6 FEBRUARY 1864, Page 11

THE SPENCERS.—(SECOND PERIOD.)

m HE Earl of Sunderland, statesman and schemer, was succeeded by his younger son Charles, who ran a remarkable career. He entered Parliament in 1695 as member for Tiverton. His character is the subject of much dispute among historians. Macaulay is very severe in his remarks on him. "The precocious maturity of the young man's intellectual and moral character had created hopes," he says, " which were not destined to be realized. His knowledge of ancient literature and his skill in imitating the styles of the masters of Roman eloquence were applauded by veteran scholars. The sedateness of his deportment and the apparent regularity of his life delighted austere moralists. He was known, indeed, to have one expensive taste ; but it was a taste of the most respectable kind. He loved books, and was bent o u forming the most magnificent private library in England. While other heirs of noble houses were inspecting patterns of steinkirks and sword-knots, dangling after actresses, or betting on fighting-cocks, he was in pursuit of the Mentz editions of Tully's 4 offices; of the Parmesan Statius,' and of the inestimable Virgil' of Zarottus. It was natural that high expectations should be formed of the virtue and wisdom of a youth whose very luxury and prodigality had a grave and erudite air ; and that even discerning men should be unable to detect the vices which were hidden under that show of premature sobriety. Spencer was a Whig, unhappily for the Whig party, which be- fore the unhonoured and unlamented close of his life was more than once brought to the verge of rain by his violent temper and his crooked politics." On the other hand, Lord Stanhope, who may have been somewhat influenced by the friendship between his great ancestor and Sunderland, observes, " The character of Earl Charles has, in my opinion, been unjustly depreciated ; he has been confounded with his predecessor, and the perfidy of the parent has east its blighting shade over the fame of the son. The father was a subtle, pliant, and unscrupulous candidate for royal favour ; the son carried his love of popular rights to the very verge of republican doctrines. If he be sometimes open to charges of secret cabals, we find him much more frequently accused of im- prudent vehemence and bluntness. . . . He was, undoubtedly, a man of great quickness, discernment, and skill, of persevering ambitionof 'a ready eloquence. Under the show of a cold and reserved exterior there glowed the volcano of an ardent and fiery spirit, a warm attachment to his friends, and an unsparing ran- cour against his opponents. His learning is not denied, even by

t he enmity of Swift, and his activity in business seems to be equally unquestionable. In private life he might be accused of extravagance and love of play, and his conduct in more than one public transaction appears to me either equivocal or blamable ; but I may observe that several points for which he was con- demned by his contemporaries would, on, the contrary, deserve the approbation of more enlightened times." On the whole, perhaps, we may say that the cloud which overshadowed his father's fame exaggerated in the popular mind the tendencies of Sunderland, and gave a deeper cast to his moral delinquencies than the troth warranted ; but, on the other hand, that there was just enough re- semblance in his character to some parts of his father's to suggest this ancestral reference, and the hereditary taint seems to have existed, though it may have been far lees engrained than in the father's case. His father also had an affected frankness of manner, though no man was really less frank. In early life Charles Spencer put forward strong republican opinions, refusing to be called " Lord,"

