gen.James Stanhope

Educated at Eton College and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he matriculated in May 1688, he accompanied his father, then British minister at Madrid, to Spain in 1690, and obtained some knowledge of that country which was very useful to him in later life. A little later, however, he went to Italy where, as afterwards in Flanders, he served as a volunteer against France, and in 1695 he secured a commission in the British army.

In 1701 Stanhope entered the House of Commons, but he continued his career as a soldier and was in Spain and Portugal during the earlier stages of the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1705 he served in Spain under Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, and in 1706 he was appointed British minister in Spain, but his duties were still military as well as diplomatic, and in 1708, after some differences with Peterborough, who favoured defensive measures only, he was made commander-in-chief of the British forces in that country.

_{Detail of a portrait of Stanhope by Baltazar Denner}

On 24 February 1713, Stanhope married Lucy Pitt (1692?1723), a younger daughter of Thomas Pitt, governor of Madras. Although in future years Stanhope found little time for domesticity, it was a happy union, and the couple had seven children, including two sets of twins. He now definitely abandoned the army for politics, and became one of the leaders of the Whig opposition in the House of Commons. He had his share in establishing the House of Hanover on the throne, and in September 1714 he was appointed Secretary of State for the Southern Department, sharing with Walpole the leadership of the House of Commons. He was mainly responsible for the measures which were instrumental in crushing the Jacobite Rising of 1715, and he forwarded the passing of the Septennial Act. He acted as George I?s foreign minister, and only just failed to conclude a treaty of alliance with France in 1716. In 1717, consequent on changes in the ministry, Stanhope was made First Lord of the Treasury, but a year later he returned to his former office of secretary for the southern department. In 1717 he was created Viscount Stanhope of Mahon and in 1718 Earl Stanhope. He was in all but name Prime Minister.

The young Stanhope

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