Page:Biographical catalogue of the portraits at Weston, the seat of the Earl of Bradford (IA gri 33125003402027).pdf/200

 in the hands of the Royalists. On this occasion, as we have mentioned elsewhere, Sir Edward Hyde (Lord Clarendon) was sorely puzzled as to the respective claims to the Governorship of Shrewsbury, between Sir Thomas Myddleton, and his friend, Francis Newport. Two months after the restoration of the King (May 29, 1660), Lord Newport was appointed Lord-Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of Shropshire, and later on, by Charles the Second, Comptroller and Treasurer of the Household, and a Privy Councillor. In 1674 he was advanced to the title of Viscount Newport of Bradford, County Salop, and, on the accession of James the Second, his lordship was continued in all his former offices for a time, but he was a true patriot, and the arbitrary and unconstitutional measures of the new King called forth in him a vigorous opposition. So open was he in the expression of his political opinions that he was not only superseded in all his offices at Court, but was also removed from the Lord-Lieutenancy of Shropshire, which was given up to the unworthy hands of the Lord Chancellor Jefferies. He upheld the cause of religion at the trial of the seven Bishops, and, being a firm Protestant, he voted for the succession of the Prince and Princess of Orange. On the day that William and Mary were proclaimed, Lord Newport was reinstated in his posts in the Royal Household and his Lord-Lieutenancy of Shropshire, in all of which offices he continued until he attained the age of eighty-four, when they devolved on his son. In 1694 he was created Earl of Bradford, and on the accession of Queen Anne again sworn of the Privy Council. Lord Newport was an object of special dislike to James the Second, as we find from one of the ex-King's declarations (respecting a projected descent upon England), that this nobleman would certainly be debarred from all hope of pardon. Lord Bradford died at Twickenham in his eighty-ninth year, and was buried at Wroxeter, near his country house of Eyton, in Shropshire, where a marble monument on the south