Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Middleton, Charles (1640?-1719)
MIDDLETON, CHARLES, second Earl of Middleton and titular Earl of Monmouth (1640?–1719), secretary of state to James II, born about 1640, was eldest son of John, first earl of Middleton [q. v.], by his wife Grizel, daughter of Sir James Durham of Pitkerrow, and widow first of Sir Alexander Fotheringham of Ballindrone, and secondly of Sir Gilbert Ramsay of Balmain. He accompanied his father in his highland campaign against Cromwell in 1653–4, and after his defeat at Lochgarry escaped with him to France. At the Restoration he was appointed by Charles II envoy extraordinary to the court of Vienna. In 1673 he succeeded his father in the earldom of Middleton, but not in the estates, which were all seized by creditors.
Middleton was one of those who in May 1682 accompanied James, duke of York, in the Gloucester frigate, to bring the duchess from Scotland, and when the frigate was wrecked on the Yorkshire coast made his escape in the small boat [see James II of England]. Shortly afterwards he was sworn a member of the Scottish privy council; on 26 Sept. was appointed joint secretary of Scotland with the Earl of Moray; on 11 July 1684 was sworn a privy councillor of England; on the 15th of the same month was admitted an extraordinary lord of session of Scotland; and on 25 Aug. was appointed to succeed Godolphin as secretary of state for England. In February 1686 he resigned the office of extraordinary lord of session in favour of his brother-in-law, Patrick Lyon, first earl of Strathmore [q. v.]
After the accession of King James in 1685 Middleton, who on 15 April was returned member for Winchelsea (Official Return of Members of Parliament, i. 556), was entrusted, along with Richard Graham, viscount Preston [q. v.], with the chief management of the House of Commons. By his ‘good judgment and lively apprehension’ (Burnet, Own Time, ed. 1838, p. 384) he succeeded, perhaps as well as any other could, in covering the more glaring errors and defects of the blundering and ill-fated policy of the king. Although his wife was a catholic, he himself ‘was without much religion’ (ib.), and as long as James reigned in England withstood every effort of James to convert him to catholicism. A priest sent by James to instruct him in the principles of the old faith began with transubstantiation, and as a first step in his argument said, ‘You believe the Trinity?’ upon which Middleton replied, ‘Who told you so?’ (ib. p. 435).
In the first parliament of James, Middleton adopted every possible expedient to secure the support of the commons to the proposal for a standing army, and to overcome the opposition to the infringements of the Test Act; but at the same time he was well aware of the dangers attending the purpose on which the king was bent, and did his utmost to induce him to consent to a compromise. In such circumstances it was probably owing chiefly to his wife's influence with the queen that he was retained in office, but he justified the confidence reposed in him by remaining faithful to James to the last. After the king's sudden withdrawal to Feversham he declined to attend the meeting of the lords and privy council called to consider the steps to be taken in the crisis (Clarke, Life of James II, ii. 259). Nevertheless he was one of the four nobles deputed by them to invite the king to return to Whitehall, and was present with him at Whitehall when a message came from the Prince of Orange that James should retire from London. At the king's request he arranged for his withdrawal to Rochester. Subsequently he waited on the king there to surrender the seals of the secretary's office, and endeavoured to induce him to abandon his projected flight and to summon a parliament. It was to him that the king, after making his secret escape, left the paper containing his reasons for ‘withdrawing himself from England.’
On the flight of the king Middleton remained in England, but did not come to terms with the new government. He was practically the head of the less extreme section of the Jacobites known as the ‘compounders,’ and made it his chief aim to set on foot a movement for a restoration, accompanied by guarantees which would have restrained James from persevering in his former fatal policy. How far he sincerely believed in the possibility of restraining him by any guarantees is, however, doubtful. Yet there is no reason to suppose that he had any connection with the earlier plots to effect his restoration by force, although at the time of the threatened invasion of England by France in 1692 an order was emitted on 11 May for committing him on the charge of high treason (Luttrell, Short Relation, ii. 449). On the 17th he was apprehended in disguise at a quaker's in Goodman's Fields, and after examination by the council was committed to the Tower (ib. p. 453). As, however, no evidence was forthcoming against him, he was on 18 Aug. released on bail (ib. p. 543), and on 19 Nov. the bail was discharged (ib. p. 619).
