Duke of Newcastle

“ The Duke of Newcastle was a mean-spirited and ill-favoured nobleman, whose eccentricities rendered him the laughing-stock of the Court, and he had made himself especially obnoxious to the Prince and Princess of Wales. All this the King knew full well, and to appoint him godfather to the Prince’s child was a studied insult. The Prince of Wales was furious, but his royal sire refused to give way, and the christening took place, as arranged, in the bedroom of the Princess of Wales at St. James’s. ”

“ Since 1757 the strife of the whig factions had been stilled by coalition. At the king's accession the administration was strong. It owed its strength to the co-operation of the Duke of Newcastle, the first lord of the treasury, and Pitt, secretary of state. [10] Newcastle, the most prominent figure among the great whig nobles, derived his power from influence; he had an unrivalled experience in party management and as a dispenser of patronage, and though personally above accepting a bribe of any kind, he was an adept at corrupt practices. ”

“ The Duke of Newcastle was born to greatness—for in the middle of the century the highest rank in the Peerage counted for more in politics than it does to-day—but he certainly did not achieve it as War Minister. ”

“ The Duke of Newcastle had no pride, though infinite self-love: jealousy was the great source of all his faults. He always caressed his enemies, to list them against his friends; there was no service he would not do for either, till either was above being served by him: then he would suspect they did not [166] love him enough; for the moment they had every reason to love him, he took every method to obtain their hate, by exerting all his power for their ruin. ”

“ By his first wife he had ten children, of Whom one son, Henry, survived him and became 2nd duke of Newcastle, dying in 1691 without male issue; the title then became extinct and the estates passed to his third daughter Margaret, wife of John Holles, earl of Clare, created duke of Newcastle in 1694. ”

“ What though thy tears, pour'd o'er thy godlike friend,
Thy other cares for Britain's weal suspend?
Think not, O patriot! while thy eyes o'erflow,
Those cares suspended for a private woe;
Thy love to him is to thy country shown;
He mourns for her who mourns for Addison.
Reflections on the Public Situation of the Kingdom Inscribed to the Duke of Newcastle.
Holles! immortal in far more than fame!
Be thou illustrious in far more than power. ”

“ Chatham was as ambitious as any man that ever lived, and full of the faculties that make ambition successful. The Butes, the Bedfords, the Hollands, the Shelburnes, exhibited every shape and shade of cabinet dexterity, of court cabal, of popular influence, and of political knowledge and reckless intrigue. Yet the Duke of Newcastle, with remarkable personal disadvantages—a ridiculous manner, an ungainly address, speech without the slightest pretension to eloquence, and the character of extreme ignorance on general subjects—preserved his power almost to the extreme verge of life ”

“ He decided to relinquish the Colonies, and thus the burden of the approaching conflict fell upon him by his own deliberate act. Sir George Grey was appointed to the vacant office. The Duke of Newcastle’s ambition outstripped his ability, and the choice which he made was disastrous both to himself and to the nation. Because some men are born great, they have greatness of another kind thrust upon them; and too often it happens that responsibility makes plain the lack of capacity, which the glamour neither of rank nor of place can long conceal. ”

“ Henry Pelham Fiennes Pelham Clinton, 5th duke of Newcastle (1811–1864) , the eldest son of Henry, the 4th duke, was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in 1832. He was member of parliament for South Nottinghamshire from 1832 to 1846, when he became member for the Falkirk Burghs, retaining this seat until he became duke of Newcastle in January 1851. As earl of Lincoln he was first commissioner of woods and forests from 1841 to February 1846, when he was appointed chief secretary to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, but the ministry fell in June of the same year. ”

“ The Life of the Duke of Newcastle, by his second wife, was published in 1667 (London, folio) ; Pepys, in his Diary (18 March 1668) , refers to it as ‘the ridiculous history of my lord Newcastle, wrote by his wife, which shows her to be a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman, and he an ass to suffer her to write what she writes to him and of him.’ A Latin version, translated by Walter Charlton, followed in 1668, and a second English edition, in quarto, in 1675. ”

“ The dukedom became extinct for want of male heirs, but his daughter, Lady Margaret Cavendish, married John Holies, Earl of Clare, who, in 1691, obtained a further step in the peerage by the resuscitation of the dukedom, and once more there was a Duke of Newcastle. ”

“ On the youth himself the tour exerted a wholly beneficial influence. The duke of Newcastle noticed in the prince a perceptible intellectual development. The journey left a lasting impression on his mind. ”

“ The Peoples’ Charter had its stronghold here, and all radical reforms are sure to find sympathy and support among the People of Nottingham. I should think no equal population in the kingdom would sing “Britons never, never will be slaves,” with more spirit, or, perhaps, with more understanding. Their plucky, English natures became terribly stirred up in the exciting time of the Reform Bill, and they burned down the magnificent palace-castle of the old Duke of Newcastle, crowning the mountainous rock which terminates on the west the elevated ridge on which the town is built. ”

“ At one period, while the Duke of Newcastle was in power, in the reign of George II. many serious complaints were made relative to the settlement of public accounts. The King, at length, became acquainted with the alleged grievances, and warmly remonstrated with the Duke on his carelessness and inattention ”

“ He attempted to raise Newcastle against the Scots in 1640 (Diary of Ambrose Barnes, pp. 330, 336) , and subsequently became colonel of a regiment in the royalist army, was knighted, and appointed governor of Tynemouth Castle. Thence he made an unsuccessful sally in support of the Duke of Newcastle on 9 March 1643–4 (State Papers, Dom. Car. I, D i. 13) . When the parliamentary forces gained possession of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Riddell was summoned, in October 1644, to yield up Tynemouth, but refused (Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. p. 33a) . ”

