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 Charles at Worcester; after the battle on the 3rd of September he accompanied him to Boscobel, and while on his way north alone was captured near Nantwich and given quarter. He was tried by court-martial at Chester on the 29th of September, and on the ground that he was a traitor and not a prisoner of war under the act of parliament passed in the preceding month, which declared those who corresponded with Charles guilty of treason, his quarter was disallowed and he was condemned to death. When his appeal for pardon to parliament was rejected, though supported by Cromwell, he endeavoured to escape; but was recaptured and executed at Bolton on the 15th of October 1651. He was buried in Ormskirk church. Lord Derby was a man of deep religious feeling and of great nobility of character, who though unsuccessful in the field served the king’s cause with single-minded purpose and without expectation of reward. His political usefulness was handicapped in the later stages of the struggle by his dislike of the Scots, whom he regarded as guilty of the king’s death and as unfit instruments of the restoration. According to Clarendon he was “a man of great honour and clear courage,” and his defects the result of too little knowledge of the world. Lord Derby left in MS. “A Discourse concerning the Government of the Isle of Man” (printed in the Stanley Papers and in F. Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa, vol. ii.) and several volumes of historical collections, observations, devotions (Stanley Papers) and a commonplace book. He married on the 26th of June 1626 Charlotte de la Tremoille (1599–1664), daughter of Claude, duc de Thouars, and grand-daughter of William the Silent, prince of Orange, by whom besides four daughters he had five sons, of whom the eldest, Charles (1628–1672), succeeded him as 8th earl.

Charles’s two sons, William, the 9th earl (c. 1655–1702), and James, the 10th earl (1664–1736), both died without sons, and consequently, when James died in February 1736, his titles and estates passed to Sir Edward Stanley (1689–1776), a descendant of the 1st earl. From him the later earls were descended, the 12th earl (d. 1834) being his grandson.

, 14th earl of Derby (1799–1869), the “Rupert of Debate,” born at Knowsley in Lancashire on the 29th of March 1799, grandson of the 12th earl and eldest son of Lord Stanley, subsequently (1834) 13th earl of Derby (1775–1851). He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he distinguished himself as a classical scholar, though he took no degree. In 1819 he obtained the Chancellor’s prize for Latin verse, the subject being “Syracuse.” He gave early promise of his future eminence as an orator, and in his youth he used to practise elocution under the instruction of Lady Derby, his grandfather’s second wife, the actress, Elizabeth Farren. In 1820 he was returned for Stockbridge in Hampshire, one of the nomination boroughs whose electoral rights were swept away by the Reform Bill of 1832, Stanley being a warm advocate of their destruction.

His maiden speech was delivered early in the session of 1824 in the debate on a private bill for lighting Manchester with gas. On the 6th of May 1824 he delivered a vehement and eloquent speech against Joseph Hume’s motion for a reduction of the Irish Church establishment, maintaining in its most conservative form the doctrine that church property is as sacred as private property. From this time his appearances became frequent; and he soon asserted his place as one of the most powerful speakers in the House. Specially noticeable almost from the first was the skill he displayed in reply. Macaulay, in an essay published in 1834, remarked that he seemed to possess intuitively the faculty which in most men is developed only by long and laborious practice. In the autumn of 1824 Stanley went on an extended tour through Canada and the United States in company with Mr Labouchere, afterwards Lord Taunton, and Mr Evelyn Denison, afterwards Lord Ossington. In May of the following year he married the second daughter of Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, created Baron Skelmersdale in 1828, by whom he had a family of two sons and one daughter who survived.

At the general election of 1826 Stanley renounced his connection with Stockbridge, and became the representative of the borough of Preston, where the Derby influence was paramount. The change of seats had this advantage, that it left him free to speak against the system of rotten boroughs, which he did with great force during the Reform Bill debates, without laying himself open to the charge of personal inconsistency as the representative of a place where, according to Gay, cobblers used to “feast three years upon one vote.” In 1827 he and several other distinguished Whigs made a coalition with Canning on the defection of the more unyielding Tories, and he commenced his official life as under-secretary for the colonies, but the coalition was broken up by Canning’s death in August. Lord Goderich succeeded to the premiership, but he never was really in power, and he resigned his place after the lapse of a few months. During the succeeding administration of the duke of Wellington (1828–1830), Stanley and those with whom he acted were in opposition. His robust and assertive Liberalism about this period seemed curious afterwards to a younger generation who knew him only as the very embodiment of Conservatism.

By the advent of Lord Grey to power in November 1830, Stanley obtained his first opportunity of showing his capacity for a responsible office. He was appointed to the chief secretaryship of Ireland, a position in which he found ample scope for both administrative and debating skill. On accepting office he had to vacate his seat for Preston and seek re-election; and he had the mortification of being defeated by the Radical “orator” Hunt. The contest was a peculiarly keen one, and turned upon the question of the ballot, which Stanley refused to support. He re-entered the House as one of the members for Windsor, Sir Hussey Vivian having resigned in his favour. In 1832 he again changed his seat, being returned for North Lancashire.

Stanley was one of the most ardent supporters of Lord Grey’s Reform Bill. Of this no other proof is needed than his frequent parliamentary utterances, which were fully in sympathy with the popular cry “The bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill.” Reference may be made especially to the speech he delivered on the 4th of March 1831 on the adjourned debate on the second reading of the bill, which was marked by all the higher qualities of his oratory. Apart from his connexion with the general policy of the government, Stanley had more than enough to have employed all his energies in the management of his own department. The secretary of Ireland has seldom an easy task; Stanley found it one of peculiar difficulty. The country was in a very unsettled state. The just concession that had been somewhat tardily yielded a short time before in Catholic emancipation had excited the people to make all sorts of demands, reasonable and unreasonable. Undaunted by the fierce denunciations of O’Connell, who styled him Scorpion Stanley, he discharged with determination the ungrateful task of carrying a coercion bill through the House. It was generally felt that O’Connell, powerful though he was, had fairly met his match in Stanley, who, with invective scarcely inferior to his own, evaded no challenge, ignored no argument, and left no taunt unanswered. The title “Rupert of Debate” is peculiarly applicable to him in connexion with the fearless if also often reckless method of attack he showed in his parliamentary war with O’Connell. It was first applied to him, however, thirteen years later by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton in The New Timon:—

The best answer, however, which he made to the attacks of the great agitator was not the retorts of debate, effective though these were, but the beneficial legislation he was instrumental in