Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boyle, Henry (d.1725)

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418957Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 06 — Boyle, Henry (d.1725)1886William Prideaux Courtney

BOYLE, HENRY, Lord Carleton (d. 1725), politician, was the third and youngest son of Charles, lord Clifford, of Lanesborough, by Jane, youngest daughter of William, duke of Somerset, and grandson of Richard Boyle, second earl of Cork [q. v.] He sat in parliament for Tamworth from 1689 to 1690, for Cambridge University—after a contest in which Sir Isaac Newton supported his opponent—from 1692 to 1705, and for Westminster from 1705 to 1710. Although he was at the head of the poll at Cambridge in 1701, he did not venture to try his fortune in 1705. From 1699 to 1701 he was a lord of the treasury, and in the latter year he became the chancellor of the exchequer; from 1704 to 1710 he was lord treasurer of Ireland, and in 1708 he was made a principal secretary of state in the room of Harley. Two years later he was displaced for St. John, and the act formed one of those bold steps on the part of the tory ministry which 'almost shocked' Swift. Boyle is generally said to have been the messenger who found Addison [q. v.] in his mean lodging, and by his blandishments, and a definite promise of preferment and the prospect of still greater advancement, secured the poet's pen to celebrate the victory of Blenheim and its hero. In return, it is said, for his good offices on this occasion, the third volume of the ‘Spectator’ was dedicated to Boyle, with the eulogy that among politicians no one had 'made himself more friends and fewer enemies.' Southerne, the dramatist, was another of the men of letters whom he befriended. Boyle was engaged as one of the managers of the trial of Sacheverell. On 20 Oct. 1714 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Carleton of Carleton, Yorkshire, and from 1721 to 1725 was lord president of the council in Walpole's administration. He died a bachelor at his house in Pall Mall on 14 March 1725. He left this house, known as Carlton House, to the Prince of Wales, and it was long notorious as the abode of the prince regent: the name is still perpetuated in Carlton House Terrace. The winning manners and the tact of Lord Carleton have been highly praised. He was never guilty, so it was said by his panegyrists, of an imprudent speech or of any acts to injure the success of the whig cause. Swift, however, accuses him of avarice.

[Budgell's Lives of Boyles, 149-55; Swift's Works; Chalmers; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, iv. 19, 40, 47; Lodge's Peerage, i. 175.]

W. P. C.

Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.34
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line

Page Col. Line  
110 ii 15-14 f.e. Boyle, Henry, Lord Carleton: for in the latter year he became the read from 1701 to 1708
13 f.e. for 1710 read 1715
11 f.e. after state insert of the Northern Department
6 f.e. before Boyle insert He was lord-lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire 1702-15