YELVERTON, Charles (1657-79)

The Yelverton family, originally from Norfolk, settled in Northamptonshire towards the close of the sixteenth century. They also possessed extensive estates in Yorkshire. HP Commons, 1660–90, iii. 786; Add. 29557, f. 156. A series of advantageous marriages tied the family into a powerful local network that included the Montagu earls of Manchester. Yelverton’s father, Sir Henry, had died when he was just 13, so his education and that of his younger brothers was committed to the care of their neighbour Christopher Hatton, Viscount Hatton, who later married Yelverton’s sister Frances. Northants. RO, FH 3101. Soon after Sir Henry’s death, Yelverton’s mother, Baroness Grey in her own right, managed a bill through Parliament for making provision for Yelverton’s brother Neville, who had been born posthumously. The bill attracted lively debate and was opposed vigorously by John Lucas, Baron Lucas, whose son-in-law, Anthony Grey, 11th earl of Kent, also had a claim to the barony. At one point Lady Grey appears to have been advised to get Yelverton to appear in the House, even though he was significantly underage, perhaps in the hopes of preventing any future challenges to his title. The bill passed the House on 17 Mar. 1671. Bodl. ms Eng. lett. c. 210, pp. 161–86.

Yelverton succeeded to the barony of Grey of Ruthin on the death of his mother five years later. A proud and difficult boy, Grey was regarded as ‘a child of an unsettled head’ by his tutor at Eton, who feared that his ‘late accession of honour and estate has filled it with a thousand fancies more than were in it before’. Add. 29577, f. 382. Some confusion surrounded the descent of the barony of Grey. Even the correct style of the title was uncertain. Rather than Grey of Ruthin, William Dugdale insisted that the correct form was simply Grey, while in other cases the title was represented as de Grey. Hatton Corresp. i. 145. In 1677 there was a further effort to secure Grey’s right to the peerage before he attained his majority when Hatton approached Dugdale querying whether or not Grey could apply for his writ of summons while under age in response to an attempt by Kent to lay claim to the barony. Add. 29549, f. 76; Northants. RO, IC 982 (a); CSP Dom. 1677–8, p. 12. Dugdale’s response was that Grey could not petition for his writ early but he assured Hatton that his title to the peerage was quite safe. Hatton Corresp. i. 145.

Following his time at Eton Grey was sent to complete his education in France, where his tutor, Rigby, worried that there was ‘much to be done before the nobleness of his mien answer the sprightliness of his other qualities’. Northants. RO, FH 4343. These latter character traits seem to have led Grey into becoming entangled while abroad and rumours circulated of a private marriage brokered between him and the daughter of Lady Harvey (probably his distant kinswoman Elizabeth, Lady Harvey, wife of Sir Daniel Harvey^‡ and daughter of Edward Montagu, 2nd Baron Montagu of Boughton). Add. 29571, ff. 402–3. The possibility of a surreptitious liaison caused great anxiety among Grey’s friends and prompted an angry response from him that their lack of trust had made a fool of him. Northants. RO, FH 4339. The judgment of John Fell, bishop of Oxford, that the affair would ‘prove a laughing matter’ was shown to be correct but in the short term the phantom engagement caused a serious rupture between Grey and his friends, he being ‘much troubled that the alarm was taken by us, and is resolute not to come home’. Northants. RO, FH 4355, 4369; Add. 29571, f. 404. A more pressing reason for his continuing abroad appears to have been some wrangling over the terms of his settlement. His sister Lady Hatton noted that their cousin John Palmer, archdeacon of Northampton, ‘grudged him his money’. Northants. RO, FH 4390. In his absence he was noted by Antony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, as a ‘worthy minor’.

Grey had returned to England by the close of April 1678. He came back ‘one of the finest gentlemen in England’ and ‘much improved’, but annoyance with his family appears to have influenced some of his future actions. Despite Fell’s encouragement that he should now marry, he was disinclined to do so. Add. 29571, ff. 459–60; Bodl. ms Eng. lett. c. 210, f. 233. Far more appealing was involvement in politics and, despite his comparative youth, Grey appears to have been more than ready to exercise his influence. In London in advance of the new parliamentary session in September 1678, he attempted to wield his interest on Hatton’s behalf in an effort to secure Hatton’s recall from Guernsey but, finding that there was ‘very little encouragement to invite your lordship amongst us’, he acquiesced in following Charles Hatton’s advice and delegated the matter to James Scott, duke of Monmouth. Add. 29556, ff. 427, 429.

