Grey of Ruthin succeeded to the title unexpectedly on the premature death of his older brother Charles Yelverton, 14th Baron Grey of Ruthin, in May 1679. Already orphaned, Grey’s education had been entrusted to his brother-in-law Christopher Hatton, Viscount Hatton. At Oxford he was closely supervised by John Fell, bishop of Oxford. In October 1681 his kinsman Robert Montagu, 3rd earl of Manchester, recommended that he be sent to an academy or to France as he was wasting his time in Oxford but it was not until the beginning of 1683 that Grey embarked on his lengthy foreign tour.
Despite his brother’s unchallenged succession to the barony, doubts still remained about the title of Grey of Ruthin, which was also claimed by the earls of Kent. In an attempt to stifle any objections, Grey received his summons to Parliament when still underage.
News of the rebellion of James Scott, duke of Monmouth, found Grey rallying to the king’s defence by raising funds for his cavalry troop, an activity that won the firm approval of Bishop Fell, who clearly viewed the young peer as worryingly flighty. The summer also witnessed interest in finding Grey a wife but here too he failed to toe the family line. Lengthy negotiations with Elizabeth Wilbraham of Newbottle, who came highly recommended as ‘being of parts, and no way deformed’ and sole heiress to an estate worth at least £1,200 in capital, broke down amid general recriminations over Grey’s behaviour in the affair, and annoyance at the interference of his aunt, the countess of Manchester. Fell and Hatton worried that Grey had come under the influence of other counsellors, while Grey’s refusal to commit elicited exasperated expostulations from Fell, who complained that ‘Lord Grey is such a kind of lover, that no account is to be given of him: for not to be satisfied when every thing he desires is offered, is such a greediness, and canine appetite as is to be reckoned among the worst and most incurable diseases.’
Despite Fell’s expectation that recognition of Grey’s hereditary role in the coronation would frustrate Kent’s ambitions, Grey’s succession to the barony did spark renewed debate with Kent over claims to the title. It is noticeable that Kent, who had failed to question the previous baron’s title, neglected to intervene immediately on this occasion. Absent from the House on 10 June 1685 when Grey first took his seat, he was present two days later yet still failed to take exception to Grey’s name being entered in the roll of peers until 16 November. The House ordered the matter to be referred to the committee for privileges, which reported back the following day that Grey was rightly summoned to Parliament as lineally descended from Reginald, Lord de Grey. Kent’s conduct is difficult to fathom. It is possible that he had been unwilling to stand in the way of the 14th Baron Grey, with whom he appears to have shared similar political views. The 15th Baron Grey, though, was Kent’s political opposite and this may have inspired the renewed challenge.
Faithful to his family’s traditional adherence to solid Anglicanism, Grey quickly found himself in opposition to the king’s policy of toleration. In December 1685 it was reported that he was one of those to have been removed from their commands in the army and in May 1686 he resigned his commission.
The summer of 1688 found Grey involved in a new venture for the recovery of gold and silver from wrecks off the coast of St Helena.
not out of any disrespect to your lordship to whom in gratitude I owe all the respect and service that I am capable of but that I was loath to trouble you with a design which was so hazardous to my self that I was sure it would be a trouble to your lordship.
Add. 29563, f. 395.
On 26 Nov. 1688, Grey, accompanied by George Compton, 4th earl of Northampton, Charles Montagu, 4th earl (later duke) of Manchester, and Robert Leke, 3rd earl of Scarsdale, entered Northampton at the head of between 300 and 500 men.
Grey took his seat in the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689, after which he was present on 63 per cent of all sitting days. Unlike many of his close connections, who opposed James II’s policies but had no wish to see the king deposed, Grey fully supported William and Mary’s adoption as king and queen. He voted in favour of agreeing with the Commons’ desire to insist on the words ‘abdicated’ and that the throne was ‘vacant’, and registered his dissent when this resolution was rejected by the House on 31 Jan. and again on 4 February. On 21 Mar. he entered his protest at the resolution not to add a clause repealing the sacramental test of 1673. Later in the session he voted in favour of reversing Titus Oates’s convictions for perjury.
