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 who visited the fleet at St. Helen's to inspect it, but the news of Heinkirk disposed of this design. In May 1692 he went, with the Duke of Richmond and the earls of Essex and Doncaster, as a volunteer to the camp in Flanders (, ii. 463). He was lord-lieutenant of Nottinghamshire 1692–4. On 12 May 1694 he was created Duke of Devonshire and Marquis of Hartington, and having been omitted from the commission of the peace on succeeding his father in the title, was now appointed a justice in eyre, and in 1697 was elected recorder of Nottingham. When William quitted England, after Queen Mary's death in 1694, the Duke of Devonshire was named one of the lords justices for the administration of the kingdom, and he and Tenison, archbishop of Canterbury, were the only lords who held that appointment on all the occasions of the king's absence during the whole seven years of its existence. While in this office the case of Sir John Fenwick arose, in which the duke, though convinced by repeated interviews (see ib. iv. 83, 11 July and 24 Sept. 1696) of his guilt, was so apprehensive of creating a precedent that, almost alone of the whigs, he refused to agree to the bill for his attainder.

The question of the Irish land grants had long been a burning one. As early as 1690 the king disposed of the forfeited estates at his own private pleasure, and much offence was given by the grants to Mrs. Villiers and to foreigners like Ruvigny, Bentinck, and Ginkel. On 7 Feb. 1698 leave was given to bring in a bill ‘for vacating all grants of estates forfeited in Ireland since 13 Feb. 1688, and for appropriating them to the use of the public,’ and though the bill then dropped, a commission was in 1699 appointed to examine the grants, and on 15 Dec. their report, containing an exposure of the intrigues practised to obtain them, was laid on the table. The bill to resume all grants and to create a separate court to try all claims was read a second time 18 Jan. 1699–1700, and in April 1700 reached the lords. Devonshire strenuously opposed it, declaring ‘that by this bill the barriers between crown and people would be broken down,’ and by his influence with the younger peers carried material amendments. The commons, however, refused them, and though the whig peers would have stood firm, Sunderland induced the king to beg his friends to give way; the bill passed, and parliament was prorogued 11 April 1700. In 1701 he strenuously opposed the partition treaty, and on William's death and Anne's accession was confirmed in all his offices, acted with the Duke of Somerset as supporter to Prince George, at the king's funeral, and was again lord high steward at Anne's coronation. In March 1702 he introduced to the queen 127 dissenting ministers to congratulate her on her accession, to whom she promised her protection (, v. 153). In May he was appointed, with Duke of Somerset, Lords Jersey, Marlborough, and Albemarle, to examine the late king's papers which were said to contain matter adverse to Anne's accession, and reported that the rumour was groundless (ib. 169). This was a check to the tories, who had originated the rumour. On 17 Dec. 1702, and on 19 Jan. 1703, upon the bill against occasional conformity, he was chief manager for the lords in the conference with the commons, and reported in favour of toleration, and in March 1705 was again manager in the conference arising out of the ‘writ of error for the Aylesbury men’ (ib. 529). He actively supported the protestant succession and the French war, and having been a commissioner in 1703 to negotiate the union of England and Scotland, without success, he at last, in 1706, brought that great measure to a successful issue. In April 1705 he attended the queen to Cambridge, and there, with his eldest son, was created an LL.D., but being borne down with dropsy, gout, and the stone, and his disease proving incurable, he treated with the Marquis of Dorchester for the transfer to him of the lord high stewardship in April 1707, and at length died, professing repentance and firm faith, at Devonshire House, Piccadilly, at 9 a.m., 18 Aug. 1707. He was attended on his deathbed by the Bishop of Ely. The autopsy proved stone and strangury to have caused his death (ib. 18 Aug. 1707). His body was conveyed in great state by the Strand to the city, and thence to Derby, where it was buried, 1 Sept., at Allhallows Church. His wife survived him, and dying 31 July 1710, aged 68, was buried in Westminster Abbey. He left three sons, William (who married Rachel, Lord Russell's eldest daughter, and succeeded to the dukedom), Lord James, Lord Henry, M.P. for Derby, who died of palsy in 1700, and a daughter, Elizabeth, who married Sir John Wentworth, bart., of Brodsworth, Yorkshire, and afterwards the second Sir James Lowther.

The duke was addicted to sport, constantly visiting Newmarket for horse-racing and cock-fighting, now winning 500 guineas, now losing 1,900l. (, iii. 539–40, iv. 340, 505, v. 231;, Memoirs, 30 March 1699). He was munificent, giving 500l. to Greenwich Hospital, a supper and masked ball costing 1,000l., and a ‘fine concert of musick at Kensington.’ He lost heavily by the fire at Montagu House in 1686, and at