Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer

“ But his son was destined for a higher dignity, for he it was who became in the tenth year of the reign of Charles II.'s niece, Queen Anne, earl of Oxford and Mortimer, being the famous Harley of that reign, linked in our memories [pg 237] with St. John Lord Bolingbroke, the Mashams, Marlboroughs, Swift, Addison, Pope, and the host of brilliant men which makes the reign of one of the feeblest women who ever sat on a throne a period of almost pre-eminent interest in English annals to men of cultivated mind subject to the influence of association. ”

“ By means of great exertion and a lavish expenditure, Harley became within ten years the possessor of about 2500 old MSS., and in 1721 had collected 6000 volumes, 1400 charters, and 500 rolls, besides about 350,000 pamphlets. His entire library afterwards numbered over 20,000 volumes.
Robert Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford, was descended from an ancient family, existing, it is pretended, in Shropshire at the time of the Norman Conquest, and closely allied to the French family of de Harlai. ”

“ Harley’s statesmanship may seem but intrigue and finesse, but his character is set forth in the brightest colours in the poems of Pope and the prose of Swift. The Irish dean was his discriminating friend in the hours of prosperity, his unswerving advocate in adversity. The books and manuscripts which the 1st earl of Oxford and his son collected were among the glories of their age. ”

“ Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford, by Dahl; Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, by Kneller; Duke of Portland, by Sir Joshua Reynolds; Napoleon, by Paul de la Roche; “Angel Contemplation,” by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and bequeathed by him to the then Duke of Portland; Margaret Cavendish Harley, by Michael Dahl; and another of the same, by Charles Jervas; Lucy Harrington, Countess of Bedford; Frances Howard, Countess of Essex, by Vansomer; Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and his countess, Elizabeth Vernon, by Holbein; Henry, Prince of Wales, by Zucchero ”

“ He became a sort of business agent for the Harleys, and in 1713, to the great contentment of Robert Harley, he negotiated the marriage between Edward Harley, afterwards second earl of Oxford [q. v.] , and Lady Henrietta Holles, only daughter and heiress of the fourth Duke of Newcastle. ”

“ Harley's patent for earl of Oxford was passed in Mr. secretary St. John's office; so to morrow or next day I suppose he will be declared earl of Oxford, and have the staff. This man has grown by persecutions, turnings out, and stabbing. What waiting, and crowding, and bowing, will be at his levee? yet, if human nature be capable of so much constancy, I should believe he will be the same man still, bating the necessary forms of grandeur he must keep up. ”

“ The year 1711 marked the culmination of warring factions and clandestine arrangement, and Daniel Defoe's A Short Narrative of the Life and Actions of his grace, John, Duke of Marlborough, published 20 February 1711, originated in this battle. (For discussion of authorship, please see Appendix.)
Much that happened in these years can be unraveled back to Harley, Earl of Oxford. His influences and circuitous dealing emerge wherever a close examination of politics is made. ”

“ He came to England, settled in Oxford, was ordained in 1700, and became chaplain of Christ Church. His inclination was towards the party of the nonjurors. The learned labours to which the remainder of his life was devoted were rewarded with an Oxford degree and a royal pension. He died on the 3rd of November 1711, and in 1726 a monument was erected to him by Edward Harley, earl of Oxford, in Westminster Abbey. ”

“ Hallam, Henry (the historian) , his remarks: “that the fortunes of Europe would have been changed by nothing more noble than the insolence of one waiting-woman and the cunning of another,” 246; that “the House of Bourbon would probably not have reigned beyond the Pyrenees but for Sarah and Abigail at Queen Anne’s toilette,” 246. Harcourt, Duke d’, intercedes for the exiled Princess des Ursins, 185. Harley (afterwards Earl of Oxford) , his talents and character, 219; uses his relation, the bed-chamber woman, as a political tool, 222; his plan to overthrow the Whigs by degrees, 233. ”

“ Is it not plaguy insipid to tell you every day where I dine? yet now I have got into the way of it, I cannot forbear it neither. Indeed, Mr. Presto, you had better go answer MD’s letter, N. 14. I will answer it when I please, Mr. Doctor. p. 215What is that you say? The Court was very full this morning, expecting Mr. Harley would be declared Earl of Oxford and have the Treasurer’s staff. Mr. Harley never comes to Court at all; somebody there asked me the reason. “Why,” said I, “the Lord of Oxford knows.” He always goes to the Queen by the back stairs. ”

