile the two and to prevent them from carrying their argument on outside the chamber. Verney ms mic. M636/32, C. Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 29 Nov. 1678, W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 29 Nov. 1678. The following day (29 Nov.), Winchester informed the House that he had seen a papal bull that had been discovered among the Jesuit William Ireland’s papers in the hands of a member of the Commons, ‘which is of dangerous consequence’. The House accordingly sent to the lower House to request sight of the document. The following month, on 20 Dec, Winchester registered his dissent at the resolution to adopt amendments to the supply bill and again on 23 Dec. at the decision not to require Danby to withdraw following the reading of the impeachment articles against him. Despite his vigorous pursuit of those involved in the plot and his prominent role in demanding the removal of papists from London, Winchester was clearly prepared to make exceptions. On the same day (23 Dec.) he moved the House on behalf of an elderly recusant Sir Edward Sheldon and his family, requesting that they might be permitted to remain in London, which was ordered accordingly. HMC Lords, i. 86. Winchester again voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the supply bill on 26 Dec. and the following day he voted in favour of committing his old foe, Danby. Carte 81, f. 405.

Winchester appears to have resolved on making his peace with the court by this time and may even have been angling to succeed Danby as lord treasurer, though clearly nothing came of his manoeuvring. HP Commons 1660-90, i. 244. Employing his interest in Hampshire during the elections to the first Exclusion Parliament, both he and Shaftesbury were said to have written letters to the electors urging them not to return ‘fanatics’. When some of these were intercepted by the king, he was reported to have been ‘much pleased and said he had not heard so much good of them a great while.’ HP Commons 1660-90, i. 244; Haley, Shaftesbury, 500. Acting in partnership with his neighbour, William Russell^‡, Lord Russell, Winchester was expected to oppose his former colleague, Sir John Norton^‡, in the election for the county seats, which accordingly went to a moderate candidate, Richard Norton^‡, and the lord lieutenant, Edward Noel. Verney ms mic. M636/32, J. to Sir R. Verney, 10 Feb. 1679. Winchester appears also to have become embroiled in the finicky negotiations over the nomination to the county seats in Buckinghamshire. He was informed ‘by some mistake’ by his son-in-law, John Egerton, Viscount Brackley (later 3rd earl of Bridgwater) that Brackley’s father, John Egerton, 2nd earl of Bridgwater, was willing for Thomas Wharton, later marquess of Wharton, to stand with John Hampden^‡, as Brackley was unwilling to do so himself. In the event, Wharton and Hampden were returned unopposed when no one else proved willing to contest the seats. Carte 79, ff. 168-9; HP Commons 1660-90, i. 135. In March 1679 Winchester was reckoned by Danby to be an opponent in a series of forecasts, though one negative forecast of 2 Mar. noted Winchester as being ‘unreliable’ in parentheses.

Winchester took his seat in the abortive session of 6 Mar. 1679, of which he attended six days before resuming his seat in the new Parliament that commenced on 15 March. He was thereafter present on almost 89 per cent of all sitting days. Named to five committees in the course of the session in addition to the standing committees and the committee appointed to receive information about the plot, on 22 Mar. he was nominated one of the reporters of a conference concerning Danby’s impeachment. LJ xiii. 528, 536, 550, 574. On 14 Apr. he proved the majority of Danby’s predictions to be correct by voting in favour of attainting the former lord treasurer and on 10 May he voted to appoint a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords in the Tower. He then registered his dissent when the House voted against doing so. Following a conference held with the Commons the following day, the House acceded to the Commons’ request for a joint committee to be named to consider the impending trials and Winchester was one of the dozen peers named to join with the 24 members of the lower House. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 148. Two days later (13 May) Winchester registered his dissent at the resolution to permit the bishops to remain in court trying capital cases until the imposition of a death penalty. Winchester registered two further dissents on 23 May, first at the instruction to the joint committee that the House had decided to proceed with the trials of the five impeached lords before that of Danby and second at the decision to maintain their position as regarded the bishops. Four days later (27 May) he dissented once more at the resolution to insist upon the vote confirming the bishops’ rights.

Rumours connecting Winchester’s heir, Charles Powlett, styled earl of Wiltshire (later 2nd duke of Bolton), with Lady Elizabeth Percy had circulated towards the end of 1678 but by the beginning of 1679 that match had been broken off. Verney ms mic. M636/32, Sir R. to E. Verney, 23 Dec. 1678, 6 Jan. 1679. That summer Winchester was married instead to Margaret Coventry (daughter of George Coventry, 3rd Baron Coventry), who brought with her a £30,000 portion. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 171; Verney ms mic. M636/33, J. Stewkeley to Sir R. Verney, 7 July 1679, J. to E. Verney, 10 July 1679. The occasion was marked by a great feast at Winchester’s residence in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Anglesey was among the company, as he had been a few days previously at a dinner held at Winchester’s retreat at Teddington, which had also been attended by several other members of the Privy Council. Add. 18730, ff. 57, 58. Rumours at the same time that Winchester was to be advanced to a dukedom proved illusory. Verney ms mic. M636/33, J. to Sir R. Verney, 17 July 1679. Winchester appears to have suffered from some form of mental breakdown later in the year. He appears to have been better by November and in December one correspondent penned a vigorous rebuttal, insisting that he had ‘his senses as well as ever. I cannot tell what occasioned the report of his lunacy.’ Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII, 0457; Verney ms mic. M636/33, Sir R. to E. Verney, 25 Dec. 1679. Always a volatile individual, it is possible that Winchester’s erratic behaviour had become more pronounced: although he was sufficiently well to attend the House on 26 Jan. 1680 he shortly after departed for France to recover his health and he did not resume his place until after the Revolution. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 211.

Winchester was still abroad at the opening of the new Parliament in October 1680, and was excused at a call on 30 October. His own poor health was presumably further compromised by the death of his wife. Verney ms mic. M636/34, W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 14 Oct. 1680. Although the marchioness’ body was transported home for burial, Winchester stayed abroad and he was consequently absent from the House for the debates over the exclusion bill in November. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. ii. 240-1; Northants. RO, Finch Hatton mss 2893C. He appears to have remained in France until the summer of 1682. Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 211; HMC Rutland, ii. 73. Shortly after his return in August of that year, it was rumoured that he was prepared to marry one of his daughters to Peregrine Osborne, styled Viscount Latimer (later 2nd duke of Leeds), heir to his old foe Danby. Danby subsequently confided to Latimer that his source had been mistaken in imagining that the match may have been on the cards, ‘for [the] marquess [of] Winchester expects much greater things than Lord Latimer is able to perform.’ Browning, Danby, ii. 100, 102.

Mad or not, Winchester’s eccentric proclivities continued to earn him attention following his return from the continent. In December 1682 it was reported that he had fallen in love with a street crier. Despite this, Winchester’s own odd enthusiasms did not prevent him from making more than apparent his disapproval of his heir’s choice of a new wife following the death of Margaret, Lady Wiltshire, in 1682. Wiltshire risked his father’s disapproval by proceeding with his marriage to Frances Ramsden (who was reported already to be pregnant) in February 1683. In response, Winchester summoned his younger son, Lord William Powlett^‡, home from France with the intention of preferring him over his brother: the rift between Winchester and his heir continued for the ensuing three years. Although there is no evidence that he was directly involved in the plots of that year, in July 1683 Winchester had to see the scaffold for his friend Lord Russell’s execution erected (perhaps pointedly) outside his residence in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Verney ms mic. M636/37, A. Nicholas to Sir R. Verney, 6 Dec. 1682, 16 Apr. 1683, M636/37, C. Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 16 Apr. 1683, J. to Sir R. Verney, 18 Apr. 1683, M636/38, Sir R. to J. Verney, 20 July 1683. It was there that Russell’s remains were taken to be sewn back together prior to his interment. HMC Rutland, ii. 80.

