STANHOPE, Philip Dormer, Lord Stanhope (1694-1773).

On the accession of George I, the future Lord Chesterfield abandoned the grand tour to return to England, was introduced to the new King by his kinsman, James Stanhope, and was appointed a gentleman of the Prince’s bedchamber.Maty, Mems. Life Ld. Chesterfield, i. 19. Returned for St. Germans on the recommendation of James Stanhope, he wrote that ‘from the day I was elected to the day that I spoke I thought nor dreamed of nothing but speaking’.Letter to his son, 15 Mar. 1754. Letters of Chesterfield, ed. Dobrée, 2102.

After his maiden speech on 5 Aug. 1715, calling for Ormonde’s impeachment, a Tory Member, drawing him aside, threatened to reveal his being still under age if he voted as he had spoken, whereupon he ‘answered nothing, but making a low bow, quitted the House directly and went to Paris’.Maty, i. 21-22. He spoke for the septennial bill in 1716. As a member of the Prince’s household he voted against the Government during the split in the Whig party, 1717-20, except in the case of the peerage bill, on which he was put down by Craggs as ‘con’ and by Sunderland as ‘pro’, eventually voting for it along with the other Stanhopes in the Commons. Lady Cowper reported in 1720:

the Prince has been so rough with little Lord Stanhope about voting in the South Sea affair [the proposals of the South Sea Company to take over the national debt], that he has talked of resigning for a good while.Lady Cowper Diary, 136.

In March 1721, reporting the proceedings against Charles Stanhope, Thomas Brodrick commented:

Lord Stanhope ... carried off a pretty many by mentioning in the strongest terms the memory of the late lord of that name.Coxe, Walpole, ii. 209.

At the opening of the next Parliament he moved the re-election of Spencer Compton as Speaker.Knatchbull Diary, 9 Oct. 1722. He did not stand for re-election on vacating his seat by accepting the office of captain of the yeomen of the guard in 1723. Succeeding to the peerage in 1726, he went into opposition over the excise bill in 1733, thereafter holding office only from 1745 to 1748, when he retired.

He died 24 Mar. 1773.