NOEL, Baptist (1684-1714)

Noel succeeded to the peerage aged just six, on the death of his cousin, in accordance with the terms of the special remainder. Sainty, Peerage Creations, 15. Gainsborough’s father had died a mere two months before and it appears to have fallen to his mother and to his uncle, John Noel^‡, to take charge of his upbringing and the management of his estates during his minority. Letters of Lady Rachel Russell, 333; Eg. 3357, ff. 110–11. The young earl succeeded to estates in Rutland, Gloucestershire and Middlesex and he was later able to consolidate his position in Rutland by marrying his cousin Lady Dorothy Manners, the daughter of one of the county’s principal magnates. Gainsborough’s succession to the peerage and Noel estates was not without controversy and it proved the catalyst for a case being brought in chancery by the dowager countess of Gainsborough over the inheritance. On paper, the estates should have produced an annual income in excess of £8,000, but the previous holder of the peerage had died leaving them so encumbered that the new earl’s guardians feared that there would not be enough remaining to support the dignity of the earldom. Eg. 3357, ff. 108–11. In 1692 the situation was resolved in part, but two years later Exton was leased to Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, and in 1697 a private act was passed for settling the remaining debts of the 2nd earl. Horwitz, Rev. Pols. 150; PA, HL/PO/PB/1/1697/9W3n45.

Gainsborough was one of ‘a great concourse of the nobility and gentry’ to attend the races at Nottingham in August 1701. Post Boy, 14–16 Aug. 1701. In 1705, having by then attained his majority, he exercised his interest in Gloucestershire on behalf of the renegade Whig Sir Ralph Dutton^‡ and the Tory John Grobham Howe^‡ in the general election but both were defeated. Staffs. RO, D868/7/48a. The following year he was named in an action in chancery brought by William Patterson concerning rights in the manor of Hampstead, which had been leased to Sir Thomas Lane during Gainsborough’s minority. In January 1707 Lane requested a further three weeks from the court so that he could put in his answer to Patterson’s complaint but no further progress appears to have been made in the case. TNA, C 10/445/38; C 33/308, f.144.

Gainsborough received his first writ of summons on 21 Mar. 1707. He took his seat three days later but was then present on just seven sitting days in the session (approximately 8 per cent of the whole). It is not clear why his first sitting was delayed for two years beyond his 21st birthday. On 8 Apr. he was named a reporter of the conference for the vagrants bill but this was to be the only occasion on which he appears to have taken a significant role in the House’s business. He attended two days of the brief session in April but was then absent from the House until 11 Mar. the following year. Having attended on that one day he was thereafter absent for a period of almost three years.

Gainsborough’s political allegiance at this stage appears to have defied strict party classification. In May 1706 he had been noted as one of the members of ‘the honourable order of little Bedlam’, the Tory drinking club revived by John Cecil, 6th earl of Exeter, but an assessment of the peerage of May 1708 reckoned him to be a Whig. Participation in Exeter’s club may indicate nothing more than local sociability, as Exeter was a near neighbour of both Gainsborough and Rutland and it seems most likely that Gainsborough followed his father-in-law in treading a fairly independent path, as evidenced by his support for the Whig Dutton and Tory Howe two years previously. He was absent in the country during the brouhaha caused by the Sacheverell impeachment and so failed to exercise his vote in the business. An analysis of the peerage compiled that October by Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, in which he reckoned Gainsborough to be a likely opponent of his new administration offers further evidence that Gainsborough was not considered to be a Tory. The earl resumed his seat on 15 Jan. 1711 but sat for just three days before again retiring to the country. On 24 Jan. he registered his proxy in favour of William Cavendish, 2nd duke of Devonshire, husband of one of his distant cousins. It was vacated by the close of the session. Gainsborough failed to return during the next session, and on 2 Dec. he again registered his proxy in Devonshire’s favour. It was vacated by the close of the session. In his absence, Gainsborough was believed to be opposed to permitting James Hamilton, 4th duke of Hamilton [S], to take his seat in the House as duke of Brandon.

Gainsborough was absent throughout 1712 but he attended the two prorogation days of 13 Jan. and 26 Mar. 1713. He resumed his seat in the new session on 13 Apr. 1713, after which he was present on approximately 38 per cent of all sitting days. In advance of the session his name had been included on a list compiled by Oxford (as Harley had since become) of peers to be canvassed, but he continued to oppose the ministry’s business during the course of the session. Two days after resuming his seat he visited William Wake, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of Canterbury), someone with whom he appears to have been on close terms. LPL, MS 1770 (Wake Diary), ff. 131–2. In June he was reckoned to be likely to oppose passage of the eighth and ninth articles of the French commercial treaty.

Gainsborough returned to the House for the new Parliament the following year, taking his seat on 17 Mar. 1714. He had attended just eight days when, on 13 Apr., the day of a particularly close vote in the House on the subject of the succession, he was suddenly taken sick and forced to withdraw. The suddenness and severity of his sickness was reflected in the fact that he was said to have been too ill even to sign a proxy form. Boyer, Anne Hist. 689. The following day he was visited by Dr Colbeach, who diagnosed smallpox. Wake Diary, f. 142. His condition continued to worsen and he died early on the morning of Saturday 17 Apr. (or late the previous night). Post Boy, 17–20 Apr. 1714; London Gazette, 17–20 Apr. 1714. Gainsborough’s mother-in-law, Katherine, duchess of Rutland, was in no doubt who was to blame for his demise, bemoaning the fact that those around him had ‘let party prevail, before the consideration of his safety’, and she pointed her finger at Devonshire and Wake as being especially culpable for permitting him to fall sick while preoccupied with business. Staffs. RO, D868/7/36a. Gainsborough’s end came so suddenly that he had no time to draw up a will. A funeral poem, Thalia Lacrimans, in which he was described as ‘Best husband, parent, master, patron, friend’, was composed in his honour by Elkanah Settle. A sermon delivered in 1751 at the time of the death of Gainsborough’s son and heir, Baptist Noel, who succeeded his father underage as 4th earl of Gainsborough, is occasionally mistakenly attributed to the 3rd earl. E. Noel, Some Letters and Records of the Noel Family, 21.