Winchester appears to have retreated from the capital following Russell’s execution, retiring first to Basing and then to his estates in Yorkshire. CSP Dom. 1683-4, p. 46. Within two years he had sold his house in London. Survey of London, iii. 96-103. The activities of one of his servants, Robert Murray, who was thought to have been involved with the recent conspiracy, soon brought him back into the spotlight, however. Following discussions in council on 9 Oct. Sir Leoline Jenkins^‡ wrote to Winchester the next day to inform him that Murray had been observed lurking about his house in Yorkshire and commanded him to take the wanted man into custody if he should happen upon him. Murray presumably fled as he was later imprisoned at Edinburgh, though it then became apparent that he may have been the victim of mistaken identity. Although Winchester spoke up for his servant, insisting that he had been with him at Basing and Scarborough throughout the summer, he was cautious enough to assure the council that he would not admit him back into his service before he was cleared fully of any suspicion. Winchester’s assurances were welcomed by Jenkins, who informed him that his behaviour in the affair had met with the approbation of both king and the duke of York. Winchester made no effort to hide his pleasure in the response, enthusing that ‘I am better able to bear the burden of my broken health and the solitudes of these cold northern parts, whilst I have the favourable aspects of such friends at court, whose directions I will steadily follow.’ CSP Dom. 1683-4, pp. 22-23, 46, 129, 202, 210.

Winchester’s health continued to plague him following the Murray episode. In December 1684 he wrote to Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland, on behalf of William Mason, ‘a physician in charity but a divine in practice and the only one he can trust with safety to his weak health’, requesting that Mason be preferred to a parsonage at either Windsor or Winchester. Winchester stressed that this favour was ‘very essential to preserve his weak health’ wracked as he was by constant fits of the stone. He commended the suit to the agency of his friend Bernard Granville^‡ but there is no indication that Winchester was successful in his efforts on Mason’s behalf. CSP Dom. 1684-5, pp. 251-2.

The Reign of James II and the Revolution 1685-1690

Despite his previous role at the head of the opposition, his association with supposed plotters such as Murray and his friendship with the martyred Russell, Winchester initially appears to have favoured co-operation with the new regime after the death of Charles II. From his Yorkshire seat at Bolton Castle, he wrote to Sunderland on 24 Feb. 1685 assuring him that he was ‘labouring for good members of Parliament and to keep out the bad’ and requested Sunderland’s advice regarding suitable candidates for Hampshire. Although he undertook to withhold his support from his son, Wiltshire, if he should ‘be ungrateful to the king’ and declared that he ‘would not have him stand, because I cannot pass for him, having been some time past a stranger to him’, Wiltshire was ultimately returned for one of the county seats. While Winchester was more than capable of playing Sunderland false on this issue, the extent of his estrangement from his son at that point suggests that Wiltshire acted without his father’s support. By contrast, Winchester expressed himself more than eager to do what he could for Charles Boyle, styled Lord Clifford (later Baron Clifford of Lanesborough) and Sir John Kaye^‡, bt., both of whom were returned unopposed for Yorkshire, and to bring his interest to bear in the other boroughs where he claimed some influence: Aldborough, Northallerton, Richmond, Ripon and Thirsk. In return, he hoped he would be excused attendance at the coronation and in Parliament, as his health remained extremely poor. CSP Dom. 1685, p. 42. He nominated Bridgwater to officiate on his behalf at the former as the bearer of the cap of maintenance. HEHL, EL 8172.

Notwithstanding Winchester’s protestations to do all he could in the king’s interest, both Clifford and Kaye were later reckoned opponents of the king’s policies. It also seems likely that it was not long after the king’s accession that Winchester embarked on a correspondence with the prince of Orange, pledging him his support as well. As his distrust of James’s government grew more pronounced, Winchester, according to Burnet and a number of other sources, affected madness, in the manner of Brutus under the Tarquins as it was said, in order to preserve his own security. HP Commons 1690-1715, v. 186. Winchester’s illness may have been feigned but it seems possible that his ravings were genuine and the result of his excruciating poor health. Whether the insanity was real or not, Winchester’s troubles were ameliorated by a marked improvement in his relations with his heir, though he appears to have remained wary of allowing Lord Wiltshire too much freedom and he rejected Wiltshire’s request to make use of the family seat at Basing. He was also subjected to further trials resulting from his other children’s waywardness. Compelled to complain of one of his daughter’s (Lady Betty’s) ‘unbecoming behaviour’ in the autumn of 1686, Winchester was utterly mortified a few months later when another unmarried daughter, Lady Mary Powlett, gave birth completely unexpectedly, having been taken to London to be cured of an unrelated condition. The affair featured in at least two satirical poems of the day but the identity of the father remained a mystery. Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII, 0613, 0616, 0638-9, 0620; POAS, iv. 204. Able to seek some solace from the fact that the improved Wiltshire demonstrated himself able to ‘bear a mind suitable to the affront done your family’, Winchester lamented that he was unable to ‘name that ill man and if some reports be true it will be hardly possible ever to name him for two or three if not more are said to have had a finger in the pie.’ Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII, 0668-70. Lady Mary was handed over to Winchester’s daughter, Lady Bridgwater, and to his agent Cratford, and as punishment for her behaviour, Winchester slashed her annual allowance from £300 to a mere £30 subsistence. Verney ms mic. M636/41, W. Denton to Sir R. Verney, 30-31 Nov., 8 Dec. 1686.

Although Winchester’s relations with his son continued to improve, the prospect of a new parliamentary session, anticipated in the early months of 1687, caused him a degree of anxiety. Eager to emphasize to Wiltshire how he would both ‘have opportunity of doing good’ as well as meeting with ‘temptations to evil’, he was most particularly concerned by one member of Wiltshire’s circle and sought to dissuade his son from continuing the association:

the northern gent your late companion in these parts, has a very ill character among the knowing and honourable people both at London and elsewhere being commonly reputed one of the blades of the town and a cunning gamester, an insinuating and false spy upon men’s manners and weaknesses, making an ill use of your favour and freedom of speech used by those who keep him company. The son of one of the worst enemies the King and the church had in the late ill times, and such a one as you can neither have credit profit or safety by his conversation, and in short an ill man and most unfit for one in your circumstances. Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII, 0668-70.

It is not known to whom Winchester referred and whatever his concerns about Wiltshire’s associates, despite his earlier pledges of support for the king and cordial entertainment of men in the king’s interest such as Thomas Cartwright, bishop of Chester, by the early months of 1687 Winchester too had fallen under scrutiny. In January he was listed as being opposed to repeal of the Test and in May his attitude to the king’s policies was thought to be doubtful. Even so, he still seemed eager to develop his relations with the court and in the spring he and his brother-in-law, John Belasyse, Baron Belasyse, appear to have been in negotiation with Sunderland to procure a match between Lady Betty and (presumably) Sunderland’s heir, Lord Spencer. Rumours of the previous summer had matched Spencer with Winchester’s now disgraced daughter, Lady Mary. HMC Rutland, ii. 110. When negotiations between the two families foundered once more, Winchester asked Wiltshire to concert matters with his sister Lady Bridgwater to come up with an alternative. He promised that a suitable portion would be forthcoming, though its size would be dependent on the quality of the match. Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII, 0712. Although there was to be no alliance between the Spencers and Powletts on this occasion, Winchester was later said to have been persuaded to speak up for Sunderland when the disgraced minister first returned to England from exile after the Revolution. Chatsworth, Devonshire House notebook, section B, f. 1.

Winchester was incapacitated once again during the summer, this time as a result of injuries sustained in a riding accident. Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII, 0730. Although a further assessment of November 1687 suggested that he was still undeclared as regarded repeal of the Test and a report of December suggested that he was again angling for favour at court by entertaining George Jeffreys, Baron Jeffreys, at his seat, another of January 1688 suggested once more that he was opposed to repeal. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 183-4. The same month it was reported that he had been removed from his post of custos rotulorum of Somerset but this was a mistake as he was not the holder of the office. Longleat, Bath mss Thynne pprs. 43, f. 13. It is not clear how this confusion arose, though Winchester did command some interest in the county.

