Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/355

 delivered to her, as a way of making himself agreeable to the whigs. Lady Sunderland was generally known as ‘the little whig,’ and this title was inscribed on the foundation-stone of the new opera-house in the Haymarket in her honour (, Apology, p. 257;, Letters, ix. 91 n.) Some graceful verses by Charles Montagu, earl of Halifax, testifying to her beauty, modesty, and talent, formed an inscription on the drinking-glasses of the Kit-Cat Club, of which her husband was a member. They were printed in Tonson's ‘Miscellany.’ Dr. Watts also ‘wrote some elegant verses upon her’ (Gent. Mag. 1817, i. 343). Walpole, in his ‘Reminiscences,’ calls her ‘a great politician,’ and tells how she would receive those whom she wished to influence while combing her beautiful hair. She died of pleuritic fever on 29 April 1716, aged only 28. Lady Cowper in her ‘Diary’ says: ‘They have talked so much of Lady Sunderland's death, that I have done nothing but cry wherever I have been.’ She left a most touching appeal to her husband on behalf of her children, which he forwarded to her mother. It is printed by Coxe in his ‘Life of Marlborough’ (iii. 395–8). A half-length of her, painted by Kneller, was presented to the National Portrait Gallery by Lord Chichester in 1888. A portrait by Lely at Althorp was engraved by Bond for Dibdin's ‘Ædes Althorpianæ.’ It was also engraved by Picart. Portraits of her by D'Agar and Mignard were engraved by Simon and Van Somer. She left three sons and two daughters. Of the daughters, Anne married Viscount Bateman, and Diana became the first wife of John Russell, fourth duke of Bedford. Of the three sons, Robert (b. 1701) succeeded his father as fourth Earl of Sunderland, and was lord carver at the coronation of George II. He died on 15 Sept. 1729. The second son, Charles [q. v.], who is separately noticed, succeeded him as fifth Earl of Sunderland, and in 1733 became, in succession to his aunt (Marlborough's eldest daughter, Henrietta), third Duke of Marlborough. The third son, John, succeeded to the Sunderland property, and was father of John Spencer, created Earl Spencer on 1 Nov. 1765 [see under, second ].

On 5 Dec. 1717 Sunderland married, as his third wife, Judith, daughter of Benjamin Tichborne, a lady of great fortune and Irish extraction. All of his three children by her predeceased him. After his death she married Sir Robert Sutton, K.B.; she died in 1749.

[Besides the authorities cited, the most important of which are Coxe's Marlborough, Walpole's Secret Corresp. of the Duchess, 1838, and Stanhope's Hist. (for the Reign of George I), see Peerage of England, 1710; Doyle's Official Baronage; Dibdin's Ædes Althorpianæ; Eccles's New Blenheim Guide, 14th edit. pp. 34, 35; Atterbury's Memoirs and Corresp., ed. Williams, i. 125, 143, 337–8; Life of Godolphin, by Hon. H. Elliot, chap. viii.; Ranke's Hist. of England, v. chap. iii.; Lecky's Hist. of England, chap. iii.; Macaulay's Hist. 1861, v. 4–6; Bromley's and Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits; Boyer's Polit. State, xxi. 473, xxiii. 452–3; Cunningham's Hist. from the Revolution to the Death of Anne, i. 171, 458–9, ii. 215, 397; Edwards's Memoirs of Libraries, ii. 144–5; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 90, iv. 275 n., vi. 81 n., and Illustr. iv. 126–7; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ii. 49, 50, xi. 442 n. A manuscript memoir among the Spencer Papers, written in 1780, is a compilation from printed authorities. The short memoir in Cunningham's Lives of Eminent Englishmen, vol. iv., is mainly based on Coxe. Sunderland's correspondence while lord lieutenant of Ireland is among Archbishop King's manuscripts (Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep.). His general correspondence is at Blenheim. Some of his letters are among the De La Warr Papers at Buckhurst (Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep.)]

 SPENCER, CHARLES, third and fifth  (1706–1758), born on 22 Nov. 1706, was the third son of Charles Spencer, third earl of Sunderland [q. v.], by his second wife, Lady Anne Churchill, second daughter of the first Duke of Marlborough. Both his elder brothers died early, and in 1729 he succeeded the second as Earl of Sunderland. On the death in 1733 of his maternal aunt, Henrietta, lady Godolphin, who had been Duchess of Marlborough in her own right since the death in 1722 of the first duke, her father, and his grandfather, he became Duke of Marlborough. In accordance with the arrangement made at the marriage of his parents, he now handed over the Sunderland property to his younger brother John, father of the first earl Spencer. During his four years' residence at Althorp he greatly improved the property and revived the traditional hospitality of his Warwickshire ancestors. He did not come into possession of Blenheim until the death of Sarah, dowager duchess of Marlborough, in 1744, and up to that time his income was greatly inferior to that of his brother John. The latter was the favourite of the old duchess, and the young duke vainly tried to propitiate her by going into opposition to the court.

He became a member of the ‘Liberty Club’ formed by the opponents of Sir Robert Walpole in January 1734. On 13 Feb. of the same year he brought forward in the House of Lords a measure to prevent military officers from being deprived of their com-