Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/50

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Lennox
44
Lennox

passages between George III and Lady Sarah, who—‘notwithstanding she is said to have been in love at the time (1761) with Lord Newbottle—had no objection to become a queen’; see Jesse's ‘Memoirs of George III’ (cf. Wraxall, Memoirs, ii. 37; Grenville Papers, iv. 209–10; art. George III).

Two portraits of the duke by Kneller and Van Loo respectively have been engraved in mezzotint by J. Faber (Bromley, Cat. p. 262).

[Collins's Peerage, ed. Brydges, i. 184 sqq.; Douglas's Peerage, ed. Wood, ii. 105, 106; Doyle's Official Baronage, iii. 109; Gent. Mag. 1750, p. 380; Memoirs of Kit-Cat Club, pp. 16, 17; Read's Weekly Journal, 11 Aug. 1750; Coxe's Pelham Administration, i. 197, ii. 373; Hervey's Memoirs; Walpole's Letters; and Newcastle Correspondence, passim.]

T. S.

LENNOX, CHARLES, third Duke of Richmond and Lennox (1735–1806), third son of Charles, second duke of Richmond and Lennox [q. v.], by his wife, Lady Sarah Cadogan, was born in London on 22 Feb. 1735. He was educated as a town-boy at Westminster School, where Cowper remembered seeing him set fire to Vinny Bourne's ‘greasy locks and box his ears to put it out again’ (Southey, Cowper, 1836, iv. 98). He graduated at Leyden University on 28 Oct. 1753 (Peacock, Index of Leyden Students, 1883, p. 83), and subsequently travelled on the continent. Having entered the army he was gazetted captain in the 20th regiment of foot on 18 June 1753, lieutenant-colonel in the 33rd regiment of foot on 7 June 1756, colonel of the 72nd regiment of foot on 9 May 1758, and is said to have served in several expeditions to the French coast, and to have highly distinguished himself at the battle of Minden in August 1759. He succeeded his father as third Duke of Richmond and Lennox on 8 Aug. 1750, and took his seat in the House of Lords for the first time on 15 March 1756 (Journals of the House of Lords, xxviii. 523). On 25 Nov. 1760 he was appointed a lord of the bedchamber, but shortly afterwards quarrelled with the king, and resigned office (Dodington, Diary, 1784, pp. 417–19, 501–6). He carried the sceptre with the dove at the coronation of George III, in September 1761, and became lord-lieutenant of Sussex on 18 Oct. 1763. He subsequently broke off his relations with the ministry, and attached himself to the Duke of Cumberland. Upon the formation of the Marquis of Rockingham's first administration he refused the post of cofferer, and in August 1765 was appointed ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at Paris, being admitted to the privy council on 23 Oct. following. Though young and inexperienced he conducted his mission with great prudence and temper (Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III, ii. 229). Upon his return to England he became, in spite of the king's strong personal dislike, secretary of state for the southern department (23 May 1766), in place of the Duke of Grafton, and retired from office on the accession of Chatham to power in the following August. In recording Rockingham's resignation Walpole writes: ‘To the Duke of Richmond the king was not tolerably civil; and in truth I believe the seals which I had obtained for his grace were a mighty ingredient towards the fall of that administration’ (ib. ii. 338). During the debate on the bill of indemnity on 10 Dec. 1766, Richmond called Chatham ‘an insolent minister,’ and when called to order replied that he ‘was sensible truth was not to be spoken at all times and in all places’ (ib. ii. 410; see also Grenville Papers, iii. 396–7). Both lords were required to promise that the matter should go no further (Journals of the House of Lords, xxxi. 448). After this quarrel Chatham ‘during the whole of the remainder of his administration appeared no more in the House of Lords’ (Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III, ii. 411). On 2 June 1767 Richmond moved three resolutions in favour of the establishment of civil government in Canada, and censuring Lord Northington's neglect of cabinet business, but was defeated by 73 to 61 (ib. iii. 54; Parl. Hist. xvi. 361 n.) On 18 May 1770 his eighteen conciliatory resolutions relating to the disorders of America were met by a motion for adjournment, which was carried by a majority of thirty-four votes (Parl. Hist. xvi. 1010–14). On 30 April 1771 he moved that the resolutions of the House of Lords of 2 Feb. 1770, relating to the Middlesex election, should be expunged, but, though supported by Chatham, he failed to elicit any reply from the ministers, and the motion was negatived (ib. xvii. 214–16). In 1772 Richmond unsuccessfully advocated secession from parliament (Burke, Correspondence, i. 370–1). He constantly denounced the ministerial policy with reference to the American colonies, and during the debate on the second reading of the American Prohibitory Bill in December 1775 declared that the resistance of the colonists was ‘neither treason nor rebellion, but is perfectly justifiable in every possible political and moral sense’ (Parl. Hist. xviii. 1079). In August 1776 Richmond went to Paris in order to register his peerage of Au-