James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope
The Lord Carteret | |
---|---|
Secretary of State for the Southern Department | |
In office 27 September 1714 – 22 June 1716 | |
Monarch | George I |
Preceded by | The Viscount Bolingbroke |
Succeeded by | Paul Methuen |
Personal details | |
Born | c. 1673 Whig |
Spouse | Lucy Pitt (1692–1723) |
Children | 7 |
Parent(s) | Alexander Stanhope Katherine Burghill |
Education | Eton College |
Alma mater | Trinity College, Oxford |
James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope
Born in
In 1710 he commanded the British contingent of the
Paroled, he returned to Britain and pursued a political career as a
Background and education
Stanhope was born in Paris in 1673, the eldest of the seven children of Alexander Stanhope (1638–1707), and his wife Katherine (died 1718), the daughter and co-heir of Arnold Burghill, of Thinghall Parva, Withington, Herefordshire, by his second wife Grizell, co-heir of John Prise of Ocle Pyrchard, Herefordshire. He was educated at Eton College and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he matriculated in May 1688.
Stanhope accompanied his father, then English Ambassador to Madrid, to Spain in 1690, and obtained some knowledge of that country which was very useful to him in later life.[2]
A little later he went to Italy where, as afterwards in
Spanish Campaigns
Cadiz
During the opening stages of the war he was in Ireland on recruiting duty. He desperately sought a chance of combat, and was given permission to accompany the
Portugal
In 1703 he served with the Duke of Marlborough's Army in the Low Countries, having arrived too late to take part in the Siege of Bonn.[5] His regiment was then transferred to Lisbon. Due to Portugal's entry into the war on the Allied side, a large British continent was sent to assist them. While Stanhope was in Lisbon recovering from an attack of fever his regiment was part of a Portuguese-commanded garrison which surrendered the town of Portalegre.[6]
Barcelona
In 1705 he served in Spain under Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, notably at the Siege of Barcelona and in 1706 he was appointed English minister in Spain, but his duties were still military as well as diplomatic, and in 1708, after some differences with Peterborough, who favoured defensive measures only, he was made commander-in-chief of the British forces in that country.[7]
Minorca
Taking the offensive he captured
Madrid campaign
After a visit to England in which he took part in the impeachment of Henry Sacheverell, he returned to Spain for the campaign of 1710, with Allied victories at Almenar and Saragossa in July and August enabling Archduke Charles to enter Madrid in September.[7] On the back of these triumphs, Stanhope was selected as Whig candidate for the Westminster seat in the 1710 General Election, with his cousin Lt-General Sherington Davenport as proxy in his absence.
Defeat
Unlike many constituencies, Westminster had a relatively large electorate of over 10,000 and its proximity to both Court and Parliament meant the result often influenced others. Almenar was used to promote 'brave, virtuous Stanhope' but his Tory opponent Thomas Crosse easily won the seat[8] aided by the satirist Jonathan Swift who published thinly disguised accusations of Stanhope's homosexuality.[9] The Tories won the General election in December by a landslide, by which time Stanhope was a prisoner in Spain but this theme was to form an important part of his future image.
Lack of support from the local population meant the Allies entered an almost deserted Madrid and were effectively isolated when Portuguese forces were prevented from crossing into Spain.[10] In November, the Allies left Madrid for Catalonia in separate detachments, one of 5,000 under Stanhope and the second of 12,000 under the Austrian Starhemberg. Stanhope's division was taken by surprise and forced to surrender by a French army led by Louis Joseph, Duke of Vendôme at Brihuega on 9 December 1710. The next day Vendôme followed this up by defeating Starhemberg at Villaviciosa; these defeats were a devastating setback to Allied ambitions in Spain.[11] Although Allied forces continued to operate out of Catalonia, British commitment to the war was already waning under the new Tory government and Stanhope's replacement as British commander in Spain the Duke of Argyll took no offensive action.
Of great significance was the death of
Most of the prisoners taken at Brihuega were quickly exchanged but Stanhope himself remained a prisoner in Spain and only returned to England in August 1712, coming via Paris where he encountered the Tory politician Henry St. John who was there negotiating a peace treaty with France.[13]
Political career, 1712–1721
Once back in Britain he now abandoned his military career and moved wholly into politics. He soon sat for another seat,
Secretary of State
In September 1714 he was appointed Secretary of State for the Southern Department. With Walpole he provided the leadership of the House of Commons. In early 1715 the new government's position was secured when it won a decisive election victory.[14]
He was mainly responsible for the measures which were instrumental in crushing the
He acted as George I's foreign minister, and only just failed to conclude a
Emergence as First Minister
In 1717, consequent on changes in the ministry, Stanhope was made
Domestically his government suffered a defeat when the Impeachment of Robert Harley, former first minister, ended in his acquittal in July 1717.
