Robert Harley

Robert Harley Harley, Robert, first earl of Oxford and Mortimer (1661–1724), politician, was born on 5 December 1661 in Bow Street, London, and baptized on the following day at St Paul's, Covent Garden. He was the eldest son of Sir Edward Harley (1624–1700) of Brampton Bryan, Herefordshire, and his second wife, Abigail, née Stephens.

Early life and marriage

Harley's father was a prominent Presbyterian who had played a conspicuous part on the parliamentary side in the civil war. Although he conformed to the Anglican church at the Restoration he sent Robert in 1671 to be educated at a school run by Samuel Birch, a dissenter, at Shilton in Oxfordshire. This upbringing led to some distrust later when Harley associated with high-church tories. Thus in 1710 the dean of Christ Church called him the 'spawn of a Presbyterian' (Feiling, 421). After Shilton he attended a school in London established by a Huguenot, Monsieur Foubert, but left it after a year, aged nineteen, apparently appalled at the moral danger he was exposed to there. In 1682 he was admitted as a member of the Inner Temple. On 14 May 1685 he married Elizabeth Foley (d. 1691) of Witley Court, Gloucestershire, the daughter of a whig ally of Robert's father. They had four children: Edward Harley (1689–1741), who succeeded him as second earl of Oxford; Robert, who died in infancy in 1690; Elizabeth, who married Peregrine Hyde Osborne, second marquess of Carmarthen, in 1712 and died in November 1713; and Abigail, who married George Henry Hay, second earl of Kinnoull, who died on 15 July 1750. Harley's second wife, Sarah Middleton, whom he married on 18 September 1694, died on 17 June 1737. This marriage was childless.

Country politician, 1689–1700

During the revolution of 1688 Harley and his father raised a troop of horse and went to Worcester, which they took for William, prince of Orange. Afterwards Harley complimented William on the success of his undertaking. In April 1689 he entered the House of Commons for the first time, at a by-election for Tregony. There he immediately revealed his zest for parliamentary activity, becoming one of the most assiduous members in the house. He was to acquire unrivalled experience and knowledge in the ways of procedure, which contributed considerably to his political advancement. As John Macky noted, 'no man knows better all the Tricks of the House' (Memoirs of the Secret Services, 84). It was for these skills that he became known as Robin the Trickster.

Court politician, 1701–1706

The king alone with Harley thrashed out the conditions for the succession of the house of Hanover after Anne's death. The ministerial changes were negotiated with Harley and his tory ally Godolphin in concert with the earl of Rochester, Anne's uncle. Godolphin became lord treasurer, Rochester was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland, and Harley accepted the court nomination for the speakership of the Commons. Parliament was dissolved and a general election took place early in 1701. When parliament met in February Harley was elected speaker by 249 votes to 125 cast for a whig rival. As one observer noted, 'his six years' opposition to the Court followed by such a sudden turn to that side is made use of by his enemies to his disadvantage' (Bodl. Oxf., MS Ballard 6, fol. 35). The first major business before the house was the indictment of those whig members of the previous ministry who had advised the king to conclude partition treaties dividing the Spanish empire between Bourbon and Habsburg claimants. The main targets of the attack were the members of the junto, and Harley took a partisan role in it, especially in committees of the whole house, which allowed the speaker to participate in debate. As a country whig noted at the time, he 'was the principall man that had all along contrived their ruin' (Diary of Sir Richard Cocks, 158). This marked the parting of the ways between Harley and the whig leaders, who never forgot or forgave his attempt to impeach them. He took the lead in guiding the Bill of Settlement through the house, which placed restrictions upon the powers of the crown before conferring it on to the house of Hanover.

