Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/28

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Stanhope
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Stanhope

and England, he sailed in the Florida from Zante in June 1824. Byron's body and papers were placed in the same ship under Stanhope's charge, and he furnished Moore with information about Byron's career in Greece. He had been nominated a commissioner of the loan raised in England for the Greek cause, but agreed with his colleagues that, owing to the defective organisation of the Greek government, it was unadvisable to issue more money. Stanhope's services to Greece are variously estimated (cf. Trelawny, Records of Byron; Finlay, Hist, of Greece, vols. vi. and vii.) Count Olerino Palma (Greece Vindicated, 1826) accused him of creating a third faction there, and of hindering the progress of the revolt. Personal animosities among those with whom he had to work rendered his position difficult and any conspicuous success impossible. But he was thanked by the English committee, and in April 1838 received the Greek order of the Redeemer.

Stanhope published in 1824, with a preface by Richard Ryan, his correspondence with the Greek committee in England in his 'Greece in 1823 and 1824.' Annexed to it was a 'Report on the State of Greece,' and a short life of Mustapha Ali (with coloured portrait), a young Turk he had brought over. An American edition appeared in 1825. Stanhope also contributed to the Paris edition of W. Parry's 'Last Days of Lord Byron' many letters to him from Finlay, and particulars of Byron's life and opinions, drawn from his conversations.

His elder brothers having died without children, Stanhope in March 1851 succeeded to the earldom of Harrington. He was much interested in the cause of temperance reform, and, though not himself a teetotaller, was a strong advocate of the Maine prohibition law. Harrington also advocated chancery reform and Polish independence.

He died at Harrington House, Kensington Palace Gardens, on 7 Sept. 1862. He married, in 1831, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of William Green, esq., of Trelawney, Jamaica. The issue of the marriage was, with two daughters, a son Sidney Seymour Hide Stanhope, sixth earl of Harrington (1845–1866), on whose death the earldom passed to his cousin Charles Wyndham Stanhope, seventh earl (1809–1881), father of the present earl. A portrait of Harrington as a child beating a drum, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds and called 'Sprightliness,' is at Harrington House. It was engraved by Bartolozzi. Another painting by Reynolds, representing him in military uniform on horseback, is at Elvaston. There are portraits of the countess by Macpherson and F. Stone engraved by Rolls, and by A. E. Chalon engraved by H. Robinson.

[Gent. Mag. 1862, ii. 491; Doyle's Official Baronage; G. E. C.'s and Foster's Peerages; Moore's Life of Byron, pp. 601, 607, 620, 629, 632, 639, and Diary, 12 and 14 July 1824; Stanhope's "Works, and a Collection of his Speeches, 1858; Trelawney's Records of Shelley, Byron, and himself, 1887, pp. 230–1; Finlay's Hist, of Greece, ed. Tozer, vi. 327–8, vii. 8–9; Waagen's Treasures of Art in Great Britain (Suppl. pp. 236, 495–6); Boase's Mod. Engl. Biogr.]

G. Le G. N.

STANHOPE, Sir MICHAEL (d. 1552), partisan of the Protector Somerset, second son of Sir Edward Stanhope (d. 1511) by his first wife, Avelina, daughter of Sir Gervase Clifton of Clifton, Nottinghamshire, was descended from an ancient Nottinghamshire family, several members of which had been knighted and had frequently represented the shire in parliament in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. His father was one of the leaders of the army that vanquished Simnel's adherents at Stoke in 1487; he also fought against the Cornish rebels at Blackheath in 1497, and by his second wife was father of Anne, duchess of Somerset [see Seymour, Edward, first Duke of Somerset]. On the death of the elder son, Richard, without male issue, on 21 Jan. 1528–9, Michael succeeded to the family estates. Soon afterwards he entered the service of Henry VIII, and early in 1537 he was placed on the commission of the peace for Nottinghamshire. He benefited largely by the dissolution of the monasteries, his principal grants being Shelford priory, rectory, and manor and the priory of Lenton, both in Nottinghamshire (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vols. xii. xiii. passim). On 17 Feb. 1541–2 he was appointed lieutenant of Kingston-upon-Hull (Tickell, pp. 186 sqq.), and from that date till the end of the reign he was actively employed in making arrangements for the wars on the border and various expeditions into Scotland (Hamilton Papers, vol. i. passim; Acts P. C. 1542–1547 passim). On 5 Jan. 1544–5 he was returned to parliament as knight of the shire of Nottingham. Soon after Edward VI's accession Stanhope was knighted and appointed chief gentleman of the privy chamber and deputy to his brother-in-law, the Protector, in the governorship of the young king. On 10 Oct. 1547 he was again elected to parliament for Nottinghamshire, and he also received a grant of the keepership of Windsor park and governorship of Hull. Two years later he lost all his appointments on the