James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave, was a British politician and statesman.
Background
Waldegrave was born on 15 March 1715. He came from a Catholic family of Stuart loyalists. His grandmother, Lady Henrietta Fitzjames, was the daughter of James II by his mistress, Arabella Churchill, and the barony of Waldegrave was created by James II in January 1686. Waldegrave’s father, having despaired of founding a Catholic faction that was sincerely Hanoverian, had converted to the Anglican faith in February 1722. In September 1729, he was created Viscount Chewton of Chewton and first Earl Waldegrave by George II. After the elder Waldegrave (who also was named James) died of dropsy in April 1741, his son inherited both titles.
Career
The second earl was only 26 when he inherited the family title, but he at once began to play an active part in the Lords, defending Sir Robert Walpole against an impeachment, one of the articles of which was the charge that Walpole had appointed a close relative of the Pretender (Waldegraves father) British ambassador in Paris. From 1743 to 1752 Waldegrave held the relatively modest court post of Lord of the Bedchamber, attending regularly on the king, who had become attached to the young peer. He was inclined to enjoy the company of the nations political elite in their convivial moments rather than their business hours, and was thus a stalwart of Whites, the leading Whig club, notorious for its gaming and reckless wagers.
In 1751, when the Prince of Wales died and the Duchy of Cornwall reverted to the Crown, George marked out Waldegrave for his personal favor, appointing him Lord Warden of the Stannaries—a post with valuable powers of patronage that made its holder useful to the ministry. In December 1752, Waldegrave accepted the position of governor to the young Prince of Wales, with overall responsibility for the education of the heir to the throne. Waldegrave understood that his standing at court would likely determine his future career after Prince George became king. In the event, although the two did not develop the kind of friendship that the prince enjoyed with Waldegraves successor, Lord Bute, Waldegrave was on quite good terms with his royal charge. In contrast, the dowager princess, George’s mother, was always cool toward him; after 1755, her coolness noticeably grew as Bute came into favor and as Pitt became more clearly the political leader of the reversionary interest, those who attended the Princes court at Leicester House and hoped to gain when the throne reverted to him.
In September 1756, Waldegrave was permitted to resign his governors post, having sometime earlier lost the confidence of the prince. Soon afterward, toward the end of October, Newcastle resigned from the Treasury, and Waldegrave followed him into political exile. George II was compelled to accept a ministry headed by the Duke of Devonshire, with Pitt— whom the king detested—as secretary of state. His attempts to replace this grouping with a different ministry (minus Pitt) created an anomalous situation. The ministers were dismissed at the end of the parliamentary session in April 1757 and not replaced, while the king attempted to persuade Newcastle to form a ministry that excluded the Leicester House faction. In the end, Newcastle declared unequivocally that he could govern only by bringing in Pitt and his supporters.
On 8 June the king called on Henry Fox, Newcastle’s rival and Waldegraves friend, to form an administration, with Waldegrave at the Treasury. With little hope of success, Waldegrave acceded to the king’s direct command to take the post. He noted in his Memoirs that he was “pardy moved by [George’s] Distress, partly yielding to his Persuasion, or perhaps fired by some latent Spark of Pride or Ambition.” With the next day came a stream of resignations by followers of Newcastle, reminiscent of the mass resignation of February 1746, and having the same effect of forcing the king’s hand. On 11 June, Waldegrave advised the king to come to terms with Pitt and Newcastle, and his brief bid for the premiership was over. In July he was rewarded with the Garter, in an unusual single ceremony of investiture—a sign of the king’s high regard for him.
Waldegraves friendship with the king’s younger son the Duke of Cumberland also continued, but he had little to do in Parliament after this period. It was a time of greater personal happiness. When his former pupil came to the throne in 1760, Waldegrave was for a time an influential court insider, but the rise of Bute prevented his taking a leading political role. There was talk of offering him his fathers old post as ambassador to Paris. The offer was made, and duly refused, on 29 March 1763. The next day, Waldegrave fell ill of smallpox, of which he died on 8 April at the age of 48. Always placid, amiable, and widely liked, Waldegrave had matured by 1763 into a figure who might well have commanded respect and assent had he survived to form a ministry after the resignation of Bute—which by coincidence took place on the very day of Waldegraves death.
Personality
Lord Waldegrave never led a faction or actively sought high office, yet at the time of his early death he had been so long known and respected in the political world that he was being talked of as the next prime minister. Had he lived, he might have brought stability to government in the 1760s. His one attempt to form an administration, in June 1757, was undertaken out of respect for the aging George II, and it soon ended in failure.
All surviving comments on Waldegrave agree on his honesty and charm of manner, his unusual lack of malice or sharpness even toward those who opposed him in politics.
Quotes from others about the person
When in autumn 1750 George II personally proposed Waldegrave for the office of secretary of state, Henry Pelham opposed him, confiding to his brother the Duke of Newcastle that the earl was “as good-natured, worthy, and sensible a man as any in the kingdom, but totally surrendered to his pleasures.”
His friend, the young Horace Walpole, described his reluctance to accept the charge: “The Earl was very averse to it: he was a man of pleasure, understood the court, was firm in the Kings favor, easy in his circumstances, and at once undesirous of rising, and afraid to fall.”
Connections
In May 1759, at the age of 44, he married Maria Walpole, niece of his friend Horace and illegitimate daughter of Sir Edward Walpole and his lifelong mistress, Dorothy Clement. Although she was half his age, Maria evidently made a devoted wife, and within a short time they had three daughters.