Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/361

 house as Baron Spencer of Wormleighton. He spent great sums on his gardens and his library at White Knights, near Reading. In 1812 he gave 2,260l. for Valdarfen's edition of the ‘Decameron’ at the Duke of Roxburghe's sale, and in 1817 bought from the library of James Edwards the celebrated Bedford missal (now in the British Museum). Most of his collections were dispersed during his lifetime, and his extravagance compelled his retirement during his later years. He died at Blenheim on 5 March 1840. He married, in 1791, Susan, second daughter of John Stewart, seventh earl of Galloway, by whom he was father of George Spencer-Churchill, sixth duke of Marlborough (1793–1857), besides three other sons and two daughters (Ann. Reg. 1840, App. to Chron. p. 155). His grandson, John Winston Spencer-Churchill [q. v.], seventh duke, is noticed separately [s.v. ].

(1770–1795), second son of the fourth duke, was born on 20 Dec. 1770, and educated at Eton and Oxford, where he gave great promise. He entered public life before he was of age as secretary to Lord Auckland, ambassador at The Hague. He was left for some months in sole charge of the embassy at a critical period, and established so high a reputation for discretion and vigour that on 7 April 1790 he was appointed minister plenipotentiary to the Netherlands. In July 1793 he went to Sweden as envoy extraordinary. In 1795 he was appointed envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Prussia, but died of fever at Berlin on 3 July, in his twenty-fifth year (Gent. Mag. 1795, ii. 618). A portrait of Lord Henry Spencer with his sister Lady Charlotte, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, is inscribed ‘The Fortune-tellers.’ It has been engraved by J. Jones, S. W. Reynolds, and H. Dawe.

The youngest son, (1779–1845), born in 1779, was M.P. for Oxfordshire from 1801 to 1815, and a member of the board of control from 13 Nov. 1809 to July 1810. In August 1815 he was created a peer as Baron Churchill of Wychwood. He married Lady Frances Fitzroy, fifth daughter of the Duke of Grafton. He died in March 1845 (, Peerage).

[Doyle's Baronage; G. E. C.'s Peerage; Eccles's New Blenheim Guide, 14th edit. pp. 26, 28, 31, 32; H. Walpole's Letters, ed. Cunningham, iii. 300, 436, 438, 476, iv. 50, 69, 380, v. 78, vii. 167, viii. 485, ix. 249, 284–7; Memoirs of George III, ed. Barker, i. 69, 163, 207, ii. 99, 139; Grenville Papers, iii. 210, 308; Gent. Mag. 1817, i. 179–80, 175; Evans's Cat. Engr. Portraits.]

 SPENCER, GEORGE, second (1758–1834), eldest son of John, first earl Spencer (1734–1783), and great-grandson of Charles Spencer, third earl of Sunderland [q. v.], was born at Wimbledon on 1 Sept. 1758. His sister Georgiana, the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire [q. v.], is separately noticed [see ]. By the elevation of his father to an earldom on 1 Nov. 1765, he became by courtesy Viscount Althorp. He received his early education at Harrow; graduated M.A. at Cambridge in 1778, as a nobleman of Trinity College; travelled on the continent for two years, and in 1780 was returned to the House of Commons as member for Northampton. In 1782 he was returned for Surrey. Affiliated by birth to the whig party, he was more closely knit to it by the marriage of two of his sisters to the Duke of Devonshire and the Earl of Bessborough respectively, and during the short Rockingham ministry he was one of the junior lords of the treasury.

On 23 Oct. 1783 he succeeded his father as Earl Spencer, and was thus removed from the strife of factions in the lower house. On the break up of the party after the execution of the French king and the declaration of war between France and England, he joined with Burke and gave in his adhesion to the policy of Pitt, of whom he continued a warm supporter. On 11 June 1794 he was nominated a privy councillor and lord keeper of the privy seal. A few days later he was sent to Vienna as ambassador extraordinary, and on his return was appointed, 17 Dec. 1794, first lord of the admiralty. This office he held for upwards of six years, the most stirring, the most glorious in our naval history, so that for him, more distinctly perhaps than for any other English administrator, may be claimed the title of organiser of victory. It was under his rule that the battles of St. Vincent and Camperdown were fought and won; that the mutiny of Spithead, the outcome of years of neglect, was happily ended; that the treasonable revolt at the Nore was suppressed; and it was still more directly by him that Nelson was singled out for independent command and sent into the Mediterranean to win the battle of the Nile. During the two years that followed, a continual semi-official correspondence was carried on between Spencer and Nelson, some of which has been preserved in the pages of Nicolas, but much, especially of Nelson's contribution to it, was unfortunately destroyed as waste paper by an over zealous servant. Some of Spencer's letters written to Nelson in the spring of 1800 are particularly interesting, and most of all Spencer's