War of the Quadruple Alliance
He saw Britain's principal foreign policy goals as containing the threat of Spanish, Austrian or Russian expansionist tendencies. His activity was now shown in the conclusion of the
In the ensuing
Domestically, he promoted the Peerage Bill of 1719 to limit the membership of the House of Lords a controversial move as it was seen as an attack directed at his former Whig colleagues led by Walpole. His attempts at pushing for greater religious toleration were defeated by Walpole's supporters.[17]
South Sea Bubble
Just after the collapse of the
Reputation
Basil Williams said Stanhope, "had no special bent for domestic politics.... His impetuosity and want of experience indeed led him into mistakes sometimes in dealing with internal questions." However, Williams goes on to argue that:
- On the other hand, in foreign politics his comprehensive grasp of European conditions and of England's essential interests, his tact and self-control in dealings with foreign allies or opponents, and the blunt honesty of his diplomacy gave him an ascendancy rarely equaled by any of our foreign ministers. This ascendancy was the more remarkable since it had peace alone as its object and its result. The long epoch of comparative security in external relations which enabled Walpole quietly to consolidate the country's internal prosperity on a sound basis was mainly due to Stanhope's achievement in foreign policy.[19]
Family
On 24 February 1713, Stanhope married Lucy Pitt (1692–1723), a younger daughter of
- Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl Stanhope (1714–1786)
- Lady Lucy Stanhope (15 August 1714 – 15 May 1785)
- Lt-Col Hon. George Stanhope (28 December 1717 – 24 January 1754)
- Lady Gertrude Stanhope (born 1718), died young
- Lady Jane Stanhope (born 30 October 1719)
- Hon. James Stanhope (19 August 1721 – 21 April 1730)
- Lady Catherine Stanhope (born 19 August 1721), died young
His sister Mary, one of Queen Anne's six Maids of Honour, 1702–1707, married Charles, 1st Viscount Fane in 1707.
See also
Notes
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (January 2019) |
- ^ Pearce p. 1
- ^ Chisholm 1911, p. 773.
- ^ Chisholm 1911, pp. 773–774.
- ^ Williams. Stanhope. p. 26
- ^ Williams. Stanhope p.31-32
- ^ Williams. Stanhope. p. 34
- ^ a b c d e f g Chisholm 1911, p. 774.
- ^ Cruickshanks, Eveline. "Sir Thomas Crosse". HistoryofParliamentOnline.org. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
- ^ Tolley, Stewart (2017). "In Praise of General Stanhope; Reputation, Public Opinion and the Battle of Almenar 1710-1733". British Journal for Military History. 3 (22): 1 passim. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
- ^ Phillips, Carla (2011). "e Allied Occupation of Madrid in 1710: A Turning Point in the War of the Spanish Succession". Journal of the Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies. 35 (1): 21–25.
- ^ Holmes p.356-357
- ^ Williams. Stanhope p. 118
- ^ Williams. Stanhope p. 121
- ^ Williams. Stanhope p. 169
- ^ Williams. Stanhope p. 200
- ^ "The Peerages of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom". Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page. Leigh Rayment. Archived from the original on 8 June 2008. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ Pearce p.87-89
- ^ A. Newman, The Stanhopes of Chevening (1969), p. 99.
- ^ Basil Williams, The Whig Supremacy: 1714 – 1760 (2nd ed. 1962) p 169.
Further reading
- Williams, Basil. The Whig Supremacy: 1714 – 1760 (2nd ed. 1962) pp. 154–79. online
- Williams, Basil. Stanhope: a study in eighteenth-century war and diplomacy. Clarendon Press, 1932 (reissue 1968).
- Tolley, Stewart. "In Praise of General Stanhope: Reputation, Public Opinion and the Battle of Almenar, 1710-1733." British Journal for Military History 3.2 (2017).
- Edwards, F.L. James, first earl Stanhope (1673-1721) and British foreign policy (1925).
- Field, Ophelia. The Kit-Kat Club: Friends Who Imagined a Nation. HarperPress, 2008.
- Holmes, Richard. Marlborough: England's Fragile Genius. HarperPress, 2008.
- Pearce, Edward. The Great Man: Sir Robert Walpole. Scoundrel, genius and Britain's First Prime Minister. Pimlico, 2008.
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Stanhope, Earls". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 773–775. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the