Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham

“ The 2nd earl inherited not only the Fitzwilliam estates in Northamptonshire, but also, on the death of his uncle the marquess of Rockingham in 1782, the valuable Wentworth estates in Yorkshire, and thus became one of the wealthiest noblemen of the day. He had been at Eton with C.J. Fox, and became an active supporter of the Whig party; and in 1794, with the duke of Portland, Windham and other “old Whigs” he joined Pitt’s cabinet, becoming president of the council. At the end of the year, however, he was sent to Ireland as viceroy. ”

“ WATSON, Sir LEWIS, first Baron Rockingham (1584–1653) , baptised in Rockingham church on 14 July 1584, was the elder son of Sir Edward Watson (d. 1 March 1615–16) , by his wife Anne (d. 1611) , daughter of Kenelm Digby of Stoke Dry, Rutland. The family of Watson was first established in Rockingham Castle about 1584, under Edward Watson (d. 1584) , Lewis's grandfather. Lewis matriculated from Magdalen College, Oxford, on 24 May 1599, and in 1601 was entered as a student at the Middle Temple. ”

“ In the autumn the small pox made its appearance in Dartmouth and Preston and was very fatal among the Chesapeake negroes.
The old Rockingham Club, which in the days of Prince Edward and Sir John Wentworth dined periodically at the Rockingham Hotel on the Basin, had ceased to exist, but it appears to have revived about this time under the name of the Wellington Club. A dinner at the Rockingham by the Wellington Club was announced in the papers of 26th August to take place on the 30th instant at half past four o'clock. Five o'clock was the fashionable dinner hour. ”

“ If, therefore, it should be the King's pleasure to place the Government in our hands, the powers of carrying it on must be given to those who are looked upon to be Whigs, and were considered to be such by our late most excellent friend, Lord Rockingham. ”

“ All places of real authority were exclusively under the king's control, and he could only rise to such stations through the sovereign's favor. In a word, he could acquire only influence as a leader in Parliament, while the king could give him power.
The king appoints Wentworth to office.
Kings can exercise, accordingly, a great control over the minds of legislators by offering them office; and King Charles, after finding [Pg 161] that his first advances to Wentworth were favorably received, appointed him one of his Privy Council. Wentworth accepted the office. ”

“ The Marquis, with ill-timed haughtiness, replied, that he lived in Grosvenor Square. The Earl sent again, that being very infirm, and confined at Hayes, it would be exceedingly kind in Lord Rockingham to come thither—the same answer as before: how sensible! to war on King and Parliament, and reject almost the only ally that had any weight! Wilkes, and the popular party in the City, Lord Rockingham shunned like the plague. In the House of Lords,34 where he did not dare to open his mouth, and had scarce one follower that could, he pushed back the most admired orator of the age. ”

“ War, moreover, would only be waged against Spain, and Weston's pro-Spanish proclivities were as marked as his devotion to peace. The same desire to avoid or postpone difficulties—‘quieta non movere’—actuated Weston's domestic policy. It was on his introduction that Wentworth was taken into favour and made a peer, and it was he who dissuaded Charles from erecting a monument to Buckingham, partly from fear of popular resentment and partly because he had no money to spare. ”

“ Few men, and least of all men of Wentworth's strength of will, could be expected to see things in the same way after ceasing to be critics and becoming actors. As wielding the executive powers of the crown in the north, Wentworth would soon come to regard the crown as the sole upholder of the rights of the state, and all who opposed it as engaged in the destructive work of weakening the authority without which the state would dissolve into atoms. ”

“ He was trained from childhood, to a belief in those extravagant doctrines respecting the royal prerogative, which were so generally prevalent at that day. It was therefore natural that Wentworth, in entering on public life, should seek employment at Court. The King seems, from the first, to have regarded him with favor ”

“ Still he enjoyed all the external marks of consideration and honor. The President of the North was a sort of king. He was clothed with great powers, and lived in great state and splendor. He had many attendants, and the great nobles of the land, who generally took Charles's side in the contests of the day, envied Wentworth's greatness and power, and applauded the energy and success of his administration.
Wentworth appointed to the government of Ireland. ”

“ This was Sir Thomas Wentworth, a Yorkshire gentleman, who had sat in Parliament for a long time, and who had favoured arbitrary and haughty principles, but who had gone over to the people’s side on receiving offence from Buckingham. The King, much wanting such a man—for, besides being naturally favourable to the King’s cause, he had great abilities—made him first a Baron, and then a Viscount, and gave him high employment, and won him most completely. ”

“ I shall confine myself then just to say that Lord Rockingham's plan appears to me to be such as can never bring things to a satisfactory conclusion, his tone being that of a Minister master of the Court and of the public; making openings to men who are seekers of offices and candidates for Ministry. What his Lordship added of the King not being given up blindfold, since the Duke of Cumberland's death is either totally unintelligible, or if it does really contain any meaning, there is one man who will very shortly set out for Bath after the American affair is over. ”

“ An Oxford man, who took no degree, and a lawyer, who did not practise, Watson became an elegant writer of English and Latin verse. He won the patronage of Walsingham at Paris in 1581, and became a member of the literary circle of Lyly and Peele. His most important volume of verse is the Hekatompathia (1582) dedicated to the Earl of Oxford. At the time of his death in Sept. 1592 he was in the service of William Cornwallis, who afterwards wrote to Heneage that he ‘could devise twenty fictions and knaveryes in a play which was his daily practyse and his living’ (Athenaeum, 23 Aug. 1890) . ”

“ Still, as there were many Americans besides the loyalists who would have welcomed conciliation, and as the proposed French alliance was unpopular, it is just possible that had Chatham himself been prime minister some way might have been found which, while securing to America virtual independence such as England's self-governing colonies now enjoy, might have prevented the severance of the bond. On the other hand, the Rockingham party held that we should prevent the alliance between France and America by acknowledging American independence. ”