Winchester’s activities (and whereabouts) at the time of the Revolution are uncertain but it seems clear that he played a double game throughout 1688. In April his heir, Wiltshire, and younger son, Lord William, crossed to Holland to join William of Orange’s forces armed with letters of introduction from their father. Beddard, Kingdom without a king, 21, 57; CSP Dom. 1687-9, pp. 189, 401. Plans for such a trip appear to have been afoot since the summer of the previous year. Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII, 0727. Winchester himself was engaged in a fairly regular correspondence with the prince through the medium of his nephew, Emmanuel Scrope Howe^‡, an officer in the Anglo-Dutch brigade. Childs, Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution, 147; Dalrymple, Mems. (1790), ii. 20; CSP Dom. 1687-9, pp. 149, 187, 189. Although orders were given to the lieutenant of Yorkshire to seize Wiltshire’s horses in September 1688, the following month, Winchester, in common with a number of other peers, offered his service to James and in November the king recognized ‘his loyalty and faithful services’ by ordering that none of his horses should be impressed by the army nor should his estates be used for billeting troops. CSP Dom. 1687-9, pp. 288, 358; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 322. Winchester seems to have repaid the king with inactivity. He does not appear to have made any effort to safeguard the king’s interests in Hampshire or Yorkshire during the Revolution, but, curiously given his close contact with the prince prior to the Revolution, neither does he seem to have roused himself on the prince’s part. He failed to attend the deliberations of the provisional government and was not among those peers specifically summoned by William of Orange in December. Beddard, Kingdom without a king, 122.

By January 1689, though, he had returned to London and, having taken his seat at the opening of the Convention on 22 Jan., he attended almost 80 per cent of all sitting days, taking a prominent lead in supporting the declaration of the prince and princess as king and queen. On the opening day of the Convention he was named to the committee appointed to draw up an address of thanks to the prince and the following day he was named to the sub-committee for the Journal, though he was not nominated to the other standing committees. By now strongly in favour of supporting the new state of affairs, on 31 Jan. in a division held in committee of the whole House Winchester voted in favour of inserting the words declaring the prince and princess king and queen and the same day he entered his dissent at the resolution not to employ the phrase ‘the throne is thereby vacant’. On 4 Feb. he was nominated one of the managers of a conference to draw up reasons why the Lords refused to concur with the Commons on the question of James’s abdication (the request for which had been brought up by Wiltshire) and the same day he voted to support the Commons’ use of the word ‘abdicated’, again entering his dissent at the failure to pass the motion. The following day he was again nominated a manager of a further conference on the same theme and on 6 Feb., having declared to the House that, ‘this 6th day of February would with grief be remembered for the mischief they themselves brought upon this church and state when they proclaimed James II king of England four years since’, he recommended to the House William and Mary’s proclamation and once more voted in favour of employing the terms ‘abdicated’ and ‘that the throne is vacant’. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 522. On 8 Feb. 1689 Winchester was named one of the managers of the conference considering the declaration of William and Mary as king and queen, after which he reported that the Commons had accepted most of the Lords’ proposed amendments. Perhaps more significantly, he then presented the House with the latest draft of the declaration of rights, which it was decided should be debated the following day. Schwoerer, Declaration of Rights, 232. Also on 9 Feb., he was named one of the committee to draw up reasons to be offered at a subsequent conference ‘to fortify’ the amendments. The following month, Winchester lent his support to the comprehension bill, though he was reported to be ‘unconcerned for the bill of indulgence, for that would but nourish and cherish snakes and vipers in the bosom of the church.’ Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 56. On 6 Mar. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to pass the bill for better regulating the trials of peers. On 15 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole for the act for abrogating the former oaths of allegiance and supremacy, communicating the committee’s recommendation that a select committee be established to draft additional clauses for the act. He was duly nominated one of the members of the new committee and on 28 Mar. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference for the bill for removing papists. On 5 Apr. he subscribed a further protest at the rejection of an amendment that would have included lay members within the proposed commission for revising the liturgy and canons of the Church of England.

Despite his relative obscurity during the Revolution, Winchester’s subsequent unequivocal support for William of Orange earned his family swift preferment. Wiltshire was made lord chamberlain to the queen. Lord William Powlett was married to Louisa Caumont de la Force, daughter of the marquis de Mompouillon and the king’s cousin german, though negotiations for this marriage had in fact been in train since at least April 1688. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 5; Bolton mss ZBO VIII, mq. of Winchester’s instructions, 16 Apr. 1688. Winchester himself was reappointed both to the office of custos rotulorum and to the lord lieutenancy of Hampshire in March 1689. Sainty, Lords Lieutenants; CSP Dom. 1689-90, pp. 21, 26. According to Halifax, he also hoped to be appointed to the treasury commission. Add. 75367, ff. 26-29; Halifax Letters, ii. 204-7. The position in the treasury proved unforthcoming but the following month he was one of a number of individuals to be awarded new honours when he was promoted in the peerage as duke of Bolton. Constantijn Huygens had reported earlier that the title was to have been Chester but this was presumably discounted fairly early on and the title of Bolton suitably reflected the new duke’s commanding northern interests. CSP Dom. 1689-90, p. 84; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 84; Journaal van Constantijn Huygens, den zoon, van 21 October 1688 tot 2 Sept. 1696, n.s. 23 (1876), pt. 1, i. 106.

Bolton was introduced in his new dignity between Henry Somerset, duke of Beaufort, and James Butler, 2nd duke of Ormond, on 9 April. Later that month, on 27 Apr. he reported from the committee for the bill making it treason to correspond with the former king. Absent from the House for the following three days, he ensured that his proxy was registered with John Lovelace, 3rd Baron Lovelace, on 27 Apr. which was vacated by his resumption of his seat on 1 May. On 8 May he was nominated a manager of the conference concerning the bill for the more speedy and effectual conviction of papists and on 17 May he in turn received Lovelace’s proxy (which was vacated on 6 June). Absent at a call of the House on 22 May, Bolton resumed his seat the following day and on 31 May he voted in favour of reversing the judgments of perjury against Titus Oates. On 7 June, in company with his old enemy Carmarthen (as Danby had since become) Bolton introduced Frederick Schomberg, as duke of Schomberg. A fortnight later, on 20 June, Bolton attempted to report the result of a conference held concerning the bill for enabling commissioners of the great seal, but was unable to do so because the papers were found to be defective. The following day the sense of the conference was reported back to the House by Lawrence Hyde, earl of Rochester. Bolton subscribed the protest at the resolution not to overturn the reversal of the judgment in Barnardiston v. Soames on 25 June 1689. On 10 July he registered his dissent at all the resolutions passed relating to the quashing of Oates’ perjury conviction. Two days later he was again nominated a manager of the conference concerning the succession bill, from which he reported back later the same day.

Bolton registered his proxy with Lovelace again on 15 July, which was vacated when he returned to the House on 24 July. The following day (25 July) he received Bridgwater’s proxy, which was vacated when Bridgwater resumed his seat on 2 August. On 26 July he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the bill for reversing the judgments against Oates. Four days later, he voted against adhering to the Lords’ amendments to the bill and subscribed the protest when the resolution to adhere was carried. During his absence from the House Bolton had again been nominated one of the managers to oversee a second conference on the succession bill, which he presumably failed to attend, but he was nominated one of the managers for a further conference on the same business on 31 July. LJ xiv. 286, 301. The following month Bolton assumed the chairmanship of the committee considering the bill for the exportation of wool. The previous chairman, Rochester, had vacated the chair mid-session, scrupling whether it was correct to vote on agreeing to the penultimate clause of the bill before the first sections had been considered. Rochester had also been unhappy to continue the committee at a time that the House was in session, messages having been sent to the members for them to resume their seats. Bolton clearly had no such scruples and, having steered the business through, reported the bill as fit to pass on 15 August. HMC Lords, ii. 257.

