Background
Goodwin Wharton was the third and youngest son out of the seven children of Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton and Jane Goodwin, daughter of Arthur Goodwin (died 1643), of Upper Winchendon, Buckinghamshire.
Goodwin Wharton was the third and youngest son out of the seven children of Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton and Jane Goodwin, daughter of Arthur Goodwin (died 1643), of Upper Winchendon, Buckinghamshire.
In public and family life he was overshadowed by his forceful older brother, Thomas Wharton, 1st Marquess of Wharton and Malmesbury. An avid mystic, alchemist and treasure hunter, Wharton sent two expeditions to Tobermory to try to raise a galleon from the Spanish Armada wrecked there. Some of his singularly unsuccessful treasure-hunting was done on the advice of a lover, the self-professed medium Mary Parish, who claimed to have placed him in contact with fairies.
The soldier-politician John Wildman also became fascinated by Parish"s predictions in 1684.
In the following year, Wharton began to receive messages that ostensibly came directly from God and several of his angels. He claimed to have had an affair with his sister-in-law, the poet Anne Wharton, in the early 1680s.
Wharton"s mental instability seems to have gone unnoticed outside his family circle, but he was out of favour under James II for his pronounced Whiggery, despite making representations to his consort, Mary of Modena (and fantasizing about having an affair with her). With the Glorious Revolution he rose to some eminence and was commissioned a lieutenant colonel of cavalry.
Wharton inherited Buckinghamshire estates on his father"s death in 1696.
He had been elected to Parliament again in 1690, and sat successively for Westmoreland, Malmesbury, Cockermouth, and the shire of Buckinghamshire until his death. He was one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty in 1697-1699. He suffered a stroke in 1698, which ended his public career.
Habeas Corpus Parliament]
Elected a member of Parliament for East Grinstead in 1680, he made a hot-headed speech in favour of excluding the Duke of York (later James II) from the throne and had to go into hiding for a time.