At the beginning of March 1689 Grey was one of those rumoured to be appointed a colonel of a foot regiment and in September he was granted a 31-year lease of land in St James’s.
Grey’s desertion of James II and his support for William and Mary was further rewarded in April with his advancement in the peerage as Viscount Longueville. Some confusion surrounded the creation of this new title. A warrant of 8 Apr. 1690 ordered the drawing up of letters patent for Grey’s creation as Viscount Glamorgan but by 21 Apr. this had been altered to Longueville.
Despite Longueville’s failure to reveal his intention to join the rising to Viscount Hatton in 1688, no serious rift appears to have been opened between the two families. In May 1690 Hatton stood godfather to Longueville’s son Talbot Yelverton, later 2nd Viscount Longueville and earl of Sussex, while Longueville undertook to use his influence with Bishop Compton to procure a living for one of Hatton’s retainers.
Longueville returned to the House for the new session on 18 Oct. 1690, following which he was present on 63 per cent of all sitting days. In February 1691 he was one of those to stand bail for one of his wife’s kinsmen, Bruno Talbot, brother of Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury, Talbot having been indicted for treason.
Longueville was absent from the House during January and February 1692, during which time his proxy was held by Nottingham. The same year, he was named one of the trustees of an agreement with John Arundell, 2nd Baron Arundell of Trerice, conveying several manors in Devon and Cornwall into the trustees’ hands for raising a portion for Arundell’s daughter, Gertrude. Control of the estates may have offered Longueville the opportunity to exert significant influence in a number of south-western boroughs. Following Arundell’s death, Gertrude’s husband, Peter Whitcombe, entered a complaint against the trustees for failing to observe the terms of the agreement.
Longueville returned to the House for the opening of the fourth session on 4 Nov. 1692, which was dominated by concerns in both Houses over the conduct of the war and the king’s reliance on foreign generals. Longueville reported to the absent Hatton that ‘I believe the king will not thank them that advised him to ask our advice for we are very free with it.’
Longueville attended the prorogation day of 26 Oct. 1693 and then took his seat in the new session on 7 Nov., following which he was present on 71 per cent of all sitting days. His involvement with naval affairs in the House continued the following year. On 3 Jan. and again on 15 Jan. 1694 he was named one of the managers of a conference concerning the admirals who had commanded the summer fleet. Meanwhile, in February he entered his dissent at the order to dismiss the petition of Ralph Montagu, earl (later duke) of Montagu, for the court of chancery’s verdict to be laid aside in his dispute with Bath.
Longueville was absent from the opening of the new session and it was not until 31 Jan. 1695 that he took his seat. He was thereafter present on 21 sitting days (17 per cent of the whole). On 30 July he attended the prorogation day and then took his seat once more in the new Parliament on 22 Nov., following which he was present on 53 per cent of all sitting days. He returned to the House for the subsequent session on 23 Nov. 1696 but he then proceeded to attend on just 21 per cent of all sitting days in the session. On 30 Nov. he was one of the managers of a conference over waiving and resuming privilege. The following month he entered a series of dissents against the resolution to try Sir John Fenwick‡. He then voted against passing the bill of attainder and registered his dissent when the measure was carried. In refusing to commit Fenwick it is possible that Longueville objected to the dubious use of Parliament to attaint a man who could not be convicted by ordinary process of law, but the true reason for his objections was probably reflected in an undated letter to Hatton in which he commented that there had been ‘many people before the Lords Justices to make out a plot but they have only proved themselves to be rascals’.
Longueville was absent from the House from 23 Dec. 1696 and did not return until the opening of the third session on 6 Dec. 1698. During his absence William Savile, 2nd marquess of Halifax, held his proxy. The 1698 election found Longueville called upon to join with Hatton in supporting the return of Sir Justinian Isham‡ for Northamptonshire. He ‘endeavoured to serve Sir Justinian’ but, intending to be absent from the county at the time of the election, excused himself from ‘doing him so much service as I otherwise should have’.