and saying that he hoped to see the end of that-Order. Macaulay treats his republicanism as of the narrowest oligarchical and Venetian character, based on the aristocratic types of Pompey and Cicero. But the reason he gives for this opinion, the measure brought forward at a later period by Sunderland to restrict the number of the Peers, is not conclusive on the point. He certainly throughout life professed strong Whig opinions, and in the Parliaments of 1695, 1698, and 1701, he advocated these principles so eloquently in the House of Commons and, after his accession to the Peerage, in the House of Lords, that he soon rose to distinction in the ranks of the Whig party. In Parliamentary eloquence he much excelled his father. He had first married, in 1695, a daughter of Henry Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle ; but on her death (leaving only a daughter, married to the heir of the Earl of Carlisle) he made a second and more important match with Lady Anne Churchill, Marlborough's second daughter and co-heiress, and through his father-in-law's influence, probably, he was sent in the summer of 1705 as Ambassador to Vienna, to compliment the Emperor Joseph on his accession, and on the 10th of April, 1706, was appointed one of the Commissioners for the Union with Scotland. These were only introductory steps to the more important post of Secretary of State, which the Whigs obtained for him in December, MO. Marlborough is said to have opposed the appointment at first, distrusting his son-in-law's rashness ; but the all-potent Sarah decided that it should be so. The Cabinet soon became entirely Whig by the removal of Harley, the other Secretary, and from this time down to the year 1710 Sunderland continued to act in this post with considerable ability, though historians differ as to his discretion as a politician and a political leader. According to Lord Dartmouth, " Queen Anne said Lord Sunderland always treated her with great rudeness and neglect, and chose to reflect in a very injurious manner upon all Princes before her as a proper entertain- ment for her." But the Duchess of Marlborough's influence having then given way to another's, Sunderland, as her son-in-law, got naturally out of the Queen's good graces, and in June, 1710, the first public intimation of the approaching downfall of the Whigs was given by the Earl's sudden dismissal from his Secretaryship. As soon as Sunderland's intended dismissal began to be rumoured, Marlborough, his wife tells us, wrote a very moving letter to the Queen against the step, and the Duchess herself was persuaded to condescend to similar appeals. But all was vain, and Sunderland remained out of office for the rest of that reign. When the House of Hanover was proclaimed he naturally looked for a high appoint.. ment in the Cabinet. But first of all both he and his father-in-law were passed over in the appointments of Lords Justices before the King's arrival, and when the new Cabinet was formed Townshend was preferred to him, and he had merely the appointment of Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland. Incensed at this slight, Sunderland never repaired to his post, but consoled himself with annoying the Government by giving all the Irish appointments to " natives," to the horror of the " English " party there. He is also ac- cused of intrigues with the Pretender, and it is certain he coquetted with the Jacobites as well as the Tories to induce them to join him against the Government, drawing off also some of the Whigs. He alarmed the Government sufficiently to induce them in August, 1715, to make him Privy Seal with a seat in the Cabinet, and in February, 1716, Vice-Treasurer of Ireland. But as this gave him no real power, he continued to maintain a sulky silence in the House of Lords and to intrigue against his col- leagues. In July, 1716, he had an opportunity of revenging him- self on them. The King's journey to Hanover, as we have said in our account of the first Earl Stanhope, gave Sunderland, who was at Aix-le-Chapelle, the means of personal access to the King. Of this he availed himself with such effect that he captivated George as completely as his father had Charles, James, and William. He also made a friend of Stanhope, and together they contrived to get Townshend dismissed, and in April, 1717, Walpole and Pulteney shared the same fate, and Sunderland and Stanhope became the heads of a new Government—the former as Secretary of State. This post he subsequently exchanged with Stanhope for that of First Lord of the Treasury, and he also took for the time the post of President of the Council, and, on his resigning the latter, office in February, 1719, the King, as a sort of special favour, made him Groom of the Stole and First Gentleman of the Bed- chamber. Sunderland now ruled the home policy of the Govern- ment, as Stanhope did its foreign. In March, 1719, the former introduced his Peerage Bill, restricting the number of creations—. intended, it is said by Sunderland, as an act of protection to hun. self and his colleagues against the Prince of Wales in case of the

K ing's death. After passing through the House of Lords without a division, it was at last thrown out in the Commons, through the exertions of Walpole, by a large majority. Sunderland is accused of having vainly attempted to secure a pliant House of Commons by the exercise of the grossest bribery and jobbery. But, perhaps, here also we must allow something for party exaggeration and recollections of his father's conduct. He now found it ne- cessary to conciliate Walpole, and the latter and Townshend also despairing of overthrowing the Cabinet, consented to enter it in Jane, 1720. The Cabinet was scarcely re-formed when the South Sea Bubble crash occurred, and among the revelations which came forth was an accusation of several of the Ministers of corruption. Sunderland especially was accused of taking 50,000/. of stock with- out paying for it. Lord Stanhope discredits the charge, other his- torians consider it proved. The public, however, at the time, from the recollection of his father's corrupt dealings, had no doubts, and the accusation, it is said, would have been declared established if it had not been for the great exertions of Walpole. The public still continued to believe in his guilt and to clamour against him, and Sunderland, like his father, thought it prudent to beat a retreat, and in April, 1721, resigned all his appointments. He continued, however, to exercise a great influence on public affairs, and retained such favour with the King that he really nominated to the important offices, and among these appointments was that of Lord Carteret, who gratefully defends his memory. Ile is accused of intriguing without cessation to remove Walpole from power and procure his own reinstatement ; and, again, of corres- pondence with the Pretender, but it appears, on the authority of the Chevalier himself, that he merely made vague professions of good- will to some of the Jacobites, most probably, as before, to gain them over, and it would also seem that he did so with the knowledge and approval of King George. In the midst, however, of his intrigues and hopes. Sunderland died suddenly, on the 19th April, 1722, so suddenly that poison was hinted at ; but on his body being opened it was found that he died from disease of the heart. Besides his patronage of books and learning, he was an active member of the Kit-Kat Club. He had married a third time ; but his sons who succeeded to the property were all by his second wife, eventually the heiress of the Churchills. Of his four sons, the eldest, Robert, succeeded as fourth Earl of Sunderland, but died unmarried November 27, 1729 ; the second, Charles, succeeded his brother as fifth:Earl of Sunderland, and on the death of his aunt Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough (the wife of Earl Godolphin), in 1733 became Duke of Marlborough. John, the third son of the third Earl of Sunderland, in 1744, succeeded to the Spencer property, with Althorp, and was the father of the first Earl Spencer.

