NOEL, Wriothesley Baptist (c. 1661-90)

Poor health appears to have run in the Noel family. Campden (as he was styled until his succession to the peerage) suffered from diabetes, while his father died aged just 48, having previously been incapacitated with what seems to have been a stroke. Premature rumours of Campden’s demise were current in January 1684, though these proved to be unfounded and were swiftly rebutted. Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 1, box 1, folder 40, Yard to Poley, 21 Jan. 1684. Campden appears to have been physically unalluring. One description referred to him dismissively as being ‘not very agreeable in shape though in all other respects valuable enough’. HMC Ormond, vi. 486. In spite of an estimated annual income of £10,000 he struggled to attract a wife. Both Lady Elizabeth Stanhope and one of the daughters of Christopher Hatton, Viscount Hatton, rejected his advances and it was not until 1687 that a marriage was eventually arranged with Katherine Greville. Add. 19253, f. 140; HMC Ormond, vi. 507; Add. 29582, f. 325. The match was almost certainly brokered by his sister, Jane, Lady Digby, whose husband, William Digby^‡, 5th Baron Digby [I], was a political ally of Katherine Greville’s father in Warwickshire. Letters of Lady Rachel Russell, 112–13.

Campden’s own political interests were firmly rooted in Hampshire and Rutland. In 1682 his father arranged his appointment as deputy governor of Gosport and in 1684 Campden was one of those listed as a complainant in a chancery action brought against Rachel, Lady Russell, arising out of the settlement of the Wriothesley estates in Hampshire. CSP Dom. 1682, p. 319; TNA, C10/213/20. Returned for Hampshire at the 1685 general election he also served as joint lord lieutenant of Hampshire and Rutland with his father, but James II’s determination to overturn the Test Act brought an end to Campden’s rapid promotion. Both he and his father attracted the disapproval of Bernard Howard, the king’s agent in Winchester, when they refused to support the court candidates during the 1685 election. Following Gainsborough’s refusal to offer satisfactory answers to the Three Questions, both were turned out of their lieutenancies in 1687. CSP Dom. 1685, pp. 73, 88.

Campden determined to stand for the county again in 1688. It was widely expected that he would be returned once more but when elections were finally held in January 1689 he appears not to have stood. The reason was almost certainly the sudden illness of his father, who died before 8 Apr., and Campden’s consequent elevation to the upper House.

In spite of a reasonable record of attendance in the Commons, Gainsborough failed to take his seat in the Lords. He was recorded as missing on account of ill health on 22 May 1689 and he was again noted as absent, though without explanation, on 28 October. In September he had responded to a request for a self-assessment of his personal estate, insisting that, as his father had died recently in debt and he was now encumbered with the payment of his sisters’ portions, he had ‘no personal estate other than stock and household goods, both of which I conceive ought not to be taxed’. Chatsworth, Halifax collection, B.27. Absent from the House at the opening of the new Parliament the following year, at a call on 31 Mar. 1690 Gainsborough was excused his continued failure to attend. It is possible that his disinclination to appear was on account of poor health but equally possible that he was unwilling to be reconciled to the new regime: a report of July 1690 noted him as one of the peers being sought out in the wake of a plot against the government. HP Commons, 1660–90, iii.146; Verney ms mic. M636/44, C. Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 2 July 1690.

Gainsborough and his countess were noted as taking the waters at Banbury in August but by the end of the month it was apparent that his latest illness was terminal. Letters of Lady Rachel Russell, 231, 254. He died on 21 Sept. and was buried at Exton. In his will he bequeathed a substantial legacy of £5,000 to his sister, Juliana Noel, as well as smaller bequests to servants. He also left debts of £20,000 and an estate in some confusion. Eg. 3357, ff. 108, 110. He was succeeded in the peerage by his cousin Baptist Noel, a minor. His widow later married John Sheffield, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (later duke of Buckingham and Normanby). Add. 75376, f. 88.