George Savile

English politician

• Born: November 11, 1633
• Birthplace: Thornhill, Yorkshire, England
• Died: April 5, 1695
• Place of death: London, England

Savile, an advocate of moderation in an age of political excess, was one of the architects of the balanced constitution that established Great Britain as the most progressive nation in pre-Revolutionary Europe.

Early Life

Sir George Savile (SAV-eel), first marquis of Halifax, was the eldest surviving son of Sir William Savile of Thornhill, third Baronet Savile, and Anne, the daughter of Thomas Coventry, Lord Coventry. Sir William was a devoted Royalist who never swerved in his loyalty to King Charles I : Although he was a member of the Short Parliament, Sir William did not hesitate to accept a commission in the Royalist army. He died in 1644, and his eleven-year-old son, George, became the fourth Baronet Savile.

George’s mother, Lady Savile, used her considerable influence to protect her son’s interests, despite an attempt by her late husband’s enemies in the House of Commons to gain control of the youngster and his inheritance. She felt that George would benefit from being educated on the Continent until he achieved his majority, when neither he nor his property would be subject to the restrictions placed upon minors.

George Savile was able to assume control of his inheritance when he returned home without any interference from the government of Oliver Cromwell . On December 29, 1656, he married his first wife, Lady Dorothy Spencer, the daughter of the first earl of Sunderland. In 1660, at the age of twenty-six, he was elected as a member of the Convention Parliament, which restored Charles II. The return of the exiled king marked the real beginning of Savile’s public career.

Life’s Work

As a bona fide Royalist, Savile had easy access to the court, with its opportunities for wealth and political influence. Like his father before him, George Savile had commanded a regiment in the county militia, and in 1667, he was made a captain in Prince Rupert’s regiment of horse. However, Savile preferred politics to a career in the military. Through the efforts of his uncle Sir William Coventry and James, duke of York, the heir presumptive, Savile was created Baron Savile of Eland and Viscount Halifax on January 13, 1668. His elevation to the peerage coincided with the removal and disgrace of his uncle’s old political adversary, Chancellor Sir Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon .

As a member of the House of Lords, Halifax had the chance to display his considerable talents as an orator and a wit. Halifax House quickly became the home of one of the most important and powerful political circles in late Stuart England. Unfortunately, Halifax’s first wife did not long survive to preside as hostess over that brilliant assembly. Dorothy, Viscountess Halifax, died on December 16, 1670. Halifax was thirty-seven years old and the father of four small children, so in November, 1672, he married Gertrude Pierrepoint, the youngest daughter of an old friend and neighbor, William Pierrepoint.

Halifax also was made a member of the Privy Council early in 1672. Shortly after his appointment, he was entrusted with an embassy to the court of Louis XIV . Unaware of the secret Treaty of Dover between England and France, and wholly devoted to the anti-French policy of the Triple Alliance, Halifax embarked reluctantly on his mission. He was to inform King Louis that England would not make a separate peace with William III of Orange. Halifax arrived at the French court only to discover that his embassy had been preempted by George Villiers, second duke of Buckingham, and Henry Bennett, earl of Arlington, who were busily imposing a harsh peace upon the Dutch. Halifax openly criticized his fellow envoys’ efforts and publicly attacked the government’s subservience to France. William of Orange did not forget his support when William took the English throne in the 1688 Glorious Revolution .

Early in 1673, Halifax devoted his considerable talents as an orator to the successful passage of the Test Act , which barred Roman Catholics from holding office in the civilian government or commissions in the armed services. Unfortunately, the act ended Halifax’s friendship with the duke of York, a recent convert to Catholicism. Halifax was fast becoming one of the leading spokesmen of the opposition. In 1676, when he turned his sarcasm on Charles II’s chief minister, Thomas Osborne, first duke of Leeds , Halifax lost his place on the council, but King Charles enjoyed his company, and he was soon back in favor.

