fifth year. He was likewise made gentleman of the bed-chamber. He afterwards went into the French fervice, to learn the art of war under Turenne, but staid only a short time. Being by the duke of Monmouth opposed in his pretensions to the first troop of horse-guards, he, in return, made Monmouth suspected by the duke of York. He was not long after, when the unlucky Monmouth fell into disgrace, recompenfed with the lieutenancy of Yorkshire and the government of Hull. Thus rapidly did he make his way both to military and civil honours and employments; yet, busy as he was, he did not neglect his studies, but at least cultivated poetry; in which he must have been early confidered as uncommonly skilful, if it be true which is reported, that, when he was yet not twenty years old, his recommendation advanced Dryden to the laurel. The Moors having befieged Tangier, he was sent (1680) with two thousand men to its relief. A strange story is told of danger to which he was intentionally exposed in a leaky ship, to gratify some resentful jealousy of the king, whose health he therefore would never permit at his table, till he saw himself in a safer place. His voyage was profperoufly performed in three weeks, and the Moors without a contest retired before him. In this voyage he composed the Vision; a licentious poem, such as was fashionable in those times, with little power of invention or propriety of fentiment. At his return he found the King kind, who perhaps had never been angry; and he continued a wit and a courtier as before. At the succession of king James, to whom he was intimately known, and by whom he thought himself beloved, he naturally expected still brighter sun-shine; but all know how foon that reign began to gather clouds. His expectations were not disappointed; he was immediately admitted into the privy council, and made lord chamberlain. He accepted a place in the high commission, without knowledge, as he declared after the Revolution, of its illegality. Having few religious fcruples, he attended the king to mass, and kneeled with the rest'; but had no disposition to receive the Romish Faith, or 1 VOL. II. Ff to L to force it upon others; for when the priests, encouraged by his appearances of compliance, attempted to convert him, he told them, as Burnet has recorded, that he was willing to receive instruction, and that he had taken much pains to believe in God who made the world and all men in it; but that he should not be easily perfuaded that man was quits, and made God again. A pointed sentence is bestowed by fuccessive transmission on the last whom it will fit: this censure of transubstantiation, whatever be its value, was uttered long ago by Anne Afkew, one of the first sufferers for the Protestant Religion, who in the time of Henry VIII. was tortured in the Tower; concerning which there is reason to wonder that it was not known to the Hiftorian of the Reformation. In the Revolution he acquiefced, though he did not promote it. There was once a design of afsociating him in the invitation of the prince of Orange; but the earl of Shrewsbury discouraged the attempt, by declaring that Mulgrave would never concur. This king William afterwards told him, and afked asked what he would have done if the proposal had been made. Sir, said he, I would have discovered it to the king whom I then ferved. To which King William replied, I cannot blame you. Finding king James irremediably excluded, he voted for the conjunctive sovereignty, upon this principle, that he thought the titles of the prince and his confort equal, and it would please the prince their protector to have a share in the sovereignty. This vote gratified king William; yet, either by the king's distrust or his own discontent, he lived some years without employment. He looked on the king with malevolence, and, if his verses or his prose may be credited, with contempt. He was, notwithstanding this aversion or indifference, made marquis of Normanby (1694); but still opposed the court on some important questions; yet at last he was received into the cabinet council, with a pension of three thousand pounds. : At the acceffion of queen Anne, whom he is faid to have courted when they were both young, he was highly favoured. Be : fore her coronation (1702) she made him lord privy feal, and foon after lord lieutenant of the North-riding of Yorkshire. He was then named commiffioner for treating with the Scots about the Union; and was made next year first duke of Normanby, and then of Buckinghamshire, there being fuspected to be somewhere a latent claim to the title of Buckingham, Soon after, becoming jealous of the duke of Marlborough, he resigned the privy feal, and joined the discontented Tories in a motion extremely offenfive to the Queen, for inviting the princess Sophia to England. The Queen courted him back with an offer no less than that of the chancellorship, which he refused. He now retired from business, and built that house in the Park, which is now the Queen's, upon ground granted by the Crown, When the ministry was changed (1710), he was made lord chamberlain of the household, and concurred in all transactions of that time, except that he endeavoured to protect the Catalans. After the Queen's death, he became a conftant opponent of the Court; and, |