Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (1672–1739)

Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (painting 1711)

Coat of arms of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford

Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (baptized September 17, 1672 at Wakefield ; † November 15, 1739 at Wentworth Castle ), known between 1695 and 1711 as Thomas Wentworth, 3rd Baron Raby , was an English peer , military, and diplomat Politician.

Life

He was the son and heir of Sir William Wentworth, landlord of Northgate Head in Yorkshire and Ashby in Lincolnshire . His father was at times the High Sheriff of Yorkshire. His mother was his wife Isabella Apsley, whose father Sir Allen Apsley had been a well-known royalist commandant. The executed Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (1593–1641) was his great-uncle.

Around 1687 Thomas Wentworth was honorary page of the Queen Consort Maria von Modena , wife of King James II. In 1688 he entered the British Army and acquired the rank of cornet in the cavalry regiment of Viscount Colchester . Under Wilhelm III. He fought in Scotland in 1689, later in Flanders until 1697 and received diplomatic duties. During the Palatinate War of Succession , he took part in the battles at Steenkerke and Neerwinde and was wounded. In 1693 he was promoted to major , in 1697 to colonel of a dragoon regiment.

When his second uncle William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford died in 1695, Thomas inherited from him the titles of 3rd Baron Raby and 4th Baronet , of Wentworth Woodhouse in the County of York, but not his property. He financed the expensive construction of Wentworth Castle from 1711 by the Huguenot Jean de Bodt from his own income, only a few kilometers away from Wentworth Woodhouse , which he had not inherited. Lord Raby became Deputy Lieutenant of Lincolnshire in 1700 . In March 1701 he took part in the coronation of Frederick I of Prussia as an extraordinary ambassador . Under Queen Anne , Lord Raby rose further in military service: in 1703 he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General , in 1704 to General Major and in 1707 to General Lieutenant .

From 1703 to 1704 ( envoyé extraordinaire ) and 1705 to 1711 ( ambassadeur from 1706) he was the English ambassador in Berlin , and had an affair with the king's mistress, Catharina von Wartenberg . From March 1711 to 1714 he was the English ambassador in The Hague . In 1711 he was admitted to the Privy Council and on June 29, 1711 was elevated to Earl of Strafford and Viscount Wentworth , of Wentworth-Woodhouse and of Stainborough in the County of York. From 1712 he was First Lord of the Admiralty and was accepted into the Order of the Garter as a Knight Companion in October 1712 . Lord Strafford represented Great Britain with the Bishop of Bristol John Robinson at the Congress of Utrecht in 1713 , at which he personally contributed in particular to ensuring that Tournai remained with the United Netherlands and that Obergeldern was assigned to the Kingdom of Prussia . Because of his arbitrariness at that congress, he drew the wrath of the Whigs , which in 1714, when King George I took office , resulted in his dismissal from all public offices. Because of his role in the Congress of Utrecht, the House of Commons decided in 1715 to open a case against him for high treason , which was no longer pursued by either House of Parliament after 1716.

Strafford retired to Wentworth Castle. He switched again to the Jacobites and was one of the leading conspirators in the Atterbury Plot 1720–1722 to bring the Stuarts back to the throne. As designated commander of the northern troops, the exiled pretender to the throne James Francis Edward Stuart appointed him Duke of Strafford on January 5, 1722 . He also belonged to the Cornbury Plot 1731-1735 with the same goal. However, the British Government did nothing against him and he occasionally spoke in the House of Lords . In 1739 he died in Wentworth Castle after a long illness.

Marriage and offspring

On September 6, 1711 he married Anne Johnson (around 1684-1754), heiress of Sir Henry Johnson, lord of Bradenham in Buckinghamshire and Teddington in Bedfordshire . The dowry was £ 60,000 . With her he had three daughters as well as a son and heir:

• Lady Anne Wentworth († 1797), ⚭ 1733 Rt. Hon. William James Conolly († 1754), Anglo-Irish politician;
• Lady Lucy Wentworth, ⚭ 1747 Field Marshal Sir George Howard (1718–1796), squire of Bookham in Surrey ;
• Lady Henrietta Wentworth (1720–1786), ⚭ 1743 Henry Vernon (1718–1765), squire of Hilton Park in Staffordshire ;
• William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford (1722–1791).

literature

• Linda Frey, Marsha Frey: Wentworth, Thomas, first earl of Strafford. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X ( online edition ).
• Linda Frey, Marsha Frey (ed.): The Treaties of the War of the Spanish Succession. An Historical and Critical Dictionary. Greenwood Press, London 1995, p. 489 ff.
• Jeremy Black: Wentworth, Thomas . In: The Treaties of the War of the Spanish Succession. An Historical and Critical Dictionary . 1995, ISBN 978-0-313-27884-6 ( google.de [accessed on January 2, 2020]).
• George Atherton Aitken: Wentworth, Thomas (1672-1739) . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 60, Smith, Elder & Co., London 1899, pp. 286-289.

Web links

Wikisource: Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford  - Sources and full texts (English)

• Strafford, Earl of (GB, 1711-1799) at Cracroft's Peerage

Single receipts

1. ^ Matthias Pohlig: Marlborough's Secret: Structures and Functions of Information Gathering in the War of the Spanish Succession . Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar, 2016, ISBN 978-3-412-50550-9 ( google.de [accessed on January 12, 2020]).
2. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 41.

predecessor	Office	successor
William Wentworth	Baron Raby 1672-1739	William Wentworth
New title created	Earl of Strafford 1711-1739	William Wentworth
Charles Townshend	British ambassador to the Netherlands 1711–1714	William Cadogan
John Leake	First Lord of the Admiralty 1712–1714	Edward Russell