Bolton departed London for the New Forest later that month to oversee the settling of the militia in Hampshire. Eg. 3337, ff. 103-4. He attempted again to assert his influence in the area on behalf of a kinsman, Colonel St John, and Sir Charles Raleigh^‡, who he hoped would be appointed joint sub-commissioners for prizes in Hampshire, though in the latter case he was informed that the king had already appointed Mr Patten to the position. Bolton also employed his interest on behalf of the captain and lieutenant of the Pearl, recommending them for their gallantry in defending his son, Wiltshire, one of the passengers on board the ship when it came under attack from French privateers during its passage from Holland. CSP Dom. 1689-90, pp. 173, 217, 248.

Despite being seriously injured from a fall while riding in the New Forest in September 1689, Bolton assured the undersecretary, James Vernon^‡, that he hoped to be in London in advance of the new session that commenced on 15 March. In the meantime he attempted to continue his duties from his sickbed. Prior to his accident he had been faced with the unveiled hostility of the dean and chapter of Winchester cathedral, who had refused him permission to make use of the deanery to entertain the deputy lieutenants on account, so he was informed, of his earlier complaint to the House of their refusal to pray for the king and queen during cathedral services. Ibid. 273-5. Their disgruntlement presumably related to information provided to the House on 8 Mar. 1689 about ministers within the dioceses of Norwich and Winchester, who had failed to offer prayers specifically for King William and Queen Mary. Bolton also found himself under investigation about the management of his regiment. He explained to Charles Talbot, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, that while he was ready enough to quit his own interest, several of the senior officers of the regiment ‘would lay down their commissions with the rest of the officers, if I should do so.’ Ibid. 275.

Bolton took his seat at the opening of the second session of the Convention on 19 Oct. 1689. In a list prepared by Carmarthen between October 1689 and February 1690 he was said to be among the supporters of the court. In November 1689 he was said to have stood bail for an unidentified peer, possibly Edward Griffin, Baron Griffin, who had been committed to the Tower at the beginning of November for his role in Jacobite plotting. Verney ms mic. M636/43, J. to Sir R. Verney, 7 Nov. 1689. Bolton’s apparent readiness to assist a political opposite was far from unique: Lovelace had also offered to stand bail for Griffin, though in the event sureties seem to have been provided by Sir Justinian Isham^‡ and the elderly Maurice Berkeley^‡, 3rd Viscount Fitzhardinge [I]. CSP Dom. 1689-90, p. 312. Pride of caste and resentment at the treatment Griffin was receiving as a fellow peer may explain Lovelace and Bolton’s actions. On 2 Nov. in partnership with Charles Mordaunt, earl of Monmouth (later 3rd earl of Peterborough) and Ralph Montagu, earl of Montagu (later duke of Montagu) Bolton pushed for the appointment of a committee to investigate the prosecutors of his late friend, Lord Russell, and on 8 Nov. he was granted leave to bring in a mutiny bill. Halifax Letters, ii. 91. On 12 Nov. he reported from the committees appointed to consider the bill to reverse Thomas Walcott’s attainder and the bill for naturalizing William Watts, both which were recommended as fit to pass without amendment. The same day the House committed the mutiny bill and on 13 Nov. Bolton reported back from the committee considering the measure, relaying a number of amendments, which were accepted, following which the bill was ordered to be engrossed.

On 14 Nov. Bolton was one of three peers deputed to wait on the king with the address for William Petyt, keeper of the records of the Tower, to be awarded a salary suitable for the position. During the debates in the House on the addition of a clause to the Bill of Rights, requiring monarchs to take an oath on their succession, Bolton spoke warmly in favour of the Triennial Act, which he emphasized, was:

the best for that purpose that could be made by mortal man, and the names and memory of those gentlemen that made it in their times would be by our wise posterity mentioned with as great honour as the powers of Magna Carta. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 261.

Bolton almost came to blows with Halifax during a hearing before the committee investigating those responsible for the prosecutions of Russell and the other victims of the 1683 trials, claiming that the marquess had been ‘concerned in all the villainies of those times.’ Denying the charge, Halifax shook Bolton’s shoulder and told him that, ‘he could play the madman as often as he saw fit, and so he did now’ at which Bolton made to draw his sword, forcing members of the committee to intervene and restrain the two men. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 270. Despite this early evidence of bad blood between them, the evidence heard by the committee eventually compelled Bolton to concede Halifax’s innocence in the deaths of Russell and the other ‘martyrs’. Halifax Letters, ii. 105.

On 23 Nov. Bolton received the proxy of Edward Clinton, 5th earl of Lincoln, which was vacated when Lincoln resumed his seat four days later, presumably to coincide with the vote held that day on the addition of a rider to the Bill of Rights preventing the crown from granting pardons to those under impeachment. Intent on pushing for the adoption of safeguards against overweening monarchs, Bolton had introduced the rider in association with William Cavendish, 4th earl (later duke) of Devonshire. Having been read three times it was put to the question but, following some confusion, it was rejected by 50 votes to 17, following which Bolton and another 11 peers subscribed a protest complaining against this ‘failure of justice’. Schwoerer, Declaration of Rights, 278; LJ xiv. 351. Two days later Bolton was shaken (briefly) from such preoccupations by the news of the death of his daughter, Lady Elizabeth (Betty) Powlett, which prompted him to leave town for a week to mourn. He returned to the House on 2 Dec. and on 5 Dec. played host to a meeting to consider how the king might best set out to borrow the money he required for his imminent campaign. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 279, 304. The next day he was again entrusted with Lincoln’s proxy, which was vacated by the close of the session. Ten days later (16 Dec.) Bolton reported from the committee for John Rogerson’s naturalization bill and on 23 Jan. 1690 he subscribed the protest at the resolution to remove the first enacting clause from the corporations bill.

The early years of William and Mary 1690-95

It is indicative of Bolton’s prominence at this time that Carmarthen seems to have considered offering him the privy seal in succession to Halifax after it was refused by Philip Stanhope, 2nd earl of Chesterfield. By doing so Carmarthen may well have hoped to disarm someone who he recognized as one of his most vocal critics. According to Halifax, Bolton refused the offer objecting that he would ‘have nobody’s place.’ Browning, Danby, i. 465; Chatsworth, Devonshire House notebook, section B, f. 4. Whether the position was ever formally proffered, the place remained in commission for the following two years. Alongside of his responsibilities in Parliament, Bolton maintained a close watch on events in his lieutenancy and that month passed a letter on to Shrewsbury, ‘which complains of the liberty, taken by some in Hampshire, to vilify the government, and the indifference displayed to discountenance such practices.’ In January 1690 having received information that the former secretary of state for Scotland, Alexander Stewart, 5th earl of Moray [S], was hiding in a house in Hampshire, he arranged for the wanted man to be conveyed to London and for his horses to be ‘secured for his majesty’s use.’ CSP Dom. 1689-90, pp. 341, 398. Active in promoting his family’s interest in Hampshire in the elections that spring, Bolton was successful in securing the return of his son, Winchester, and Richard Norton for the county, while his kinsman, Francis Powlett^‡, was re-elected at Andover (which he had represented for the past 20 years). Bolton’s younger son, Lord William Powlett, was also returned on the family interest for the city of Winchester but Bolton was unable to bring his influence to bear effectively at St Ives, where his nominee, John Hawles^‡, was defeated by two local candidates. HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 98, 227.