Like many in the autumn of 1678, Halifax initially was convinced of the genuineness the testimony of Titus Oates concerning the so-called Popish Plot to kill King Charles and elevate James, duke of York, to the throne. However, upon careful examination of the evidence, Halifax became convinced that his uncle, Anthony Ashley Cooper, first earl of Shaftesbury, was using the fabrications of Oates and his confederates to advance his own radical political agenda. Halifax used his considerable talents as an orator to thwart his kinsman’s plans, but he could not stop the execution of a number of innocent men whose only crime was their Roman Catholic faith. In July, 1679, his efforts on the side of reason and sanity were rewarded with his being made earl of Halifax. His breach with Shaftesbury was permanent.

Having failed in his attempt to establish himself as the power behind the throne through a campaign of terror and hysteria, Shaftesbury tried to exclude the duke of York from the succession and replace him with James Scott, duke of Monmouth, the eldest illegitimate son of Charles II. In November, 1680, Halifax led the opposition to the Exclusion Bill and, in a verbal duel with Shaftesbury that lasted for seven hours, emerged the victor. He then tried to persuade the duke of York to outwardly conform to the Church of England, at the same time attempting to detach the duke of Monmouth from Shaftesbury in the hope of reconciling Monmouth to his father. In both efforts, Halifax failed. In August, 1682, even as Halifax learned that he was to be made marquis and named lord privy seal, Shaftesbury and his confederates were finalizing a plot to assassinate both the king and his brother.

When the details of the Rye House Plot became public and the arrests of the principal conspirators began, Halifax once again cautioned a course of reason and moderation. Unfortunately, the duke of York and his supporters were determined to use the Rye House Plot as an excuse to seek revenge for the earlier, excessive response to the Popish Plot. Disappointed with York’s intransigence and Monmouth’s fecklessness, Halifax sought to improve relations between King Charles and his nephew, William of Orange. However, on February 6, 1685, Charles II died after suffering a mild stroke. James II became king, and Halifax’s influence quickly waned.

On November 5, 1688, just thirty-nine months after his accession, James II was faced with an invasion led by his son-in-law, who was also his nephew. Prince William of Orange had accepted the secret invitation of a number of British peers to deliver the kingdom from its unpopular monarch. Although Halifax had not been part of the plot to remove James, there was no doubt where his sentiments lay. He had opposed every attempt made by the king to subvert the laws and liberties of the English people. During the reign of William III and Mary II, Halifax continued to advocate a course of moderation, and in his speeches and writing he was recognized as the champion of the principles that set England apart from the absolutist monarchies that still dominated continental Europe. The man who placed the defense of habeas corpus above his own political fortunes, the man whom John Dryden immortalized as Jotham in Absalom and Achitophel (Part I, 1681, Part II, 1682), died on April 5, 1695, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Significance

The political awakening of Sir George Savile, first marquis of Halifax, began when those who served Charles II exploited his political naïveté during the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667). Halifax saw French-styled absolutism as the most serious threat to the liberties of England. In his speeches and in his writings, particularly his pamphlet Character of a Trimmer (1688), Halifax repeatedly advocated constitutional monarchy as the best form of government for England and as a form of government consistent with the laws and traditions of the kingdom. At first, he hoped that England could be governed without recourse to faction, but in upholding the power of Parliament to alter the succession, Halifax found in the healthy competition of political parties the most reliable safeguard of the constitution.

Bibliography

Coote, Stephen. Royal Survivor: The Life of Charles II. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. A thorough study of the political sagacity of the “Merry Monarch” and the manner in which he managed and interacted with the politicians who surrounded him.

Foxcroft, Helen Charlotte. A Character of the Trimmer: Being a Short Life of the First Marquis of Halifax. Reprint. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. The only full-length biography in print; balanced and well written, but the endnotes are far too brief.

Fraser, Antonia. King Charles II. London: Phoenix Press, 2002. This is the most balanced biography of the king and places his contemporaries in their proper context.

Halifax, George Savile, Marquis of. The Works of George Savile, Marquis of Halifax. Edited by Mark N. Brown. 3 vols. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989. This most recent edition of Halifax’s works replaces an earlier edition by Helen Foxcroft in 1898.

Ogg, David. England in the Reign of Charles II. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. Although somewhat dated in its interpretation of the Restoration, it remains a useful introduction to the period.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. England in the Reigns of James II and William III. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. Although the author’s sympathies obviously lie with William, it is still perhaps the best survey of the Glorious Revolution and its aftermath.