Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/294

 Swift, on hearing that Prior's commission had passed, wrote: ‘Lord Strafford is as proud as hell, and how he will bear one of Prior's mean birth on an equal character, I know not’ (ib. 20 Nov. 1711; cf. Hist. MSS. Comm. 14th Rep. ix. 360). Afterwards Swift said that it was reported our two plenipotentiaries did not agree very well; ‘they are both long practised in business, but neither of them of much parts. Strafford has some life and spirit, but is infinitely proud, and wholly illiterate’ (ib. 15 Feb. 1711–12). Elsewhere (Remarks on the Characters of the Court of Queen Anne) Swift observed, truly enough, that Strafford could not spell; and in June Lord Cowper, replying to an attack by Strafford on the Duke of Marlborough, said: ‘The noble lord has been abroad so long that he appears to have forgotten not only the language but even the constitution of his native country’ (, History of Queen Anne, ii. 390).

Numerous references to the part taken by Strafford in the negotiations which led up to the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 will be found in Swift's ‘History of the Last Four Years of Queen Anne.’ Early in 1712 he was endeavouring to obtain the post of master of the horse (Wentworth Papers, p. 263), and in the summer he was appointed one of the lords of the admiralty. In October he was made knight of the Garter, and in 1713 a master of the Trinity House. On the death of Queen Anne (August 1714) he was appointed one of the lords justices, but he was soon recalled from his embassy at The Hague, though he did not give up his post until December, after many complaints of the difficulty in obtaining money to pay the expenses of the embassy. In January 1715, by the king's order, Strafford put his papers into Lord Townshend's hands, and in the following month his pension was stopped (Diary of Lady Cowper, p. 45).

On 8 June 1715 Walpole read to the House of Commons the report of the secret committee appointed to report on the events leading up to the treaty of Utrecht. Among those accused in the report was Strafford, and Addison wrote that his ‘politics made the House laugh as often as any passages were read in his letters, which Mr. Walpole humoured very well in the repeating of them. His advices are very bold against the allies, and particularly the Dutch, with some reflections upon Bothmar and the king himself’ (, Works, vi. 654). On the 22nd the house, on Aislabie's motion, resolved to impeach Strafford of high crimes and misdemeanours, and referred it to the committee of secrecy to draw up articles of impeachment [see ]. These articles, which were presented to the house on 31 Aug., charged Strafford with (1) promoting a separate negotiation with France; (2) making scurrilous reflections on the elector of Hanover; (3) advising the queen to treat with the French minister before she was acknowledged by France; (4) failing to insist on the restitution of the Spanish monarchy; (5) advising a cessation of arms and a separation of the English troops from the confederates; and (6) advising the seizure of Ghent and Bruges. Strafford's answer (State Trials, 1816, xv. 1025–44) was delivered to the House of Lords in January 1716, and in June the commons, after considering it, replied that they were ready to prove the charges; but there is no record of any further steps having been taken in the matter, and in 1717 Strafford's name was included in the act of grace granted by the king. In August 1715 he had been among those who protested against the rejection of the motion to inquire whether Bolingbroke had been summoned, and in what manner, and against the passing of the bills for the attainder of Bolingbroke and Ormonde (ib. xv. 1003, 1013).

Strafford lived in retirement for some years after these proceedings, occupying himself with the care of his estates in Yorkshire. He had a house at Twickenham, and in 1725 was in correspondence with Pope (, Works, x. 176–83, 202); the Duke of Bedford asked Strafford to bring Pope with him on a visit to Woburn Abbey (Wentworth Papers, pp. 454–5). In the same year Strafford took an active part on the side of Lord Macclesfield during the proceedings against that peer; and the ‘Stuart Papers’ show that he was in consultation with the Duke of Wharton and others respecting a proposed attempt to do something that summer on behalf of the Pretender (, History of England, vol. ii. p. xix). Sir Thomas Robinson, writing in 1734, gives a description of Stainborough and Wentworth Castles; of the former he says that the prospect was fine, but the new castle showed little taste (Hist. MSS. Comm. 15th Rep. vi. 136). In 1736 Strafford was in correspondence with another Twickenham neighbour, Lady [q .v.] (Letters, ii. 21, 23).

Strafford spoke from time to time in the House of Lords, though he was no orator. Lord Hervey (Memoirs, ii. 148–9) describes him in 1735 as ‘a loquacious, rich, illiterate, cold, tedious, constant haranguer in the House of Lords, who spoke neither sense nor English, and always gave an anniversary declamation’ on the subject of the army. ‘There was nothing so low as his dialect