Thomas Wharton, 1st Marquess of Wharton

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His mendacity and his effrontery passed into proverbs. Of all the liars of his time he was the most deliberate, the most inventive and the most circumstantial. What shame meant he did not seem to understand. No reproaches, even when pointed and barbed with the sharpest wit, appeared to give him pain. Great satirists, animated by a deadly personal aversion, exhausted all their strength in attacks upon him. They assailed him with keen invective; they assailed him with still keener irony; but they found that neither invective nor irony could move him to any thing but an unforced smile and a goodhumoured curse; and they at length threw down the lash, acknowledging that it was impossible to make him feel. That, with such vices, he should have played a great part in life, should have carried numerous elections against the most formidable opposition by his personal popularity, should have had a large following in Parliament, should have risen to the highest offices of the State, seems extraordinary. But he lived in times when faction was almost a madness; and he possessed in an eminent degree the qualities of the leader of a faction.

Last years

Under George I of Great Britain, he returned to favour. In January 1715, he was created Marquess of Catherlough, Earl of Rathfarnham, and Baron Trim in the Peerage of Ireland, and in February 1715 Marquess of Wharton and Marquess of Malmesbury in the Peerage of Great Britain.

When he died suddenly in April 1715 he was buried in Upper Winchendon, Buckinghamshire. He is the author of the original lyrics of Lillibullero , which "rhymed King James out of England".

Family

Wharton's second wife, Lucy Loftus PORTRAIT OF THE HON. LUCY LOFTUS, MARCHIONESS OF WHARTON (1670-1717).jpg
Wharton's second wife, Lucy Loftus

Wharton married firstly on 16 September 1673 Anne, or Nan, Lee (d 29 October 1685 aged 26), younger daughter of Sir Henry Lee, 3rd Bt. (d. 1659), an elder half-brother of the famous libertine poet John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester; she had some reputation as a poet and dramatist. They had no issue together. Her sister Eleanora Lee married James Bertie, Lord Norreys; their cousin was Edward Lee, 1st Earl of Lichfield. Although her husband may have infected her with syphilis, Anne Wharton left him her fortune. Her grandmother Anne St. John, Countess of Rochester tried to regain her fortune from the Whartons with little effect. [12]

He married secondly Lucy Loftus, only daughter and heiress of Adam Loftus, 1st Viscount Lisburne and Lucy Brydges. [13] They had one son Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton, and two daughters, Lucy Morice and Jane Holt. [14] On his son's death without heirs, all his titles became extinct, except the Barony which passed to Jane Holt.

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References

  1. Clark, J. Kent (2004).Whig's Progress: Tom Wharton between Revolutions, p. 13. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Madison, N.J. ISBN   0-8386-3997-6.
  2. "WHARTON, Hon. Thomas (1648-1715), of Upper Winchendon, Bucks. and Danvers House, Chelsea, Mdx. | History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
  3. Kenyon, J.P. The Stuarts Fontana Edition 1966 p. 188
  4. Rachel Wilson, 'The Vicereines of Ireland and the Transformation of the Dublin Court, c. 1703-1737' in The Court Historian, xix, no. 1 (2014).
  5. Kenyon p. 188
  6. Somerset, Anne Queen Anne Harper Press 2012 p. 197
  7. Somerset p. 197
  8. Somerset p. 294
  9. Kenyon, J.P. Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland 1641-1702 Longmans Green and Co. 1958 p. 270
  10. "HISTORIES OF THINGS TO COME". historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com.
  11. "Page:History of England (Macaulay) Vol 4.djvu/515 - Wikisource, the free online library". en.wikisource.org.
  12. James William Johnson. "My dearest sonne": Letters from the Countess of Rochester to the Earl of Lichfield University of Rochester Library Bulletin Volume XXVIII · Number 1 · Summer 1974
  13. Mosley, ed. Burke's Peerage 107th Edition 2003 Vol.1 p. 899
  14. Mosley p. 899

Succession boxes

The Marquess of Wharton
PC
Thomas Wharton, 1st Marquess of Wharton.png
Portrait by Godfrey Kneller
Lord Privy Seal
In office
1714–1715
Parliament of England
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Wendover
1673–1679
With: Richard Hampden
Succeeded by
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Buckinghamshire
1679–1696
With: John Hampden 16791681
Richard Hampden 16811685
Viscount Brackley 16851686
Sir Thomas Lee, Bt 16891690
Richard Hampden 16901695
Sir Richard Atkins, Bt 16951696
Succeeded by
Legal offices
Preceded by Justice in Eyre
south of the Trent

1697–1702
Vacant
Vacant Justice in Eyre
south of the Trent

1706–1711
Succeeded by
Honorary titles
Preceded by Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire
1697–1702
Succeeded by
Preceded by Custos Rotulorum of Buckinghamshire
1689–1702
Succeeded by
Preceded by Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire
1702
Preceded by Custos Rotulorum of Westmorland
1700–1702
Succeeded by
Preceded by Custos Rotulorum of Westmorland
1706–1714
Succeeded by
Preceded by Custos Rotulorum of Westmorland
1714–1715
Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
1708–1710
Succeeded by
Preceded by Lord Privy Seal
1714–1715
Succeeded by
Peerage of Great Britain
New creation Marquess of Wharton
Marquess of Malmesbury

1715
Succeeded by
Peerage of Ireland
New creation Marquess of Catherlough
1715
Succeeded by
Peerage of England
New creation Earl of Wharton
1706–1715
Succeeded by
Preceded by Baron Wharton
1696–1715