Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/286

 over Anne. This proposition rendered him so odious to the tories that, soon after the accession of Anne, he was dismissed and replaced by Nottingham [see, second ]. By way of pension he was provided (29 June 1702) with the sinecure office of teller in the exchequer, of which he was deprived on the decisive victory of the tories in 1710. He was one of the commissioners to whom, on 28 Aug. 1716, the privy seal was entrusted during Sunderland's absence on the continent, but held no other office during the reign of George I. His last days were spent in retirement at Watford, Hertfordshire, where he died on 31 Jan. 1726–7. His remains were interred in Watford parish church.

Vernon married, by license dated 6 April 1675, Mary (d. 12 Oct. 1715), daughter of Sir John Buck, bart. He had issue by her two sons, James and Edward Vernon (1684–1757) [q. v.] the admiral, and two daughters. The elder son, James Vernon (d. 1756), was appointed in September 1698 groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of Gloucester, and sworn clerk of the council in extraordinary in 1701. He was accredited in January 1701–2 envoy extraordinary to the court of Copenhagen, at which he resided until 1706. He represented Cricklade, Wiltshire, in the parliament of 1708–10, was appointed in the latter year commissioner of excise (20 Oct.), and on the accession of George I was sworn (26 June 1715) clerk of the council in ordinary. He was one of the associates of Dr. Thomas Bray [q. v.] in the administration of the parochial library trust (, Lit. Anecd. ii. 119). He retained both the excise office and the clerkship to the council until his death on 15 April 1756. His remains were interred in the parish church of Hundon, Suffolk, adjoining Great Thurlow, in which he had his seat. Francis Vernon, his younger son by his wife Arethusa, daughter of Charles Boyle, styled Lord Clifford, was created, 8 Feb. 1777, Earl Shipbrook of Newry in the peerage of Ireland.

Secretary Vernon was an able and upright servant of the crown, who under a less arbitrary régime might have developed into a statesman. To his knowledge of affairs and indefatigable industry his correspondence, printed and unprinted, bears abundant testimony (see ‘Lexington Papers,’ ed. Sutton, ‘Shrewsbury Correspondence,’ ed. Coxe, ‘Letters of William III and Louis XIV and their ministers,’ ed. Grimblot, ‘Letters illustrative of the Reign of William III,’ to Shrewsbury, collected rather than edited by G. P. R. James, 3 vols. 8vo; ‘Clarendon and Rochester Correspondence,’ ed. Singer; and ‘Memoirs from the Courts in Europe from 1697 to 1708,’ ed. Cole, with which cf. Hist. MSS. Comm. 8th Rep. App. ii., Manchester's ‘Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne,’ ii. 48, 49, and ‘Archives de la Bastille,’ ed. Ravaisson, x. 85–7, 99–130). Letters from Vernon to William Blathwayte (1693–1705) are in Egerton MS. 920 and Addit. MS. 34348; to John Ellis [q. v.] (1695–1700) in Addit. MSS. 28879–81, 28890, 28894, 28895, 28900; to Lord Hatton (1697–9) in Addit. MSS. 29566–7; and to other correspondents in Addit. MSS. 21551 f. 10, 22852, 28882, 28943, and Stowe MS. 222; besides letters to him from Sir Paul Methuen (1707) in Addit. MS. 21491, from Sir Joseph Williamson and Portland (1698) in Addit. MS. 29592, and from other correspondents in Egerton MS. 918, Addit. MSS. 15572 and 34348 (cf. Bodleian Library Rawl. MSS. A. 450, 451, C. 936. See also Hist. MSS. Comm. Reps. i–iv., vii–viii., xii–xiii., Appendices; letters of James Vernon the younger are preserved in Addit. MSS. 21551 and 28911–28913).

 VERNON, JOSEPH (1738?–1782), actor and singer, born at Coventry in 1737 or 1738, studied under W. Savage, presumably in the choir of St. Paul's Cathedral, London. As a boy Vernon had an exceptionally fine soprano voice, and on 23 Feb. 1751 he sang at Drury Lane in Arne's