“ Though this kind of thing is never admirable we find no great difficulty in tolerating it, but it was different in the time of Charles I.; men were too much in earnest and the principles at stake were too great. It is, therefore, possible to believe Welwood’s story about Wentworth’s relations to Pym, for which there does not appear to be any contemporary authority, but which may have been derived from those who were alive at the time. ”

“ Educated at Clare College, Cambridge, he entered parliament in 1621, and his rise to importance was due primarily to his friendship with Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards earl of Strafford. Although at first hostile to Charles I., this being evidenced by the active part he took in the impeachment of Buckingham, Wandesford soon became a royalist partisan, and in 1633 he accompanied Wentworth to Ireland, where he was already master of the rolls. ”

“ During the inquiry of 1564 by the bishops as to the affection or disaffection of the country gentry, Wentworth was certified as one of ‘those earnest in religion and fit to be trusted.’ He was returned for Buckingham to the parliament which met on 11 Jan. 1562–3, and in 1566 ‘those two great businesses of her majesty's marriage and declaring a successor coming into agitation,’ Paul Wentworth and others ‘used so great liberty of speech as (I conceive) was never used in any ... session ... before or since’ (D'Ewes) . The queen on 5 Nov. ”

“ Certain it is that from this time Wentworth87 became the most trusted counsellor of Charles, that is, as far as Charles was capable of trusting any one. The condition of affairs to which Wentworth returned is brought out in the play in a thoroughly alive and human manner. We are introduced to the principal actors in the struggle for their rights and privileges against the government of Charles meeting in a house near Whitehall. ”

“ On the 8th of March a vote of censure on the Ministers was lost by a narrow majority. The King now thought it advisable to consult Rockingham, through the Chancellor. Rockingham, who had a winning game to play, stated the propositions to be assented to by the King as follows: "American Independence, no veto; Establishment Bill; Great parts of Contractors Bill; Custom House and Excise Bill; Peace in general if possible; Economy in every branch." [25] The King refused these terms, and the negotiation after lasting eight days failed. Meanwhile the attack in the House of Commons continued. ”

“ It was difficult to consider a queen as acting merely by the advice of ministers, who protested in parliament that they had laboured in vain to bend her heart to their councils. The doctrine that some one must be responsible for every act of the Crown was yet perfectly unknown; and Elizabeth would have been the last to adopt a system so inglorious to monarchy. But Wentworth had gone to a length which alarmed the House of Commons. ”

“ I am rather confirmed in this persuasion by observing that these luminaries of the state had no sooner fixed themselves in the political heaven, than the fall of the brightest of them shook all the rest. The arch of their power was no sooner struck than the key-stone slipped out of its place, those that were closest in connexion with it followed, and the whole building, new as it is, seems to be already a ruin. If a man should hold this language, who could convict him of absurdity? The Marquis of Rockingham is minister—all the world rejoices, anticipating success in war and a glorious peace. ”

“ His Majesty desired nothing more than a list of the persons Lord Rockingham wished to propose for the Cabinet; but Lord Rockingham thought that something more was necessary to his own security and independence. He considered that when a statesman undertakes the duties of Administration, he assumes a responsibility irrespective of the Sovereign, and that his duty requires of him that he shall lay before His Majesty, in the first instance, as the basis of negotiation, an outline of the measures by which alone he can conduct the affairs of the kingdom with honour and success. ”

“ Charles Townshend was asked what he thought of the new administration. “It is,” said he, “mere lutestring; pretty summer wear. It will never do for the winter.”
At this conjuncture Lord Rockingham had the wisdom to discern the value, and secure the aid, of an ally, who, to eloquence surpassing the eloquence of Pitt, and to industry which shamed the industry of Grenville, united an amplitude of comprehension to which neither Pitt nor Grenville could lay claim. A young Irishman had, some time before, come over to push his fortune in London. ”

“ The movement in favour of economy was necessarily also a movement in favour of peace; and when the surrender of Yorktown was known (1782) , Lord North at once resigned office.
The new ministry formed under Lord Rockingham comprised not only his own immediate followers, of whom the most prominent was Charles Fox, but the followers of Chatham, of whom Lord Shelburne was the acknowledged leader. The second Rockingham ministry. A treaty of peace acknowledging the independence of the United States of America was at once set on foot ”

“ He boldly demanded an earl's coronet, on account of these services, which, however, Charles deferred for awhile, thinking that he should hold such a man to his work rather by the hope than he possession of high preferment. Wentworth was so delighted with his overriding the Irish parliament, that he proposed to the king to merely prorogue and not dissolve it, as being the most convenient instrument for effecting his further designs on the country. But Charles would not listen to it, remarking that parliaments were like cats, they ever grew cursed with age. ”

“ It has been the almost universal verdict of colonial writers that, with advancing years and increasing wealth, Wentworth deserted his early political convictions. This he himself denied. He asserted that his guiding political aim throughout life was to form a self-governing British state in Australasia, based on the British constitution, which, he declared, recognised all forms of personal and class distinction compatible with individual freedom and popular rights. Democracy he disclaimed and detested as based on an utterly false theory—that of human equality. ”

“ During the period which has now been under review, we can clearly trace the influence of principles which the King and the Tories hated, and which the official leaders of the Whigs could not accept; and we can see also the action of men who either, like Chatham, refused to be bound by party traditions, or, like Wilkes, were regarded as political incendiaries. This position was recognized and acknowledged by Chatham himself in the often-quoted letter to Calcraft, in which, speaking of Lord Rockingham and his friends, he says, "The Marquis is an honest and honourable man, but that 'Moderation! ”