Bolton took his seat in the new Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690 and was early on one of the foremost speakers in the session’s debates. Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 415. On 26 Mar. he introduced the recognition bill, declaring William and Mary to be rightful and lawful monarchs. HMC Lords, iii. 1. The following day he reported from the committee for the bill to naturalize David Le Grand. While it is unlikely that Bolton was acting alone in proposing the recognition bill, the measure provoked a storm of protest. It proved quite as unpopular with the court (which was reluctant to provoke further controversy over William and Mary’s title) as it was with the Tories and, although it was subsequently agreed to commit it two days later, it was only done so on the understanding that it would be revised substantially. Bodl. Ballard 48, f. 78. On 5 Apr. Bolton subscribed the protest at the resolution to adopt the committee’s amendments to the bill. On 7 Apr. he was nominated to a sub-committee to draw up a clause recognizing the new king and queen as in the Bill of Rights, from which he reported later that day. The bill finally secured the royal assent a week later on 14 April. HMC Lords, iii. 4-5. Bolton received Lovelace’s proxy again on 7 May and Lincoln’s on 12 May, both of which were vacated the following day. He was nominated one of the managers of the conference considering the bill for making the queen regent in the king’s absence on 12 May and, the following day, both he and Lovelace subscribed the protest at the resolution not to allow the corporation of London more time to be heard by their counsel during the discussions of the corporation of London bill. On 19 May he complained to the House of a breach of his privilege following the impressment of one of his servants into the navy: the offending officer and press-master were summoned to appear to explain their actions.

Bolton was unsuccessful in his efforts to secure the lord lieutenancy of Somerset for his heir in July 1690. Dalrymple, Mems. iii. 72. The incumbent, Fitzhardinge, was actively seeking to rid himself of the responsibility that summer but in the event the office went to Ormond following Fitzhardinge’s death the following year. CSP Dom. 1690-91, pp. 36, 223. The same month (July) Bolton presented ‘a long scrawl of paper’ to the queen on behalf of some 3,000 mariners complaining at the conduct of a number of captains in naval service: according to Roger Morrice, on presenting the address Bolton ‘told her in drollery he had brought her a child.’ Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 74; Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. v. 475. The same month, during the proceedings in council considering the Montgomery plot, he refused to sign the warrant committing William Ross, 12th Lord Ross [S], to the Tower for his involvement in the conspiracy. Communicating the matter to the king, Queen Mary described how Bolton had queried in peremptory fashion advice given to the council by Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, that Ross should be imprisoned. He then ‘hindered Lord Devon by a whisper and his son by a nod; Lord Montagu would not sign it either.’ CSP Dom. 1690-91, p. 59; Dalrymple, Mems. ii. 98-99. Carmarthen attributed their reluctance to put their names to the paper to being among Montgomery’s confederates. This was almost certainly mischievous nonsense, though Bolton may have been experiencing a distinct loss of nerve about the course of the Revolution in the aftermath of the Boyne. Dalrymple, Mems. iii. 65; Ailesbury Mems. 258. Even so, it seems more likely that Bolton may have objected to a fellow peer (albeit a Scots one) being treated in this manner. Bolton was to the fore again on 23 July, when the lords of the admiralty came before the council. Again working in combination with Devonshire Bolton pressed for Admiral Henry Killigrew^‡ to be questioned about his conduct in not destroying the Toulon squadron and accused Killigrew of ‘neglect or worse’, though Nottingham considered the charge ‘unreasonable’. Browning, Danby, ii. 183; HMC Finch, ii. 382.

Bolton acted as one of the commissioners for proroguing Parliament on 28 July and again on 18 August. He remained in London in September and took his seat at the opening of the new session on 2 Oct. 1690, when he was nominated one of the select committee appointed to draw up an address of thanks to the king for the Irish campaign. Bolton Hall mss ZQH 9/8/13. Thereafter, he was present on 84 per cent of all sitting days. Later in October he was granted a warrant for raising 400 volunteers for his regiment under the command of Colonel Holt to be based at Southwark. CSP Dom. 1690-91, p. 137. Nominated to the committee to draw up an address to the queen on 6 Oct., Bolton reported back from the committee the following day but, having considered the address, the House recommitted it and it was then reported once again with amendments by Halifax later the same day. On 6 Oct. he voted against the discharge of James Cecil, 4th earl of Salisbury, and Peterborough, from their imprisonment in the Tower, with Carmarthen adding the comment that he ‘may be easily frighted to comply in a matter where the king’s principal prerogative is so much concerned’. Browning, Danby, iii. 180. On 30 Oct. he subscribed one protest against the decision to discharge Salisbury and Peterborough from their bail, and another at the passage of the bill for clarifying the powers of the admiralty commissioners. The latter represented the culmination of a vigorous effort launched by Monmouth and Bolton to bring down Carmarthen. Horwitz, Parl. Pols. 65. On 2 Dec. Bolton was one of eight peers to be nominated to draw up an order for vacating and annulling all written protections. Despite having previously insisted on his privilege with regard to his own servants, on 27 Dec. he registered his dissent at the resolution to allow written protections to be given to menial servants. Bolton was named one of the managers of the three conferences held on 5 Jan. 1691 concerning the bill for the suspension of the navigation and corn acts, reporting back on two occasions the Lords’ insistence on keeping one of the proposed provisos within the bill. LJ xiv. 576, 606, 617. The same month he and Carmarthen were forced to co-operate in investigating a Jacobite plot, though it seems likely that the two men were deliberately chosen so that each could keep watch on the other. HMC Le Fleming, 309. Bolton did not allow such matters to prevent him from continuing to develop his own interests and the same month he petitioned for a lease of the forest of Knaresborough, which was referred to the treasury for further consideration. CSP Dom. 1690-91, pp. 224-5. Following the session’s end, local concerns again predominated as he complained on 16 Mar. to Thomas Jervoise^‡ about the state of the militia in Hampshire. Hants RO, Jervoise mss, 44M69/F6/8/1.

Bolton returned to the House for the following session on 22 Oct. 1691, after which he was present on 92 per cent of all sitting days. Early in the session he was identified as one of the instigators of ‘a foolish plot… to blacken Lord Nottingham’ over the revelation of Nottingham’s supposedly treacherous correspondence with Admiral Sir Ralph Delaval^‡, ‘but all was madness or knavery’. HMC Downshire, i. 390. Undeterred, Bolton continued to shoulder the burden of a sizeable proportion of the House’s business. On 17 Nov. he was named a manager of the conference considering matters relating to the safety of the kingdom, from which he reported the same day, and from the subsequent conference on the same matter held two days later. On 1 and 10 Dec. he reported back from the conferences to consider amendments made by the Lords to the bill for abrogating oaths in Ireland and on 17 Dec. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning the treason bill. TNA, C115/109, 8914. He reported back from a subsequent conference on the same matter on 29 December. In January 1692 he suffered the embarrassment of the loss of his London residence when Berkeley House, which he was renting, was burnt to the ground. Carte 130, ff. 335-6; Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 337. The following month he secured an apology from Sergeant Ryley for serving an order of council on him, although the House deemed Ryley’s actions not to be strictly in breach of privilege, merely ill mannered. Named one of the managers of the conference for the public accounts’ bill on 1 Feb., Bolton reported back from the conference the same day and on 2 Feb. he entered his dissent at the House’s resolution not to concur with the Commons’ reasons against the Lords’ amendments to the bill. On 16 Feb. he registered his dissent at the decision not to allow proxies to be used during the division on the divorce bill of Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk, and subscribed the subsequent protest on the same matter. LJ xv. 75, 77-78.