“ Marlborough was dismissed, and the object of the Government was to bring the war to an end by persuading the people to agree to a treaty whose terms were less satisfactory than might have been expected. At the same time some of the party were secretly plotting for the restoration of the Stuarts, and among these appears to to have been Harley, now Earl of Oxford. Steele wrote a pamphlet in praise of Marlborough, for whom he always showed great admiration.
A son, Eugene, was born in March, 1712; Steele was then living in Brownlow Street, Holborn. ”

“ Bridges's books, no event occurred in the bibliographical world, worthy of notice, till the sale of the famous Harleian Library, or the books once in the possession of the celebrated Harley, Earl of Oxford. This nobleman was not less distinguished in the political than in the literary world; and "was a remarkable instance of the fickleness of popular opinion, and the danger of being removed from the lower to the upper house of parliament." ”

“ Harley's MSS. Mr. Wanley has the greatest collection of English Bibles, Psalters, &c., that ever any one man had. They cost him above 50l., and he has been above twenty years in collecting them. He would part with them, I believe, but I know not at what price." Masters's Life of Baker, p. 27. Consult also the preface to the Catalogue of the Harleian MSS., 1808, 3 vols., folio, p. 6.
A softer noise succeeds; and the group becomes calm and attentive, as if some grand personage were advancing. See, 'tis Harley, Earl of Oxford! ”

“ I hope that Oxford, which had treated poor Hearne so ill, was impressed by the facts recorded on 10th June 1730:—
“On Thursday, June 4th, the earl of Oxford (Edw. Harley) was at my room at Edm. hall from ten o’clock in the morning till a little after twelve o’clock, together with Dr Conyers Middleton, of Trin. coll. Camb., and my lord’s nephew, the hon. Mr May of Christ Church, and Mr Murray of Christ Church.”
7th Aug. 1732.—“My friend the honble. Benedict Leonard Calvert [46b] died on 1st June 1732 (old stile) of a consumption, in the Charles, Capt. Watts commander, and was buried in the sea. ”

“ The price of the volume was two guineas; the whole collection was four thousand; to which Lord Harley, the son of the Earl of Oxford, to whom he had invariably adhered, added an equal sum for the purchase of Down Hall, which Prior was to enjoy during life, and Harley after his decease. He had now, what wits and philosophers have often wished, the power of passing the day in contemplative tranquillity. But it seems that busy men seldom live long in a state of quiet. It is not unlikely that his health declined, he complains of deafness ”

“ LADY MARGARET HARLEY, AFTERWARDS DUCHESS OF PORTLAND.
By Mercier.
DIED 1785.
As a girl. Full length. Dressed as a shepherdess. Hat and crook.
Dog and lamb beside her.
SHE was the only daughter and heir of Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford, by the daughter and heir of William Holles, Duke of Newcastle. Prior immortalised her as his sweet, lovely, noble, charming Peggy. She married William Bentinck, Duke of Portland, by whom she had several children. The eldest daughter became the wife of the first Marquis of Bath. ”

“ We see Harley, afterwards the Earl of Oxford, “a pure trifler,” who was always putting off important business; Bolingbroke, “a thorough rake”; the prudent Lord Dartmouth, the other Secretary of State, from whom Swift could never “work out a dinner.” There is Marlborough, “covetous as Hell, and ambitious as the prince of it,” yet a great general and unduly pressed by the Tories; and the volatile Earl of Peterborough, “above fifty, and as active as one of five-and-twenty”—“the ramblingest lying rogue on earth.” We meet poor Congreve, nearly blind, and in fear of losing his commissionership ”

“ The actual relationship, however, between Robert Harley, first earl of Oxford [q. v.] , and Abigail Hill has never been discovered. Abigail's younger sister, Alice, who obtained through the influence of the duchess the situation of laundress in the Duke of Gloucester's house-hold, subsequently became a woman of the bedchamber to Queen Anne, and died on 16 Sept. ”

