cessant, and calculations and gossip about them were his favourite and most trusted refreshment in Downing Street. He also in later life corresponded with Lord Brougham on questions of physical science, and was long a member of the committee of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
The romance of Althorp's life was his devotion to his wife. She was a Miss Esther Acklom of Wiseton Hall, Northamptonshire, a stout and somewhat plain lady of considerable intelligence, who is said to have fallen in love with him when she was twenty-two and he ten years older, and to have made the fact so plain to him that, although he had not intended to marry, he proposed to her. They were married on 14 April 1814, and resided on her estate of Wiseton, consisting of some two thousand acres. While she lived he was devoted to her; when she died in 1818 he was inconsolable, and from the time of her death always wore black, then the evening dress only of clergymen and persons in mourning (Lord Albemarle, Fifty Years of My Life, p. 371). He left no issue, and was succeeded by his brother Frederick, fourth earl Spencer and father of the present earl.
Reynolds painted his portrait when a boy, and he gave sittings to Butler for a statue to be erected at Northampton, but the bust only was completed; it is at Althorp. The best picture of him is one painted by Richard Ansdell about 1841, called ‘A Scene at Wiseton,’ in which he figures with his stewards, his herdsman Wagstaff, his bull Wiseton, and his dog Bruce. He is included also in Ansdell's picture of the ‘Meeting of the Agricultural Society,’ of which an engraving was published in 1845. A medallion portrait of him now belonging to the Royal Agricultural Society was executed in 1841 by W. Wyon, R.A., from which the Smithfield Club's medal was reproduced. The engraving in the National Portrait Gallery, London, is apparently from the same medallion.
[There qre two lives of Althorp, both founded on family papers—one by Sir Denis Le Marchant and the other by E. Myers. Elaborate characters of him are given in Edinburgh Review, 1846, by Lord John Russell, by Greville (Memoirs 2nd ser. ii. 296), and, from the agricultural point of view, in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, by Sir Harry Verney and Ernest Clarke (3rd ser. i. 138–56). See Lord Hatherton's Memoir; Greville Memoirs (1st and 2nd ser.); Cockburn's Memoir of Jeffrey; Roebuck's History of the Reform Bill; Grey's Correspondence with William IV; Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay; Brougham's Dialogues on Instinct, Walpole's Life of Lord John Russell; J. E. Butler's Life of Grey of Dilston.]
SPENCER, ROBERT, first Baron Spencer of Wormleighton (d. 1627), was the only son of Sir John Spencer (d. 1600), and his wife Mary, daughter of Sir Robert Catlin [q. v.], was great-great-grandson of Sir John Spencer (d. 1522), who traced his descent from Robert Despencer, steward to William the Conqueror, and from the Despencers, the favourites of Edward II; he purchased Wormleighton and Althorp, and realised great wealth by inclosing lands and converting others from arable to pasture (see Leadam, The Domesday of Inclosures, 1897 passim; Colvile, Warwickshire Worthies, pp. 706–8). His grandson, Sir John Spencer (d. 1586), further augmented the family fortunes by marrying Katherine, eldest daughter of the wealthy merchant, Sir Thomas Kytson [q. v.], and among his daughters were Elizabeth, lady Carey [q. v.]; Anne, who married, as her third husband, Robert Sackville, second earl of Dorset [q. v.], and Alice, who married (1) Ferdinando Stanley, fifth earl of Derby [q. v.], and (2) Thomas Egerton, baron Ellesmere and viscount Brackley [q. v.] His fourth son, Sir Richard Spencer (d. 1624) of Ottley, Hertfordshire, was knighted 7 May 1603 and appointed ambassador to Spain in 1604, but got excused on the plea of health. On 5 Aug. 1607 he was nominated with Sir Ralph Winwood [q. v.] joint representative of England at The Hague in the negotiations for peace between Spain and the United Netherlands (Winwood, Memorials, vol. ii. passim; Motley, United Netherlands, iv. 389, 453, 535). He died in November 1624 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1623–5, p. 401), leaving a son, Sir John, who on 17 March 1626–7 receives a baronetcy which became extinct on 12 Aug. 1699 (Clutterbuck, Hertfordshire, iii. 96–7, 110–13; Burke, Extinct Baronetage). Robert's father, Sir John Spencer, who must be distinguished from Sir John Spencer (d. 1610) [q. v.] the lord mayor, was knighted in 1588, and died on 9 Jan. 1599–1600.
Robert, the fifth knight in succession of his family, received that honour about 1600, and in the following year served as sheriff of Northamptonshire. He devoted himself assiduously to sheep-breeding, and at the accession of James I was reputed the wealthiest man in England. On 21 July he was created Baron Spencer of Wormleighton, and on 18 Sept. following he was sent to invest Frederick, duke of Wurtemberg, with the order of the Garter (Stow, Annals, p. 828), and was received by him with great magnificence (Ashmole, Order of the Garter, p. 411). In domestic politics