Bolton was, unsurprisingly, one of those excepted out of the former king’s pardon of May 1692 (under the title Winchester). Glasgow UL, ms Hunter 73, no. 89. He may not have been in much better grace at home. In common with several others he proved unwilling to make a declaration relating to his obligations in providing for the local militia horse in Lincolnshire. TNA, C104/109, Lindsey to Carey, 30 Apr. 1692. At about the same time problems within Bolton’s regiment appear to have led to Sir Francis Wheeler’s recommendation to Nottingham that one of the officers, Major Nott, be removed as Bolton had ‘used him very unkindly.’ The root of the problem (according to Wheeler) appears to have been Bolton’s position as an absentee colonel not serving with his regiment. Wheeler went on to complain how ‘great inconvenience arises when colonels stay at home while their regiments are abroad, because they have an influence upon the pay, which often as in that regiment, proves hard to the officers and soldiers.’ CSP Dom. 1691-2, p. 459. Despite this, Bolton retained command of the unit for a further six years.

Bolton returned to the House for the following session on 10 Nov. 1692 but attended on just eight days before retreating for the remainder of the session. Noted sick at a call on 21 Nov. and granted leave to go into the country two days later, poor health was presumably the reason for his failure to attend any further sittings. In spite of this, he was rumoured to be on the point of succeeding Sir Robert Holmes^‡ as governor of the Isle of Wight. Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 1, box 2, folder 107, Yard to Poley, 22 Nov. 1692. The appointment failed to transpire and in April 1693 he was still complaining of his infirmities in his correspondence with Bridgwater. HEHL, EL 8996.

If the loss of his London residence had not been mortifying enough, in August Bolton suffered the shock and embarrassment of being attacked in his own home by Roger Mompesson^‡ (subsequently recorder and Member for Southampton). Bolton was stabbed in the course of the ensuing scuffle. The reason for the assault is uncertain, though given Mompesson’s later interest in Hampshire it seems likely that it may have been the result of a local disagreement. The following month, Mompesson apologized for his action in return for which he was admitted to bail. Although Bolton complained to the Privy Council about the assault and insisted on satisfaction, following a hearing on 12 Oct. it was determined that Bolton should pursue the matter at law, which seems not to have been done. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iii. 168, 179-80; HP Commons 1690-1715, iv. 839.

Neither such incidents nor his declining health diminished Bolton’s interest in local politics. Stanley Garway, one of the local worthies at Stockbridge, recommended addressing Bolton that autumn in advance of the by-election there occasioned by the death of one of the sitting members, ‘not to make much use of him but rather to take him off that he shall not hinder by introducing somebody else’. Bolton, it was thought, had ‘no manner of kindness’ for one of the candidates, Anthony Rowe^‡, but it was Rowe who carried the election against the only other challenger, Henry Dawley. The election was later voided by the Commons. KSRL, Moore ms 143 Ab, S. Garway to Dr Browne, 5 Sept. 1693; HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 248-9.

Bolton returned to the House for the new session on 7 Nov. 1693 but he made it plain to Bridgwater how onerous he found his continued service in Parliament, informing him, ‘I have only time to tell you that I should take no pleasure nor satisfaction in my being here, did I not think it would be for the nation’s good.’ HEHL, EL 8981. It was perhaps out of sympathy to another peer reluctant to make the journey to London that he spoke the following month on behalf of Robert Bertie, 3rd earl of Lindsey, excusing his inability to attend the House. Bodl. ms Eng. lett. e. 129, ff. 120-1. In spite of his griping, Bolton remained active in the House’s business. On 3 Jan. 1694 he was named one of the managers of the conference investigating the admirals in command of the fleet the previous summer, reporting back later the same day, and on 5 Jan. he was nominated a manager of the conference concerning free proceedings in Parliament. Bolton added his name to the protest of 10 Jan. 1694 against the resolution complimenting the admirals and on 15 Jan. he was again nominated a manager of a conference examining their conduct, reporting the effect of the conference the same day. On 8 and 12 Feb. he was named one of the managers of two conferences concerning the sailing of the Brest fleet (reporting back from the first).On 17 Feb. 1694 he voted against reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in the cause Montagu v. Bath. On 29 Mar., Bolton agreed to waive his privilege so that progress should be made in a case brought against him by the creditors of Sir Christopher^‡ and Sir William Wray^‡. On 5 Apr. he received the proxy of John West, 6th Baron De la Warr, which was vacated by the close of the session, and the same day he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the bill for William Stawell, 3rd Baron Stawell.

In the summer of 1694 Bolton was one of several grandees to attempt to intervene on behalf of one John Parr, who had been convicted at the Reading assizes of highway robbery. In spite of such high profile support Parr was unable to sway the judge, who maintained his opinion that Parr was ‘not a fit object for mercy’. Bolton’s efforts on behalf of a soldier in his regiment, condemned by court martial at Carlisle, met with greater success. CSP Dom. 1694-5, pp. 192, 216, 227, 231-2, 349.

Bolton took his seat eight days into the following session on 20 Nov. 1694, after which he was present on almost 83 per cent of all sitting days. His attendance of the session was interspersed with concentration on both local and personal matters. In November he wrote to his sons, Winchester and Lord William Powlett, to secure the writ for yet another election for the troubled borough of Stockbridge, which had narrowly avoided being disfranchised earlier in the year. Hants RO, Jervoise pprs. 44M69/08. Following the debacle of the previous year’s election, the majority of those possessing interest in the borough appear to have coalesced around the candidature of George Pitt^‡, who was accordingly returned without contest. HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 249. In December Bolton was again involved in a legal dispute dating from the previous summer, this time with Bernard Granville over the will of Andrew Riccards. TNA, C5/144/23. Back in the chamber, on 8 Dec. Bolton introduced his old friend Russell’s father, William Russell, as duke of Bedford, and on 28 Dec. he reported from the committee for the drawing up of an address on the queen’s death. On 19 Jan. 1695 he joined with Devonshire and six other peers in subscribing the protest at the resolution not to engross the bill making wilful perjury a felony in certain cases, pointing out that ‘it has appeared by too many instances, not only in former times, but also very lately, how great need there is, of such a bill as this, to deter men from those pernicious crimes of perjury and subornation.’

From February to April Bolton was nominated a manager of four conferences concerning the treason trials bill (reporting the conference’s findings on 15 and 20 Apr.) and on 13 and 17 Apr. he was also nominated one of the managers of the conferences for the bill obliging Sir Thomas Cooke^‡ to account for money received out of the treasure of the East India Company. Bolton had previously brought to the Lords’ attention the suspicions that Russell, one of the servants of John Sheffield, marquess of Normanby, later duke of Buckingham, had accepted substantial bribes for furthering business in the House. LJ xv. 496-7, 505, 539, 540, 543, 560; Add. 29574, f. 393. The same month Bolton joined with a number of senior citizens of Winchester in petitioning on behalf of another highwayman, Richard Purdue, appealing for his sentence to be commuted to transportation as an acknowledgement of the loyal service of Purdue’s father, an alderman of the city. Purdue was duly pardoned the following month. CSP Dom. 1694-5, pp. 419, 484.

Towards the end of the session, Bolton’s health again took a turn for the worse, forcing him to retreat to Hampton Court. In a letter to Bridgwater of 28 Apr. he complained how ‘the very wet day yesterday has increased my cough and I am so weak I cannot ride if the weather were fit to ride in.’ Poor health did not diminish his concern in parliamentary business, though, and he continued to ‘desire your lordship will send me word by the bearer what you do tomorrow. Pray take care to get the bill passed for encouragement of privateers sent up by the House of Commons, it being of great public good for security of the clothing trade, so consequently of my lead, and none but the commissioners of the prizes are against it, who eat up all the king’s profit, which this act give him.’ HEHL, EL 8976. Two days later he wrote to Bridgwater again. He insisted that he remained very sick and how, ‘I have much ado to subsist here and I am sure were I in London (my cough is so great) I could not live’. He again requested that Bridgwater would use his interest to see the privateer bill safely through and once more asked to be advised of other business being considered. Still unwell the following month, Bolton wrote to Bridgwater once more asking him to relay his excuses to the king should he not be well enough to attend the prorogation and (in that event) to carry the cap of maintenance for him. HEHL, EL 8988, 8999.