“ But he was afterwards consulted by the government respecting the affairs of Scotland, and the Duke of Newcastle aided him in what proved to be his successful candidature for Aberdeenshire. He was elected as a staunch whig in 1747. ”

“ In 1760 he dedicated to Pitt his ‘Novus Epigrammatum Delectus, or Original State Epigrams and Minor Odes ... suited to the Times;’ and in 1763 he sent to the Duke of Newcastle, who had been one of his patrons (Add. MS. 32992, f. 294) , three pieces suggested by the indignities suffered by some worthy noblemen and patriots. ”

“ He likewise mixed into his conduct strict honour in details, which I have often observed deceive many men in great affairs, as the multitude have no great compass, and provided a man does not play false in the common intercourse of life, and is punctual in common dealing, if he be a cunning dextrous man with loose views, he will escape detection in large views by sacrificing lesser. The Duke of Newcastle was at bottom an honester man, but he lost the reputation of one by good nature and want of resolution in conducting the common patronage of the Treasury. ”

“ In the portrait at Hardwick Hall she is represented as a comely, roguish-looking matron in full maturity: a better idea of her character may be won from the effigy lying on the tomb she erected for herself in All Saints' Church at Derby. There one [31] sees a face not unbeautiful, but cold and masterful in the extreme.
It was her grandson, William, first Duke of Newcastle, who first gave lustre to Welbeck, and perhaps, after all, he owed most of his celebrity to an intellectual wife, known in Restoration days as "Mad Madge of Newcastle". ”

“ The Duke of Newcastle, whose ambition equalled his folly, was not content with forty years enjoyment at fifty-five years of age, with the prospect of enjoying it during the remainder of George II.'s reign, and the certainty of either enjoying a great portion of it as long as he should survive, or at least commanding his own terms whenever he should retire ”

“ In one of the shortlived administrations at the commencement of the war, Lord Granville, who had generally dined, turned round to say, 'I am thinking that all over Europe they are waiting our determination and canvassing our characters. The Duke of Newcastle, they'll say, is a man of great fortune, who has spent a great deal of it in support of the present family; Fox, they'll say, is an impudent fellow who has fought his way here through the House of Commons ”

“ I am very sorry for the Duchess of Newcastle's illness, full as much upon your as upon her account, as it has hindered you from being so much known to the Duke as I could have wished; use and habit going a great way with him, as indeed they do with most people. I have known many people patronized, pushed up, and preferred by those who could have given no other reason for it, than that they were used to them. We must never seek for motives by deep reasoning, but we must find them out by careful observation and attention, no matter what they should be, but the point is, what they are. ”

“ Instead of the glorious and ever-memorable year 1759, as the newspapers call it, I call it this ever-warm and victorious year. We have not had more conquest than fine weather: one would think we had plundered East and West Indies of sunshine. Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories. I believe it will require ten votes of the House of Commons before people will believe it is the Duke of Newcastle that has done this, and not Mr. ”

“ It is difficult to say which exulted most on this occasion, France, Spain, or Lord Bute, for Mr. Pitt was the common enemy of all three. Newcastle, Hardwicke, Bedford, Devonshire, Mansfield and Fox were not less pleased,116 for they had all concurred to81 thwart his plan. Lord Talbot alone, though of the same faction, seemed to see farther than any of them.82 He advised the Duke of Newcastle, “not to die for joy on the Monday, nor for fear on the Tuesday.” ”

“ In January 1701 the king allowed him to come from Flanders in order to raise money upon his estate to discharge his debts (ib. v. 6) . He paid a second visit to London on 25 May 1703, surrendered himself, and was admitted to bail (ib. v. 301) . Pecuniary difficulties compelled him to sell his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields to the Duke of Newcastle for 7,000l. ”

“ At the Restoration they returned to England, when he received a dukedom, but he resolved to have no more to do with public life, and retired to the shade of the few ancestral trees his enemies’ axes had spared him. The Duke’s remaining years were spent in the society of his beloved wife and valued friends, and in the pursuit of his favourite occupations. 242He died at an advanced age, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where stands a monument to him, on which are represented the forms of William, Duke of Newcastle, the ‘loyall Duke,’ and his wife, side by side. ”

“ He succeeded young to an estate of about thirty thousand pounds a year, and to great influence and interest in several counties. This account in reality contains his whole character as a Minister; for to the weight of this fortune he solely owed his every-other-way most unwarrantable elevation. His being heir to his uncle, the old Duke of Newcastle, obtained from the Crown a new creation of the title in his person; and, though he was far from having parts to procure him a Peerage, his Peerage and vast income procured him the first posts in the Government. ”

“ An order which he received under the privy seal to return to England was treated with ostentatious contempt by Wharton, who was occupied during this summer with an elaborate project for the restoration of the Pretender by means of an alliance between the emperor, the czar, and the court of Spain. The plan, in cipher, eventually fell into the hands of the Duke of Newcastle. Towards the close of 1726 he went to Rome with his wife, in order to be nearer his master ”

“ A man of some cultivation, he was a member of the Gentleman's Society at Spalding. His chief publication was an English version, which appeared in two folio volumes in 1729–30, of part of De Thou's ‘Historia sui Temporis.’ The first was dedicated to the Duke of Newcastle, the second to John, duke of Rutland. ”