Grey took his seat on 21 Oct. 1678 (the opening day of the final session of the Cavalier Parliament), four days after the discovery of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey’s body. Despite earlier indications that his title might be questioned by Kent, no challenge was made, no doubt owing to the escalating crisis surrounding the Popish Plot. Grey sat assiduously throughout the session, attending on almost 94 per cent of all sitting days. He explained his diligence in a letter to his cousin Palmer, stressing that:

I do not love to neglect the House in this crisis, especially when I have seen at first ourselves outnumbered by the popish lords … both houses avoid to the utmost all cause of dissension, and everybody is so zealous, that though we have ordered things of the highest nature, never anything was put to the question. Bodl. ms Eng. lett. c. 210, f. 239.

Despite such regular attendance, Grey was named to few committees. Those to which he was named were directly connected to the conspiracy. Two days after taking his seat, he was appointed to the committee examining the papers about the Popish Plot and the following day to that examining whether constables and other city officers were Catholics. On 26 Nov. 1678 he was named to the committee considering the bill to raise the militia, which was rejected impatiently by the king. Grey may have voted in favour of disabling Catholics from sitting in Parliament in the division held in a committee of the whole on 15 Nov. and on 29 Nov. he was one of only five peers who voted to agree with the Commons in their attempt to have the queen and her retainers removed from Whitehall. Such activities gained for him the approbation of John Twysden, who asked Archdeacon Palmer to convey his service to Grey, ‘who I hear gives a very honest vote in Parliament’. Bodl. ms Eng. lett. c. 201, f. 247. The following month, on 23 Dec., Grey registered his dissent at the resolution that Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), should not be required to withdraw from the chamber following the reading of the articles of impeachment against him. Three days later he voted against insisting on the Lords’ amendment to the disbanding bill and the following day he took the opposite stance to the majority of his kinsmen once again by voting in favour of committing Danby. He then recorded his dissent at the failure to carry the motion.

Towards the close of the session Grey had lost much of his earlier zealousness in prosecuting the Popish Plot and he admitted to Hatton: ‘we are now so tired with these discourses, that as before we took all the pains imaginable to approve or discountenance a new witness, we let them now proceed in their method, and had rather suffer ourselves to be accused, than to engage ourselves afresh in those endless quarrels’. Add. 29556, f. 433. Growing cynicism over the business of the Plot did not extend to Grey’s attitude to Danby. Although Danby’s wife had been a friend of Grey’s mother, throughout the early months of the following year Danby consistently reckoned Grey as one of his opponents. Despite this, at the first election of 1679, in alliance with his uncle Robert Montagu, 3rd earl of Manchester, Grey encouraged his cousin Sir Hugh Cholmley^‡, one of Danby’s supporters, to stand for Northampton. HP Commons, 1660–90, i. 341, ii. 62. Support for Cholmley clearly had more to do with family loyalty than any factional considerations; Grey’s developing association with the country party was more obviously revealed by his efforts to persuade Hatton to support the candidacy of Miles Fleetwood^‡ for Northamptonshire. Grey was confident that he ‘need not much importune you for him’, Hatton having ‘always expressed so much kindness to his interest’. Add. 29556, f. 431. In the event Fleetwood was beaten into third place.

Grey attended five days of the abortive first session that convened on 6 Mar. 1679. He then took his seat two days after the opening of the new Parliament on 17 Mar., after which he was present on 37 sitting days (54 per cent of the whole). He may have been the Lord Grey named as one of the managers of a conference held with the Commons concerning Danby on 22 Mar. and in early April he voted in favour of Danby’s attainder. He continued to do so on two subsequent occasions. By doing so he found himself once more in opposition to Hatton, who remained loyal to the disgraced lord treasurer. On 7 Apr. Grey registered a further dissent against the resolution that Sidway stand committed for his information against Peter Gunning, bishop of Ely. On 8 May he dissented once more at the resolution not to agree with the Commons’ request for a joint committee to consider the manner of proceeding against the impeached lords. Two days later he divided in favour of appointing such a committee and then entered his dissent once again when the motion failed to carry.

Grey sat for the final time on 12 May 1679 (two months before the close of the session). Taken ill suddenly, he died ‘of the spotted fever’ (wrongly identified at first as smallpox) five days later, aged just 22. HMC 7th Rep. 472; Northants. RO, IC 1185, 1186; Hatton Corresp. i. 229n; Bodl. ms Eng. lett. c. 210, f. 255; Verney ms mic. M636/32, J. to Sir R. Verney, 19, 22 May 1679. He was buried at Easton Maudit and was succeeded by his brother Henry Yelverton as 15th Baron Grey of Ruthin. VCH Northants. iv. 16.