Last years, 1695-8

Bolton was in Hampshire during the elections that autumn but he expressed his satisfaction at the return of Sir Marmaduke Wyvill^‡ and Thomas Yorke^‡ for Richmond. Bolton Hall mss ZQH 9/12/12. He had rallied from his indisposition sufficiently to make his way back to London shortly after the opening of the new Parliament and returned to the House on 10 Dec. 1695, after which he was present on 68 per cent of all sitting days. Matters relating to trade and the right to membership of Parliament appear to have dominated Bolton’s attention during the early stages of the session. On 14 Dec. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference for the address opposing the establishment of the Darien Company and on 7 and 11 Jan. 1696 he was named one of the managers of the two conferences appointed to consider the bill for regulating the silver coinage. On 17 Jan. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to allow the counsel of Sir Richard Verney, (later 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke) to be heard at the bar concerning Verney’s petition for a writ of summons. The same month he composed a clause to be added to the act to prevent false and double returns of members of Parliament. NLW, Trevor Owen, 201. On 24 Feb. Bolton was nominated one of the managers of the conferences concerning the assassination plot. A month later he had returned to more familiar territory with nomination to the conference relating to the privateers bill on 6 April. On 7 Apr. he subscribed the protest at the resolution to hear counsel the following day over the restraining of the wearing of wrought silks and calicoes. The same month he spoke in committee of the whole House concerning the bill for the security of the king’s person in answer to the calls for moderation voiced by Rochester, Normanby and Nottingham. HEHL, HM 30659 (65), newsletter, 14 Apr. 1696.

Absent at the opening of the second session on 20 Oct. 1696, Bolton was still missing a month later and failed to attend at a call of the House on 23 November. The House ordered that he should be attached if he failed to appear by the following Thursday, ignoring his letter asking to be excused. LJ xvi. 15-17. He took his seat accordingly on 25 Nov. after which he was present on just under 73 per cent of all sitting days. On 30 Nov. he was named one of the managers of the conference concerning the waiving and resuming of privilege and on 20 Dec. he was nominated one of the managers of the conference for the bill for remedying the ill state of the kingdom’s coinage. Bolton’s initial unwillingness to attend may have been connected with his reputed wavering over the question of the attainder of Sir John Fenwick^‡, bt. but by 26 Nov. Vernon was able to inform Shrewsbury that ‘Mr Brydges tells me he has fixed the Duke of Bolton.’ Vernon Shrewsbury Letters, i. 81-82. By the following month Bolton had become firmly reconciled to seeing Fenwick attainted. On 18 Dec. he seconded the motion proposed by Thomas Grey, 2nd earl of Stamford, that the bill of attainder should be read a second time, ‘and withall seemed to insinuate that nobody could be for the government and against the bill’. WSHC, 2667/25/7. Vernon noted him as one of the foremost managers of the case for passing the bill and on 23 Dec. he duly voted in favour of the third reading of the attainder bill. Vernon Shrewsbury Letters, i. 133-4.

Following the Fenwick attainder, when Monmouth became the Lords’ next focus of attack, Bolton rallied to the defence of his old associate. He made his London residence available as the venue for a meeting held in January 1697 in advance of the proceedings against Monmouth, ‘to consider how they might mitigate his censure, if they could not bring him off’. During the debates, Vernon noted that ‘the duke of Bolton, Lord Montagu and Lord Oxford’s [Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford] memories agreed better with my Lord Monmouth’s sense of it, than either the duke of Leeds’, Lord Rochester’s, or Lord Nottingham’s.’ Bolton allowed that there had been ‘a good deal of indiscretion in his [Monmouth’s] conduct that deserved the censure of the House’ but he insisted that Monmouth should expect no more than that. For all his efforts, in the end Bolton was one of only 10 peers to conclude in Monmouth’s favour and the earl was accordingly committed to the Tower. Vernon Shrewsbury letters, i. 162-3, 173-4.

Bolton registered his proxy with Bridgwater on 6 Feb. 1697, which was vacated when he returned to the House on 23 February. On 5 Mar. he was named one of the managers of a conference for the bill for prohibiting India silks and on 8 Mar. he reported from the committee of the whole for the bill for encouraging the bringing in of wrought plate to be coined. On 13 Mar. 1697 he was entrusted with the proxy of Thomas Leigh, 2nd Baron Leigh, and on 17 Mar. Bolton was named to the committee for investigating the actions of the Toulon fleet. The following day he received the proxy of Edward Rich, 6th earl of Warwick (and 3rd earl of Holland), which was vacated two days later when Warwick resumed his seat. Bolton reported from the committee of the whole considering the mutiny bill on 20 March. Toward the end of the month, Bolton’s attention was again taken up with personal matters. He complained that John Salisbury, printer of the Flying Post, had published scandalous remarks about him suggesting that he had obtained a grant from the king worth £20,000 of dotard trees in Needwood Forest, for which aspersions Salisbury was summoned to answer at the bar. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 202-3; LJ xvi. 137-40. New Forest affairs continued to concern Bolton over the summer when he was forced to appeal to Wharton for his assistance over an order from the navy to fell a thousand trees. Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII, Bridgwater to Winchester, 10 Aug. 1697.

Bolton’s relations with his heir took a turn for the worse again that autumn following Winchester’s (third) marriage to Henrietta Crofts, the illegitimate daughter of James Scott, duke of Monmouth. A newsletter recounting Bolton’s opposition to the match reckoned that Lord William Powlett would be the great beneficiary of his brother’s latest indiscretion. CSP Dom. 1697, p. 419. It would seem that the king interposed himself on Winchester’s behalf, though, for at the end of October Bolton wrote to Winchester to assure him that, ‘I freely forgive you as the king has commanded me’ and to hope that, ‘your actions will for the future deserve my favour and approbation, which I shall be very willing to have reason to show.’ Bolton may have been the more ready to mend relations with his son as he found himself under increasing scrutiny over affairs in the New Forest, attributing the pressure exerted on him in the area to the malice of Lord Montagu (presumably Ralph, earl of Montagu). The following month, he emphasized the effort he was making to secure Winchester’s return for the county at the forthcoming election. Although the rival candidate, Thomas Jervoise, was said to have ‘gotten all the parsons on his side’ Bolton was confident that he had ‘so much interest’ with Peter Mews, bishop of Winchester, ‘that I doubt not but to prevail with his lordship to get the clergy to your interest.’ Bolton Hall mss D/10, 11.