“ A proposal for a nonconformist academy at Hoxton was discountenanced by Williams, who was in favour of sending divinity students to Scotland for their education. He was anxious for the establishment of a residential college at Edinburgh, and offered 500l. towards the estimated cost.
Williams had long been intimate with Robert Harley, first earl of Oxford [q. v.] , who, soon after his accession to power (1710) , offered Williams 1,000l. for distribution among dissenting ministers as royal bounty. He declined the boon (Calamy, Own Life, ii. 471) . ”

“ A list of them is to be found in the Harleian MS. 775. No subject seems to have been void of interest for the great antiquary: he treasured up his school exercises as carefully as he did any ancient Greek or Roman charter, or mediaeval paleographic gem.
With the purchase of this rich medley of books begins Wanley's term of office as librarian to Lord Oxford, which continued till his death in 1726. By his knowledge and literary acumen the librarian supplied what was lacking in his patron, for like Sir Robert Cotton, Harley, despite his love of books, was by no means a scholar or man of letters. ”

“ Edward Harley, that Earl of Oxford who preferred above all things to surround himself with poets and men of letters, and whose generosity helped to bring about his financial ruin, was not the man to ignore a letter of that kind. Some assistance was speedily on its way to Will's coffee-house, for on February 2lst Oldisworth was penning an epistle which was to "wait in all humility on your Lordship to return you my best thanks for the late kind and generous favour you conferred on me." ”

“ Cecilia Robinson. THE MINISTRY OF DEACONESSES. With an Introduction by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
G. Rodwell, B.A. NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. A Course for Beginners. With a Preface by Walter Lock, D.D., Warden of Keble College. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Fred Roe. ANCIENT COFFERS AND CUPBOARDS: Their History and Description. With many Illustrations. Quarto. £3, 3s. net.
E. S. Roscoe. ROBERT HARLEY, EARL OF OXFORD. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. 1s. 6d.
This is the only life of Harley in existence.
Edward Rose. THE ROSE READER. With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. ”

“ Caricature itself could not more broadly distort the features of a human being than his poetic admirer has altered the lineaments of Oxford. Harley had been intriguing on both sides of the field. He professed devoted loyalty to the Queen and to her appointed successor, and he was at the same time coquetting, to put it mildly, with the Stuart family in France. Nothing surprises a reader more than the universal duplicity that seems to have prevailed in the days of Anne and of the early Georges. ”

“ At last, in October 1643, the Heads of Houses agreed that 40l. should be raised weekly during the next twenty weeks, by a levy on colleges and halls, in lieu of all further contributions towards new fortifications. In the same month articles were drawn up by some of the leading residents against the Earl of Pembroke, Chancellor of Oxford, whom they accused of betraying the privileges and neglecting the interests of the University, but whose real crime was complicity with the Parliament, and whom the King caused to be superseded by the Marquis of Hertford. ”

“ His talent of speaking in publick, for which he was so very much celebrated, I know nothing of, except from the informations of others; but understanding men of both parties have assured me, that, in this point, in their memory and judgment, he was never equalled.
The earl of Oxford, is a person of as much virtue, as can possibly consist with the love of power: and his love of power, is no greater, than what is common to men of his superiour capacities; neither did any man ever appear to value it less after he had obtained it, or exert it with more moderation. ”

“ After my unfortunate adventures in the South Sea, my long and expensive law-suits for the recovery of my right, and five years' retirement to a nobleman's in the country, with whom I had been intimate in my youth, I became, in less than two years after my return to London, first known to the Earl of Oxford in the year 1731; when he invited me to show him my collections of MSS. Historical and Political, which had been the Earl of Clarendon's; my collections of Royal Letters, and other Papers of State ”

“ Harley, at first slighted his proposal, but afterwards joined with him and others, which produced a revolution in the ministry, and shook the power of the duke and duchess of Marlborough, while Mr. Harley, the earl of Shrewsbury, lord Bolingbroke, &c. came into the administration. The duke was attached to Tory principles. Her Majesty offered to make him chancellor, which he thought proper to refuse. He was out of employment for some time, during which, he did not so much as pay his compliments at court, 'till he married his third wife, and then went to kiss her Majesty's hand. ”