Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/255

 tempt at the throne in June 1685, Feversham was entrusted with the chief command of the royal forces (, i. 347). His incapacity and indolence brought on him the contempt of his officers, who remarked of their general that at the most momentous crisis he thought only of eating and sleeping. Churchill alone had the wisdom to preserve an appearance of respect, and so successfully that Feversham praised his diligence, and promised to report it to the king (Churchill to Clarendon, 4 July 1685, in Clarendon's Correspondence, &c., ed. Singer, i. 141). Churchill adds in his letter: ‘I see plainly that the troble is mine, and that the honor will be anothers.’ The morning of Sedgemoor found Feversham fast asleep in bed, ‘so that,’ as Burnet mildly puts it, ‘if the Duke of Monmouth had got but a very small number of good soldiers about him, the king's affairs would have fallen into great disorder’ (iii. 47). After the battle Feversham signalised himself by the cruelty of his military executions (copy of his order addressed to Colonel Kirke, dated 7 July 1685, in Addit. MS. 32000, f. 91). Then leaving Kirke and his ‘lambs’ to continue the work at their ‘discretion,’ he hastened to court. He was elected a knight of the Garter 30 July, installed 25 Aug. (, p. cxcv), and made captain of the first and most lucrative troop of life guards (, i. 356). Court and city, however, only laughed at his martial achievements, and Buckingham in a farce, ‘The Battle of Sedgemoor’ (Works, ed. 1775, ii. 117–24), made merry at the expense of a general who had gained a battle by lying in bed. Such was his influence with James that he undertook, on the offer of 1,000l., to intercede in behalf of Alice Lisle. James, however, told him that he was bound by his promise to Jeffreys not to grant a pardon (, iii. 60). In 1686 Feversham, then a widower, employed his friend, Sir John Reresby, to obtain for him the hand of Lady Margaret Cavendish, daughter of Henry, duke of Newcastle. The history of this negotiation, which ended in a quarrel between the duke and duchess, may be read at length in Reresby's ‘Diary,’ pp. 364, 366, 375–9, 382–6. Reresby calculated that his friend then enjoyed an income of 8,000l. From 1685 to 1689 he was colonel of the 1st troop of horse guards. In 1686 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the army collected by James to overawe his people, but soon found that he could not count on the fidelity of the troops (ib. i. 476). In 1688–9 he was lord-lieutenant of Kent. When James withdrew himself for the first time, 10 Dec. 1688, he left a letter for Feversham addressed to the general officers which could be understood only as a command to disband the army, ‘neither payeing them nor taking away their armes,’ says Luttrell (i. 487). A copy of this letter in contemporary hand-writing is Additional MS. 32095, f. 297 (cf., Hist. of England, 3rd edit. p. 1129; , Diary, p. 423). Accordingly four thousand armed men were let loose on the country (, Hist. of England, iii. 532, 534). Feversham and three other general officers reported their proceeding to the Prince of Orange, who was then on his march to London (, Life of James II, 1816, ii. 250–1). William, greatly angered, protested that he was not to be dealt with thus. Feversham was afterwards despatched by the lords, with two hundred of the life guards, to rescue James from his detention at Sheerness, and ‘to attend him toward the sea-side if he continued his resolution of retiring’ (, Some Account of the Revolution; Works, ed. 1723, ii. 87–8; cf. Hatton Correspondence, ii. 123). James injudiciously sent him with a letter to William at Windsor requesting a personal conference. The prince refused to see him, and on learning that he was without a safe-conduct ordered him to be forthwith put under arrest (Hatton Correspondence, ii. 127). He was released a fortnight later, 1 Jan. 1688–9, on the queen-dowager representing to William that she could not indulge in her favourite game of basset without her lord chamberlain to keep the bank (, p. 1136; cf., i. 493). On 29 Jan. 1688–9 he gave his vote in favour of a regency (Clarendon's Correspondence, &c. ii. 256). To Feversham the queen-dowager, on her departure for Portugal at the end of March 1692, confided the care of her household and palace of Somerset House, an office which gained for him the nickname of king-dowager. In May of the same year, when a French invasion was generally anticipated, Feversham, being regarded as an ally of James, was requested by the government to banish himself to Holland till peace was insured. He stoutly refused to go, and claimed his right as a peer and a subject (Hatton Correspondence, ii. 177). At the instance of the queen-dowager he received the mastership of the Royal Hospital of St. Catherine, near the Tower of London, in October 1698 (, iv. 444). Some idea of his duties while holding these places may be gained from Additional MSS. *5017 f. 81, 22067 ff. 25–34. Feversham was among the knights of the Garter selected by the chancellor of the order at Anne's command in March 1701–2 to decide upon the manner in which she should wear the ensigns of the dignity as