Bolton took his seat 10 days into the third session on 13 Dec. 1697, after which he was present on 63 per cent of all days. On 10 Jan. 1698 he was appointed one of the managers of the conference concerning the act preventing correspondence with the former king and his adherents, from which he reported back the same day. Three days later he was also nominated a manager of the conference for the act for continuing the imprisonment of those involved in the recent Assassination Plot. Bolton introduced the divorce bill of Charles Gerard, 2nd earl of Macclesfield, in January. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 332; Beinecke Lib., Biscoe-Maunsell newsletters, 15 Jan. 1698. The same month he was noted as one of four peers, who, it was expected, ‘would be troubling the waters’ during the session. Northants. RO, Montagu (Boughton) mss, 46/181. One of the matters about which Bolton was particularly concerned was the action brought against Charles Duncombe.^{‡ POAS, vi. 303, 306.} On 3 Mar. he brought a printed exposition of Duncombe’s case into the House and proceeded to distribute copies among the peers in an effort to minimize the severity of treatment meted out to him. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 351; Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 163, box 1, Biscoe to Maunsell, 5 Mar. 1698. The following day he registered his dissent at the resolution to proceed with the second reading of the bill for punishing Duncombe. According to Duncombe’s chief tormentor, Charles Montagu, later earl of Halifax, Duncombe had been ‘the cement that kept Peterborough, Bolton, Seymour [Sir Edward Seymour^‡, 4th bt.] and the rest united. He was the Iago of the whole villainy, and nothing can keep them together, but such a busy temper.’ HP Commons 1690-1715, iii. 939; Shrewsbury Corresp. 532. Bolton may have come into contact with Duncombe at first through his association with Peterborough. In spite of Montagu’s assurance that Duncombe’s fall would leave the remaining rump disunited, Duncombe’s case was hard fought in the Lords. Having been nominated a manager of the conferences concerning the bill to punish Duncombe on 7 and 11 Mar., Bolton defied his usual party loyalties by joining with Leeds (as Carmarthen had since become), Rochester and Nottingham in speaking against the measure and on 15 Mar. he voted against committing the bill, which was duly thrown out by one vote. CSP Dom. 1697, p. 129; CSP Dom. 1698, p. 145; Beinecke Lib. OSB mss fc 37, box 1, no. 48, Yard to Manchester, 15 Mar. 1698. Bolton received Leigh’s proxy again on 11 Apr. (which was vacated by the close of the session) and a month later he was nominated one of the managers of the conference concerning amendments to the Colchester workhouses act. Bolton’s own interests as warden of the New Forest caused him to oppose aspects of the bill for preserving timber in the forest in May, during which his counsel was heard in the committee considering the measure. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 375; Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 163, box 1, Biscoe to Maunsell, 7 May 1698. The same month the House appointed a committee to enquire into abuses in the forest, presumably a tacit criticism of Bolton’s stewardship. Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 377.

Bolton’s erratic behaviour increasingly became the subject of comment during the year. At the beginning of May, during the brinkmanship over Sunderland’s expected return to government, Ben Overton^‡ expressed his alarm to Winchester writing how:

I pity the poor duke of B: for your lordship’s sake for he has really contrived that matter so as to be the last man in the nation (on all sides) though he is one of the first. Even those who profit themselves of his mistakes expose him and they do not value him who have him, because they are not sure to have him half an hour. Bolton Hall mss D/16.

Bolton was unsuccessful in supporting the bill against the suspected fraudster, John Knight^‡, being one of only five peers and bishops to support the measure when it came before the House in May 1698. CSP Dom. 1698, p. 248. The same month, he joined with James Bertie, earl of Abingdon, and Edward Fowler, bishop of Gloucester, in promoting an address to the king asking that he press for better treatment of French protestants, but the motion met with spirited opposition and was rejected. HMC Downshire, i. 776. Absent from the session after 1 June, Bolton registered his proxy with Bridgwater again ten days later.

Despite Bolton’s former insistence that he had placed his interest at the disposal of his heir at the election for Hampshire that summer, and although he had written confidently in April both that he believed he had secured the seat for Winchester and that Lady Russell and Mrs Wallop had each promised ‘their first voices for you’, both county seats went to rival Whig candidates. Moreover, in May Thomas Cobbe, one of Bolton’s agents, cast doubt on the strength of Bolton’s commitment to his son, reporting in a letter to Winchester that he would have been in touch sooner, ‘had I been able to have given you any satisfactory account relating to your affairs here, which as Sir Robert Worsley^‡ tells is very much impeded by my lord duke.’ In spite of his earlier protestations, Bolton appears to have concentrated on having Richard Norton returned to the detriment of his son and his subsequent determination ‘to retrieve’ the situation by having the election of Thomas Jervoise overturned on account of bribery was unsuccessful. Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII, Bolton to Winchester, 28 Apr. 1698; HP Commons 1690-1715, ii. 227. Bolton’s younger son, Lord William Powlett, fared better, being returned again unopposed for Winchester.

Divisions over the administration of the New Forest continued to dominate Bolton’s affairs in the autumn of 1698. In spite of an opportunity to ‘accommodate all differences’ one observer thought matters would go otherwise and warned Winchester that the duke’s ‘privy counsellors will not rather make him make the breach wider.’ Bolton Hall mss D/27. Despite this, Bolton appears to have resolved to put aside his differences with his heir to warn him of the commission named by the House to examine the abuses in the Forest and particularly of complaints that had been made by one of the local agents about the poor state of the stables and lodge at Lyndhurst. Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII, 0858-60. Revelations of further Jacobite plotting also appear to have exercised Bolton following information provided by one Paul Robinson against his former master, George Higgons, who had been secured along with a number of other suspects earlier in the month. CSP Dom. 1698, pp. 413, 415. Reporting the affair to Shrewsbury, Vernon expressed his confidence that the council would be eager to get to the bottom of the affair, ‘for it is pretty well known how glad the duke of Bolton is when he hears anything against the Higgons[es].’ Vernon Shrewsbury Letters, ii. 211. It soon emerged, however, that Robinson’s testimony was false and by the end of November he had pleaded guilty to charges of perjury. CSP Dom. 1698, p. 421.

By this time, Bolton was once more prey to poor health and in November 1698 Charles Hatton mistakenly reported the news of his death. Hatton Corresp. ii. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxiii), 235. Complaining of pains in his side, Bolton was too unwell to attend the opening weeks of the new Parliament. He was expected in London by the close of the year and he rallied sufficiently to take his seat in the House following the Christmas holiday on 17 Jan. 1699, though in all he was only able to attend 14 days of the 81-day session. Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII, 0913-14. On 8 Feb. he voted against agreeing with the committee resolution offering to assist the king to retain his Dutch guards, entering his dissent when the motion was carried. He sat for the last time the next day and on 14 Feb. his son-in-law, Bridgwater, reported that Bolton had retreated to his house at Amport for three weeks. Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII, 0933-4. Litigious to the end, on 15 Feb. Bolton wrote to his son requesting his assistance over a dispute with Richard Lewis^‡, the former tenant of one of his estates at Edington, whom he had arrested for breach of covenant in advance of Lewis’ re-election for Westbury for leaving the property in such a state of disrepair. Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII, Bolton to Winchester, 15 Feb. 1699; Hants RO, Bolton of Hackwood pprs. 11M49/E/L2. Further premature reports of Bolton’s demise circulated on 18 Feb. but it still came as something of a surprise when he died suddenly on 27 Feb. at his seat in Hampshire following a short illness. Carte 228, f. 286; CSP Dom. 1699-1700, p. 77; Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 488. Le Neve related inaccurately that he died on the road en route to London. Nichols, Top. and Gen. iii. 30. James Barbon provided the new duke with an account of his father’s last moments within hours of his demise: how he had retired at one o’clock complaining of cramps, but otherwise ‘pretty cheerful’, only to be discovered three hours later ‘dead in his bed’. Bolton’s corpse was conveyed from Amport to Hackwood prior to his burial at Basing. Bolton Hall mss ZBO VIII, 0937. An account of his funeral appeared shortly after in the Post Man. HJ, xvii. 705n.

Prior to his death Bolton had done his utmost to steer his estates away from his heir, who it was reported was left with just £2,000 per annum, while Lord and Lady Bridgwater were bequeathed £5,000 apiece as well as an interest in the personal estate and lead mines in Craven and Westmorland, worth an estimated £30,000 in total. CSP Dom. 1699-1700, p. 81; Northants. RO, Montagu (Boughton) mss, 47/151. The terms of the will broadly bore out such rumours, in which Bolton emphasized his ‘great love and affection’ towards his younger son, Lord William Powlett, who was bequeathed his Yorkshire lead mines and £8,000. To his grandchildren, Mary Jenkins and Charles Powlett* [402], Lord St John (later 3rd duke of Bolton) he bequeathed a further £2,000 apiece. To the poor of Basing and several other Hampshire parishes he bequeathed the sum of £102 per annum in perpetuity and the like amount to the poor of a number of parishes in Yorkshire. Several of his servants were allotted annuities totalling £185 per annum. PROB 11/451. His slighted eldest son thus inherited a severely depleted estate with which to accompany his succession as 2nd duke of Bolton.