We shall first pursue the fortunes of the elder branch, who, as Dukes of Marlborough, still hold a high position in English political and social life. Charles Spencer, fifth Earl of Sunder- land and seventh Lord Spencer, on the death of hii cousin, the Marquis of Blandford, only son of Henrietta, Duchess of Marl- borough, and Earl Godolphin,:succeeded to an annual rent-charge of 8,0001., and on the decease of the Duchess without male issue, October 24, 1733, succeeded as Duke of Marlborough to the honours of the Churchills-a family claiming a descent from Roger de Courcill, who held lands in Somersetshire, Dorsetshire, and Devonshire in the time ape Doomsday survey ; but who will be only remembered in history as the family of the " Great Duke." The new Duke chose the career of a soldier, and became Colonel of the 1st Regiment of Dragoons, commanded the Foot Guards at Dettingen, and the great but fruitless expedition of 1758 against St. Mato. He had scarcely returned when he was placed in command of an expedition to Embden, where he died, men said, of dysentery, but others suspected foul play, a gentleman having been prosecuted for threatening if the Duke did not supply his wants to avenge himself " by means which no physic would remedy." His successor, George, third Duke, was a man of very retired habits, of whom Lord Loughborough said that he would have been an excellent head for a coalition Cabinet if only he could have overcome his aversion to business.

In 1789, in the " Auckland Correspondence," regret is expressed at his being too nervous to second the Address to the Throne. He was a Conservative-Whig in his opinions, and a general supporter of Mr. Pitt's Government, but he scarcely took any part in politics, having a great aversion to the heartburnings and animosities often conse- quent on that career. He lived almost entirely at Blenheim, where he rendered himself an object of great affection to his tenants and the neighbourhood by his amiable and charitable disposition. His private life is described as unblemished even by the faintest scandal, and in him we seem to have a revival of the old Spencer type of character exhibited by the predecessors of the two intriguing Earls. He married a daughter of John, Duke of Bedford, and was found dead in his bed without any previous indisposition, January 29, 1817, at the age of 78. The Duke's second son, Francis Alaric Spencer, was created on the 11th of August, 1815, Baron Churchill of Whichwood, Oxfordshire, and his son is the present Lord Churchill. George, fourth Duke of Marlborough, was a singu- lar man, whose career had a most promising commencement and a melancholy termination. He was educated at Oxford, and entered Parliament for Oxfordshire in 1790, in room of his uncle, Lord Charles Spencer, but relinquished the seat to him again in 1796. In July, 1804, he was appointed one of the Lords of the Admiralty, which office he filled till February, 1806, when he was called up to the House of Peers in his fathers Barony of Spencer. After his father's death, when he became Duke of Marlborough, he took by royal licence, in May, 1817, the name and arms of Churchill, in addition to those of Spencer. He attached himself to the Whig party, and became a strong partizan. Some scandal was created at an election for Woodstock by the Duke's younger son standing on his father's interest against the elder, the Marquis of Blandford, who had adopted Conserva- tive views. While he was Marquis of Blandford the Duke exhi- bited many of the tastes of his family, and was distinguished by the magnificence and reckless expense with which he indulged in them. Especially his gardens and his library at White Knights, near Reading, which place he had purchased in 1798, attracted general attention. At the sale of the library of the Duke of Roxburghe, in 1812, the Marquis (as he then was) engaged in competition with his cousin, Earl Spencer, for an edition of the " Decamerone " of Boccaccio, printed at Venice in 1471, and obtained it at the enormous price of 2,2601. An imperfect copy was already in the library at Blenheim. The Roxburghe Club was formed on this occasion, Earl Spencer. becoming President and the Marquis of Blandford one of its- members. In 1815 he bought the celebrated Bedford Missal for the sum of 6981. 5s. Besides these expensive tastes the Duke had the family vice of gambling, and the two combined brought him- down from his princely position to one of great poverty. His collections were all sold, and for the latter years of his life he lived in complete but not reputable seclusion in one corner of Blenheim Palace, and seldom quitted the spot, except for a short visit every year to a watering-place. He died March 5, 1840. His eldest son and successor, George Spencer-Churchill, fifth Duke, did nothing to redeem the family character, though in the first period. of his succession to the Dukedom be managed by rather close- economy to retrieve in some measure the family property. He also quarrelled with his eldest son on the score of politics, the latter having adopted Peel principles. The Duke died July 1, 1857, and was succeeded by his eldest son, John Winston, sixth and present Duke, a man of far higher personal character and some ability, though (of late years) of rather narrow Church-Conserva- tive principles. His younger brother, Lord Alfred Spencer- Churchill, M.P., has exhibited some talent as a politician, and! is a very Liberal Conservative.