Longueville took his seat in the new Parliament on 6 Dec. 1698. In January 1699 he supported moves to disband the army, reporting to Hatton that the bill had met with so ‘cool a reception’ in the House that ‘the court intend to throw it out of the House of Lords which will make us very popular’.
In the midst of his parliamentary activities Longueville continued to develop his estates. In April 1699 he petitioned successfully for a grant of a market at Egton in North Yorkshire, which he had acquired in 1686.
Longueville took his seat in the House for the opening of the 1701 Parliament on 6 February. Present on approximately 69 per cent of all sitting days, on 15 Mar. he entered protests at the resolution to reject the second and third heads of the report relating to the partition treaty and on 20 Mar. he entered a further protest at the resolution not to send the address relating to the treaty to the Commons for their concurrence. The following month he chaired two conferences on the subject of the treaty. On 11 Apr. he was chairman during a committee of the whole concerning Lady Anglesey’s separation act. On 25 Apr. he was again called upon to chair a committee of the whole concerning Dillon’s divorce. Four days later he was teller for the minority supporting the committee’s recommendations. Longueville chaired a select committee concerning the prisons bill on 3 May, and two days later he served as chairman during a committee of the whole deliberating the amendments to the act for regulating the king’s bench and Fleet prisons. The same month, during discussions in a committee of the whole concerning the succession bill, he proposed that an annual income of £4,000 should be made the minimum qualification for all newly created viscounts, while barons should be expected to be in possession of estates of £3,000 p.a. He went on to argue that lands belonging to peers should be inalienable from the peerage.
Longueville took his seat in the new Parliament on 15 Jan. 1702, after which he was present on 84 per cent of all sitting days. Perhaps unwilling to allow vindictive acts to be passed against the defeated Stuarts, he entered his protest at the bill for the attainder of Queen Mary Beatrice in February 1702 and he also reported back from the conference held concerning the bill to attaint James Edward, the ‘pretended’ prince of Wales. On 24 Feb. he entered his dissent at the resolution to pass the bill for the further security of the queen. The same month he chaired two committees of the whole House concerning the perjury bill.
Prominent as one of the peers that had rallied to her protection in 1688, at the accession of Queen Anne, Longueville was named one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber to Prince George of Denmark. Longueville’s reputation for solid Anglicanism may also have served to recommend him to the queen, though he proved difficult to please with this new appointment. A series of letters between his wife and Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, revealed his concern at the extent of his duties. The senior member of a notoriously sickly family (Longueville’s father and both of his brothers had died comparatively young), Longueville may have been unwilling to overburden himself.
Despite his disinclination to spend more time at court than was necessary, Longueville continued to be an active participant in the House and was frequently named to chair conferences. He also acted as teller on several occasions. He continued to chair a number of committees of the whole House in 1702 and on 18 Apr. he was nominated to that concerning the Abjuration Oath Alteration Act.
On 25 Nov. 1702 Longueville proposed that the House should adjourn following a desultory showing at prayers at the beginning of the day, in spite of an order made the day before. He made his suggestion ‘in resentment of an order not obeyed by those that made it’ but his motion, which is not minuted in the Journal, failed owing to the interposition of Francis Newport, earl of Bradford.
Following discussion in a committee of the whole of the bill to prevent occasional conformity on 4 Dec. 1702, Longueville was teller for those voting against the amendment permitting those bearing office to receive the sacrament four times a year. The amendment was narrowly rejected, Thomas Wharton, 5th Baron (later marquess of) Wharton, acting as teller for the defeated side. On 22 Dec., Longueville reported back from a committee considering Sir Robert Marsham’s bill and the same day he chaired a committee of the whole considering the land tax, though according to William Nicolson, bishop of Carlisle, who was one of Longueville’s close acquaintances, few of those present bothered to pay much attention.
Longueville returned to the House just under three weeks into the new session on 29 Nov. 1703, following which he was present on approximately 19 per cent of all sitting days. In December he entered his dissent at the failure to carry the bill for preventing occasional conformity. He sat for the final time on 20 Jan. 1704 and died at Bath, ‘much lamented’, two months later.