Early in 1693 Middleton joined the court of St. Germains. Burnet mentions a general belief that he was sent to propose that King James ‘should offer to resign his title in favour of his son, and likewise to send him to be bred in England under the direction of a parliament till he should be of age;’ but adds that he ‘could never hear that he ventured on this advice’ (Own Time, ed. 1838, p. 598). It would at least appear that some endeavour was made either then or subsequently, and either at the instigation of Middleton or others, to induce William III to consent that the Prince of Wales should succeed him (Clarke, Life of James II, ii. 574); but James objected to this proposal on any conditions (Macpherson, Original Papers, i. 553). Middleton, however, who had been in communication with the less extreme supporters of the revolution, was specially commissioned to induce James to sign the new declaration, by which he virtually withdrew from his position of absolutism, and renounced his endeavours to restore the catholic religion. He is said to have assured the king that if he signed it, ‘those who sent it engaged to restore him in three or four months after’ (Clarke, Life of James II, ii. 575). As a pledge of the reality of the new departure, Middleton now succeeded the Earl of Melfort [see Drummond, John, first Earl, and titular Duke of Melfort] as chief adviser of the exiled king, with the title of secretary of state. In consequence of his having joined the court at St. Germains, he was on 23 July 1694 outlawed by the high court of justiciary in Scotland, and on 2 July of the following year forfeited by parliament.
On the death of James II on 6 Sept. 1701, Middleton suggested the omission of the proposed ceremony of proclaiming the young king at St. Germains, on account of the difficulty of proclaiming him there king of France. By the titular James III he was created Earl of Monmouth. James II had on his deathbed earnestly exhorted Middleton to seek refuge from doubt in the catholic church. Middleton had been accustomed to parry the efforts to convert him by asserting that ‘a new light never came into the house except through a crack in the tiling’ (Macky, Secret Memoirs, p. 239); but he now resolved himself to falsify this maxim by at least outwardly conforming to the king's dying request. Possibly he was chiefly influenced by the consideration that in no other way could he now maintain his position and influence at St. Germains and among the leading Jacobites. In any case he professed his conviction of the insufficiency of protestantism, and retiring for a time from the court of St. Germains, entered a convent in Paris to obtain fuller instruction in the catholic faith. In the will of the late king he had been named one of the council to assist the queen in the guardianship of the young prince, and soon after his return to St. Germains in the summer of 1703 he found abundant occupation in exposing and thwarting the intrigues of Simon Fraser, twelfth lord Lovat [q. v.], in connection with his pretended negotiations for a rising in the highlands. After Lovat's arrival in Paris, Middleton, on 16 Jan. 1704, recommended that he should be at once arrested, sending along with the recommendation a translation of his memorial to the exiled queen, with remarks upon it; Lovat, he wrote, had ‘not in some places been as careful as authors of romance to preserve probability’ (Macpherson, Original Papers, i. 652).
Middleton was in a great degree responsible for the abortive expedition of the young prince James to Scotland in 1707, and advised that an attempt should be made to land at Burntisland, on the Firth of Forth. His two sons, Lord Clermont and Charles Middleton, accompanied the expedition, and being captured in the Salisbury, were detained in prison for three years. Subsequently he joined the prince in Flanders, and he also accompanied him to Lorraine, when in the beginning of 1713 he was compelled to leave France. In December 1713 he resigned the office of secretary of state, and returned to St. Germains, where he was appointed great chamberlain to the queen. He died in 1719.
Macky describes Middleton as ‘a black man, of a middle stature, with a sanguine complexion, and one of the pleasantest companions in the world.’ He also states that he was ‘one of the politest gentlemen in Europe; had a great deal of wit mixed with a sound judgment, and a very clear understanding’ (Secret Memoirs, pp. 238–40), to which Swift adds that Sir W. Temple told him ‘he was a very valuable man and a good scholar.’ By his wife, Lady Catherine Brudenell, daughter of Robert, second earl of Cardigan, and a zealous catholic and a great favourite of the queen, Middleton had two sons, Lord Clermont and Charles Middleton, both of whom predeceased him, and two, or possibly three, daughters, Elizabeth, married to Edward Drummond, third son of James, duke of Perth, and Mary or Catherine, one of whom was married to Sir John Gifford, knight, and probably to the Count de La Roches or Rothe.
[Burnet's Own Time; Luttrell's Short Relation; Clarke's Life of James II; Macpherson's Original Papers, containing a large number of his letters; Sir John Reresby's Memoirs; Macky's Secret Memoirs; Dalrymple's Memoirs of Great Britain; Klopp's Fall des Hauses Stuart; Macaulay's Hist. of England; Biscoe's Earls of Middleton; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), ii. 232-3.]