We must now hastily glance at the career of the younger. Spencer branch, represented by the present Earl Spencer. John Spencer, the youngest son of Charles Spencer, third Earl of Sunderland, by Lady Anne Churchill, entered Parliament for Woodstock at the beginning of 1732, for which place he continued' to sit for many years. In October, 1744, on the death of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, he acquired a large property. In the- first place his elder brother, in accordance with his grand- father's will, relinquished the Spencer patrimony in his favour on attaining to the Churchill estates, and Althorp became the chief seat of the new Spencer family. At the same time John Spencer acquired an immense property from the deceased Duchess, whose- favourite grandson he was, nearly all her large paternal (the. Jennings') estates-among them the Wimbledon property-and nearly the whole of the Duchess's own accumulations of money during her long life. The new family, therefore, started on a scale of opulence more than equal to the elder branch. John Spencer also succeeded to the office of Ranger and Keeper of the- Great Park at Windsor, which fell to him on the death of his grandmother, the Duchess, and wasahe only place he was allowed by her will to accept. He died June 20, 1746, and was succeeded by his only son, John, born December 18, 1734. He entered Parliament for Warwick in December, 1757, and on April 3, 1761, - was created Viscount Spencer and Baron Spencer of Althorp, and on November 1, 1765, Viscount Althorp and Earl Spencer. He held no public office, and died October 31, 1783. His only- son and successor, George John, second Earl Spencer, attached himself to the Whig party, and particularly that section headed by the Duke of Portland. Along with the Duke he took office, 1782, as a Lord of the Treasury, and again in July, 1794, under Pitt, as Lord Privy Seal. This office he exchanged in the autumn of the same year for that of First Lord of the Admiralty, which he filled down to the year 1801. He was no debater, but had considerable administrative abilities, and it was under his guidance that the naval department of the Government remained during the greater part of the first revolutionary war with France, and he had to contend with the formidable mutiny at the '.lore. He dis- approved of the terms of the peace of Amiens, and attaching himself thenceforth to Lord Grenville, with him took office in 1806 under Fox. After the death of that statesman. Lord Spencer retired from public life, and at Althorp revived the old fame of his family for hospitality and attention to their estates. He took great pains in establishing savings' banks in the county, and was for many years Chairman of the Quarter Sessions. About fifteen years before his death his tenantry presented him with a silver vase as a testimonial of their attachment, at a meeting at Althorp, at which one tenant was present whose ancestors had held from the Spencers uninter- ruptedly from the time of the founder, Sir John Spencer, in the reign of Henry VIII. The Earl also, as we have intimated, was a great collector of books, and the splendid library at Althorp is a monu- ment of his taste and energy. He had the true Spencer taste for private life and maintained the family virtues. His death, November 10, 1834, gave William IV. the opportunity of dis- missing the Whig Ministry, of which his eldest son John Charles was the leader in the House of Commons as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The character of this nobleman, the third Earl Spencer, is well known. His early leadership of the Liberal party in the first days of the Reform administration, his retirement into private life and assiduous patronage of agricultural pursuits, and his advocacy of free-trade principles, are matters of recent history. He died October 1, 1845, and was succeeded by his brother Frederick, fourth Earl, who died December 27, 1867, and was succeeded by his son John Poyntz, fifth and present Earl Spencer. Neither of the two last Earls has made any position in political life, though the "estimable " character of the family seems not to have been misrepresented in their persons.

We have abstained hitherto, contrary to custom, from giving any opinion on the character of this great House, chiefly for this reason.. No narrative within our limits of space would prove what we believe to be the truth—that the Spencers have, from first to last, belonged to a class, formerly very rare, now terribly common, men in whom great ability, sound judgment, and a positive pas- sion for culture were always enfeebled, and frequently vitiated, by a. febrile nervousness of organization. Their love of private life proceeded mainly from a consciousness of this fact, and so did the strange union of daring ambition and moral timidity which dis- tinguished the ablest among them. In the Sunderland this nervousness rose to the height of morbid timidity, and we believe that the motive of all his unscrupulousness and the governing principle of his conduct was the morbid dread of consequences to himself —not consequences in the sense of direct personal danger, but consequences in the way in which these organizations always picture the unknown to themselves. There has not been a Spencer without capacity, or one who might not have repeated as his own autobiography Southey's line,— "Bat I all naked feeling and raw life."