Background
Charles Lennox was born on 22 February 1735, the third son of Charles, second Duke of Richmond, and his wife, Lady Sarah Cadogan.
Charles Lennox was born on 22 February 1735, the third son of Charles, second Duke of Richmond, and his wife, Lady Sarah Cadogan.
He was educated at Westminster School and at Leyden University, and then traveled on the Continent. He entered the army as a captain in 1753 and had risen to the rank of colonel by 1758. By 1761 he was a major general, a general by 1782, and a field marshal by 1786, although he was rarely directly involved in military ventures after 1760.
He succeeded his father as the third Duke of Richmond in 1750, but did not take up his seat in the House of Lords until 1756.
Thereafter he served in a number of offices of state. He became lord lieutenant of Sussex in October 1763. However, he fell out of favor with the government and did not assume further responsibilities until August 1765, when the Marquess of Rockingham appointed him ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at Paris. He was admitted to the Privy Council on 23 October 1765. Upon his return to England he became secretary of state for the Southern Department (a title that became that of home secretary after 1782) but occupied the position only from the end of May to the end of July 1766.
From 1783 on, he gradually drifted into the Whig/Tory coalition cabinets of William Pitt (the Younger), being given a ministerial post in the Ordnance Office. However, he was relieved of that office in February 1795. He became increasingly critical of the conduct of the French and Napoleonic Wars, and publicly condemned the humiliating peace agreement of 1802. He died on 29 December 1806.
Richmond became a staunch opponent of the ministries of the Duke of Grafton and Lord North, particularly in relation to their attitude toward the American colonists. He denounced the ministerial policy in America, and during the second reading of the American Prohibitory Bill in December 1775, he declared that the resistance of the American colonists was “neither treason nor rebellion, but is perfectly justifiable in every possible political and moral sense.” Indeed, he put forward a motion on 7 April 1778 for the withdrawal of the troops from America. The episode ended when William Pitt, the Earl of Chatham, was struck down by a fatal illness when replying to Richmond’s speech.
Richmond also supported legislative measures to redress Irish grievances and advocated a closer union among England, Ireland, and Wales. On 2 June 1780, he attempted to forward a reform bill that proposed annual parliaments, manhood suffrage, and electoral districts. Throughout that period he remained a supporter of Rockingham and the Whig grouping of M.P.s that gathered around Rockingham. Indeed, following Rockingham’s death in 1782, Richmond expected to become the leader of that group of Whigs; but his advocacy of parliamentary reform barred him from such a role.
He is remembered as an effective but not a stellar politician.
He married Lady Mary Bruce, the only child of the third Earl of Ailesbury (the fourth Earl of Elgin), in 1757.