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 noble and generous actions’ (, pp. 398, 152, 160, 179, 331).

The duke retired to Windsor. He made no attempt to vindicate himself to the world, and said no word against the king. In August 1760 he had a stroke of paralysis, and Walpole draws a touching picture of him at his father's funeral in November (Letters, iii. 361). He handed over to his two sisters the share that fell to him under the will of George II. Giving up his rooms at St. James's Palace, he took Schomberg House in Pall Mall, and in January 1761 he bought the Duke of Beaufort's house in Upper Grosvenor Street. His nephew, George III, treated him with much consideration. At the king's marriage on 8 Sept. 1761 the duke gave away the bride, and a year afterwards he stood sponsor to the infant Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV.

He was a warm friend, and when Lord Albemarle took Havana in 1762, he wrote to him: ‘No joy can equal mine, and I strut and plume myself as if it was I that had taken the Havannah’ (, i. 125). He shared Pitt's disapproval of the peace of Paris and his hostility to the Bute ministry, and he broke with Fox. He was credited with having brought about the fall of Bute in April 1763, and his own popularity revived with the growing antipathy to Scotsmen. He was equally hostile to Bute's successor, Grenville, and was disappointed that Pitt did not replace him in August (Chatham Correspondence, ii. 244, 312).

His ailments increased. ‘He had grown enormously fat, had completely lost the use of one eye, and saw but imperfectly with the other. He was asthmatic.’ In October he had two fits at Newmarket, having gone thither against advice to see the match between Herod and Antinous. Abscesses formed in his wounded leg, and incisions had to be made which he bore with extraordinary fortitude, insisting on holding the candle himself for the surgeon (, i. 186, 244). On 26 March 1765 Walpole wrote that he had fallen into a lethargy, and there were no hopes of him; but he revived, and in April the king turned to him for help in getting rid of his ministers. In spite of his state of health he undertook the task, as soon as the regency bill had been satisfactorily settled. On 12 May he went to see Pitt, who was laid up with the gout at Hayes. An intricate negotiation followed, which, though it failed as regards Pitt, resulted in the Rockingham administration in July (, i. 185–203, giving the duke's own account of the earlier steps; Grenville Papers, iii. 172, &c.;, Autobiography, pp. 40, &c.; Newcastle Letters in 1765–6, ed. Bateson). On 20 May, in consequence of the riots in London, the king named him captain-general, though the ministers wished to appoint Granby.

He died suddenly on 31 Oct. 1765, after dinner, at his house in Upper Grosvenor Street, having come up from Windsor and gone to court in the morning. The immediate cause of death was a clot of blood in the brain, apparently owing to ‘two very extraordinary preternatural bones which were situated at the upper part of the dura mater’ (Addit. MS. 33954, f. 226; Grenville Papers, iii. 105). He was buried with military honours on 9 Nov. in Westminster Abbey, at the west end of Henry VII's chapel. His death caused general regret, and mourning was worn for him in London beyond the time prescribed. He was unmarried, and left no will. Lord Albemarle was appointed administrator to his estate, and retained a few of his letters. The rest are said to have been burnt by his sister, Princess Amelia (, i. 244); but there is still a great mass (120 bundles) of ‘Cumberland Papers’ at Windsor Castle, consisting mainly of letters and statements sent to the duke, but containing also drafts of his own letters.

His character has been carefully drawn by two men who knew him well. Horace Walpole says: ‘His understanding was strong, judicious, and penetrating, though incapable of resisting partialities and piques.’ He was proud and unforgiving, and fond of war for its own sake. ‘He despised money, fame, and politics; loved gaming, women, and his own favourites, and yet had not one sociable virtue.’ The shades in this picture are softened in a supplementary sketch (, George II, i. 89, and George III, ii. 224). Lord Waldegrave wrote in 1758 that he had ‘strong parts, great military abilities, undoubted courage,’ but that his judgment was ‘too much guided by his passions, which are often violent and ungovernable. … His notions of honour and generosity are worthy of a prince’ (, p. 23). Of recent estimates the fairest is that of Macaulay in his second essay on Chatham.

A half-length portrait of Cumberland, painted by Reynolds in 1758, is at Windsor with a replica in the National Portrait Gallery, and has been engraved several times. There are many others, among which may be mentioned John Wootton's picture (on horseback at Culloden), engraved by Baror