Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/337

 upon Harley's dismissal he resigned office on 12 Feb. 1708, and formally surrenderee his patent by a deed enrolled in chancery At the general election in May 1708 Harcourt was again returned for Abingdon, bin was unseated on petition on 20 Jan. 1709 after making a speech on his own behalf (ib. vi. 778-9). Being without a seat in parliament, Harcourt was able to appear for Sacheverell at the bar of the House of Lords, and on 3 March 1710 made a very able speech in his defence (, State Trials, 1812, xv. 196-213). llarcourt was, however, obligee to withdraw from taking any further part in the proceedings owing to his election to parliament for the borough of Cardigan. The whigs made the unsupported assertion that while he was inveighing against the impeachment he was in possession of the intelligence of his election. As a token of gratitude to his 'great benefactour and advocate,' Sacheverell presented Harcourt with a handsome silver salver, which is still preserved at Nuneham. In August Harcourt underwent the operation of couching, which was successfully performed on one of his eyes by Sir William Read (Luttrell}}, vi. 620); and on 19 Sept., Sir James Montagu having resigned, he was once more appointed attorney-general. At the general election in the following month Harcourt was returned once more for the borough of Abingdon, but on 19 Oct., before parliament met, he was appointed lord keeper of the great seal, and sworn a member of the privy council. In this year he purchased from the Wemyss family theNuneham-Courtney estate in Oxfordshire, but his visits there were only occasional, his principal place of residence being at Cokethorpe (some two miles and a half from Stanton Harcourt), where Queen Anne paid a state visit. On 12 Jan. 1711 he presented the vote of thanks of the House of Lords to Lord Peterborough for his conduct of the war in Spain (Harcourt Papers, ii. 35-7), and on 1 June congratulated the Earl of Oxford on his appointment as lord high treasurer in the court of exchequer (ib. pp. 37-9). After presiding over the House of Lords in the anomalous position of lord keeper without a title, he was created a peer of Great Britain on 3 Sept. by the style of Baron Harcourt of Stanton Harcourt in the county of Oxford, the preamble to the patent being drawn up, according to the fashion of the day, in terms of the most extravagant eulogy. Harcourt took an active part in the negotiations for the treaty of Utrecht, and on 7 April 1713 was appointed lord chancellor. On the death of his stepmother in July of this year he came into possession of the family mansion at Stanton Harcourt, where the Harcourts had resided since the twelfth century. His father, Sir Philip Harcourt, was the last to live there, and his widow suffered the buildings to fall into decay. The uppermost chamber of the tower over the chapel is still known as Pope's study, where in 1718 Pope finished the fifth volume of his 'Homer.' Harcourt sided with Bolingbroke against Harley in the dissensions which broke out in the cabinet, but beyond the assertions of the whigs that he was a Jacobite, there is no evidence to show that he either gave, or promised to give, any assistance to the Pretender. On the queen's death llarcourt was immediately reappointed lord chancellor by his colleagues the lords justices, but on 21 Sept. 1714, the day after the arrival of George in London, the great seal was taken from him, and he was succeeded in office by Lord Cowper (Lord Raymond's Reports, 1790, ii. 1318). Harcourt now retired to Cokethorpe, where he amused himself with social and literary pursuits Pope, Prior, Gay, and Swift being his constant visitors. In 1717 he was successful in fomenting a quarrel between the two houses of parliament, and by this means obtained the acquittal of the Earl of Oxford; but they were both excepted from the operation of the Act of Grace (3 Geo. I, c. 19). In the following year Harcourt took an active part in the opposition to the Mutiny Bill (Parliamentary Hist. vii. 541, 543, 544, 548). Walpole, who was not then in office, assisted Harcourt with his advice in his endeavours to defeat the government in the matter of Lord Oxford's impeachment, and they were thus bound together by ties of mutual interest. He was created Viscount Harcourt of Stanton Harcourt on 24 July 1721, and on 25 Aug. 1722 was readmitted to the privy council. In the following year he assisted in procuring the pardon of his old friend and political associate, Bolingbroke. He acted as one of the lords ustices during the king's absence in Hanover in 1723, 1725, and in 1727. While calling upon Walpole at Chelsea on 23 July 1727, Harcourt was struck with paralysis. He was removed to Harcourt House, Cavendish Square, where he died on the 29th, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, and was buried n the family vault under the chancel of Stanton Harcourt church on 4 Aug. following. 'Trimming' Harcourt, as Swift calls lim on the occasion of one of their quarrels, was neither a great lawyer nor a great judge, but he acquired the reputation of being he most powerful and skilful speaker of his day. Smalridge, in giving an account of Sacheverell's trial, wrote : 'We had yesterday the noblest entertainment that ever