Historians J.B. Owen, J.H. Plumb, and Linda Colley have all alluded to the post-1714 drift of the Tories into the Whig party. One of the families particularly referenced was the Legges. In the latest blog for the Georgian Lords, Dr Stuart Handley demonstrates the family advantages of conforming to the prevailing political climate.
In August 1714, the head of the Legge family was William, earl of Dartmouth, who was remarkably well-connected among the moderate Tories. In 1700 he had married a daughter of Heneage Finch, earl of Aylesford, brother of Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham. Aylesford’s other daughter had married in 1703 Robert Benson, later Baron Bingley.
Dartmouth had served in government throughout the reign of Queen Anne, rising to become secretary of state in the administration of Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, in 1710 and lord privy seal in 1713. He was in the latter post at the Hanoverian Succession and served as an ex officio lord justice in August and September 1714. Upon George I’s arrival in September he lost his office and was not included in the new Privy Council. He took his demotion with a certain degree of equanimity, retiring to his Staffordshire estate, before returning for the opening of the new Parliament in March 1715. He opposed Oxford’s impeachment and the Septennial bill, after the passage of which he ceased attending. Dartmouth’s main activity in the next session in 1717 was the preparation and implementation of plans for the defence of Oxford, who was acquitted on 1 July 1717.
Thereafter his parliamentary attendance was sporadic and increasingly rare. There were rumours of a rapprochement with the ministry in 1722, related, no doubt, to the payment of his salary arrears from the previous reign. But this was followed by a sustained burst of activity in 1723 when he joined the opposition campaign led by William Cowper, Earl Cowper, focusing particularly on the bill of pains and penalties against Francis Atterbury, bishop of Rochester.
In February 1726 there were intimations that Dartmouth was seeking reconciliation with the ministry, when he voted with the Court against a provocative opposition address aimed at re-stating Parliament’s right to veto the defence of the monarch’s foreign dominions. Rapprochement was delayed by the fall-out from the general election following George II’s accession.
In 1727 Dartmouth’s heir, Viscount Lewisham, was set up by Lord Bruce as one of the MPs for Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire. He was returned in second place, only to see his election overturned by the Commons on 26 Mar. 1729, when William Sloper was seated instead. Bruce and Dartmouth took this personally, and resolved to stay away from the Court, ending any immediate possibility of a rapprochement. Lewisham died in 1732, leaving a young son, William, the future 2nd earl of Dartmouth, and a widow, who married in 1736, as her second husband (and his second wife), Francis North, 7th Baron North and 3rd Baron Guilford, later earl of Guilford, becoming the step-mother of the future Prime Minister (Lord North) until her death in 1745.
As well as protecting the interests of his grandson, Dartmouth still had his younger children to provide for. His absence from the Lords and the parliamentary opposition cannot have harmed the career prospects of his three younger sons. Dartmouth’s most definite turn toward the ministry came in 1739 when, although he only attended on four days, he voted for the Court over the Convention of Pardo on 1 March 1739, and left his proxy for the last few days of the session with the Whig grandee, William Cavendish, 3rd duke of Devonshire.
Dartmouth’s second son, Heneage, had embarked on a legal career, being called to the bar in July 1728. Significantly, his appointment as a KC came in February 1740. Thereafter, he rose to be counsel for the Admiralty in February 1743, a post which he relinquished only upon appointment as a baron of the Exchequer in June 1747. His accompanying honour of serjeant-at-law was sponsored by the Pelham brothers.
His third son, Henry (later Bilson) Legge, had been destined for the church, but after a spell as a volunteer in the navy, he sought a career in administration. In 1733 Edward Walpole, second son of Sir Robert, had introduced Henry Legge to his father, prompting a letter from Dartmouth thanking him for his kindness. Legge became secretary to Walpole in 1736, in his capacity as chancellor of the exchequer. When in 1739 Walpole was unable to secure the junior secretaryship of the treasury for him, he ensured he became secretary to the lord lieutenant of Ireland.
Henry Legge became an MP in November 1740 for a Cornish borough, and in April 1741 secured the coveted junior secretaryship to the treasury. In the 1741 General Election he transferred to Orford, where he remained MP until 1759. He became an Admiralty lord in 1745 and returned to the treasury in 1746. At the time of his father’s death in December 1750 he was treasurer of the navy and a privy councillor.
The fourth son, Edward, entered the navy in 1726, progressing from lieutenant in 1734 to captain four years later. He was in command of a squadron in the West Indies when he died in September 1747. Before the news of his death reached England in December, he was elected MP for Portsmouth. In his will, he named his fellow captain, George Anson, as executor, but after his death the recently ennobled Baron Anson renounced his role in favour of Legge’s brother, Heneage.
When Dartmouth wrote his will in January 1748, following the death of his son, Edward, he made his countess, executor, and his two sons-in-law, Lord North and Sir Walter Bagot, bt. joint trustees. At the time of his death in December 1750, both his surviving sons were well-established in the regime, one as a judge, and the other as a front-line politician. His grandson would later achieve major office under his stepbrother, Lord North.
SNH
Further Reading
J.B. Owen, The Rise of the Pelhams (69)
J.H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability (167-8)
Linda Colley, In Defiance of Oligarchy (62)
The History of Parliament 