Prime minister

The Treasury was then put into commission, filled with Harleyites, Harley himself being one. He also became chancellor of the exchequer. And that was probably where the ministerial revolution of 1710 would have ended if Harley had had his way. For he intended 'only the removal of the treasurer and his immediate dependents, with some others, to make room for his own friends, and then to have continued the parliament and the war with the duke of Marlborough in the command of it' (Bishop Burnet's History, 6.13). Certainly Harley made overtures even to members of the whig junto at this time, urging them not to resign despite the changes that were afoot. Moreover they were prepared to entertain his approach, at least in the short run. They did not resign even when Sunderland, one of their own, was dismissed in June. Lord Halifax was the most responsive to Harley's appeal, and indeed the two sustained a curiously friendly relationship long after the negotiations collapsed. The whigs, however, declined to come into his scheme when he could not give guarantees that there would not be a dissolution of parliament that year. Their resolve stiffened by Thomas, earl of Wharton, who was the least inclined to listen to Harley's assurances, they broke off the communications. Harley had then to turn more to the tories than he had wished. Thus, although the earl of Nottingham was kept out of office, the earl of Rochester became president of the council. On 21 September Anne dissolved parliament, and in the ensuing elections the tories got more seats than Harley desired. For he was determined to maintain a whig presence at all levels of his administration. Even the cabinet contained the duke of Newcastle until his death in 1711 and the duke of Somerset until his dismissal in 1712.

Later life

Despite his efforts on behalf of the protestant succession, Oxford found himself persona non grata on the accession of George I. He was associated with the treaty of Utrecht, which in the new king's view had been a betrayal of the allies—of which the electorate of Hanover was one. Consequently he was stripped of all his remaining offices—his deputy lieutenancies of Herefordshire and Radnorshire, his post as custos rotulorum of the latter county, even the stewardship of Sherwood Forest. His disgrace was completed in 1715 with his impeachment by the triumphant whigs. Where Bolingbroke reacted to being impeached by fleeing to France, Oxford with characteristic phlegm stayed to face his accusers. As he told his brother, he had decided to resign himself to Providence, 'and not either by flight or any other way to sully the honour of my Royal Mistress, though now in her grave, nor stain my own innocence even for an hour' (Portland MSS, 5.663). On 9 July the Commons brought sixteen articles of impeachment against him. He defended himself robustly, warning the Lords that, 'if ministers of state, acting by the immediate commands of their Sovereign, are afterwards to be made accountable for their proceedings, it may one day be the case of all the Members of this august assembly' (Cobbett, Parl. hist., 7.106). This did not stop them from committing him to the Tower nor the Commons from producing six further articles against him. Where the previous articles had mostly concerned the making of the treaty of Utrecht, these accused him of Jacobitism. Though there were rumours that he dabbled in Jacobite intrigue while in the Tower, these were never substantiated. Oxford indeed was never attracted to the Pretender's cause, and in 1721 wrote to Lord Foley that 'we enjoy liberty, property and the Protestant Succession' (Hill, 234). The articles of impeachment were never pressed, and when Oxford petitioned for his trial to be brought on in June 1717 they were dropped. He was thereby acquitted. The king, however, never forgave him. He was omitted from the Act of Grace and forbidden to appear at court.

Library and writings

Oxford left behind him one of the largest collections of manuscripts of the English Augustan age. His own papers are voluminous, for he seems to have kept everything from cabinet minutes to his claret bills. In addition he acquired a large corpus of medieval and later manuscripts which form the Harleian collection, now housed, like most of his private papers, in the British Library. By 1721 the Harleian collection numbered some 6000 volumes, 14,000 charters, and 500 rolls. Humphrey Wanley, his librarian, began the catalogue of these in 1708. They included the collections of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, John Foxe the martyrologist, and John Stow the surveyor of London. Oxford also collected books, and by 1715 owned a library of some 3000 volumes, many of them expensively bound in leather or velvet. He was also a writer himself, composing occasional verse and political pamphlets such as Faults on Both Sides, published in 1710.

Sources

1. Numbered list item Bennett, Gareth Vaughan. "Robert Harley, the Godolphin ministry, and the bishoprics crisis of 1707." The English Historical Review 82.325 (1967): 726–746. in JSTOR
2. Numbered list item Davies, Godfrey. "The Fall of Harley in 1708." The English Historical Review 66.259 (1951): 246–254. in JSTOR
3. Numbered list item Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Oxford, Robert Harley, 1st Earl of". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.