brought a body of horse to serve for her guard, and went from thence to Nottingham, to confer with the duke of Devonshire.  After the misguided monarch had withdrawn himself, lord Dorset continued at London, and was one of those peers who sat every day in the Council-chamber, and took upon them the government of the realm, in this extremity, till some other power should be introduced.  In the debates in Parliament immediately after this confusion, his lordship voted for the vacancy of the throne, and that the prince and princess of Orange should be declared King and Queen of England, &c.  When their Majesties had accepted the crown of these realms, his lordship was the next day sworn of the privy-council, and declared lord chamberlain of the household, ’A place, says Prior, which he eminently adorned by the grace of his person, the fineness of his breeding, and the knowledge and practice of what was decent and magnificent.’  It appears by the history of England, that he had the honour to stand godfather, with King William to a son of the prince and princess of Denmark, born at Hampton-court, the 24th of July 1689, and christened the 27th by the name of William, whom his Majesty declared duke of Gloucester.  When the King had been earnestly entreated by the States of Holland, and the confederate princes in Germany, to meet at a general congress to be held at the Hague, in order to concert matters for the better support of the confederacy, and thereupon took shipping the 16th of January 1692, his lordship was among the peers, who to honour their King and Country, waited on their sovereign in that cold season.  When they were two or three leagues off Goree, his Majesty having by bad weather been four days at sea, was so impatient to go on shore, that taking boat, and a thick fog rising soon after, they were surrounded so closely with ice, as not to be able either to make the shore, or get back to the ship; so that lying twenty-two hours, enduring the most bitter cold, and almost despairing of life, they could hardly stand or speak at their landing; and his lordship was so lame, that for some time he did not recover; yet on his return to England, he neither complained of the accident nor the expence.

On the 2d of February 1691, at a chapter of the most noble order of the garter, held at Kensington, his lordship was elected one of the knights companions of this order, with his highness John-George, the fourth elector of Saxony, and was installed at Windsor on the February following.  He was constituted four times one of the regents of the kingdom in his Majesty’s absence.  About the year 1698, his health sensibly declining, he left public business to those who more delighted in it, and appeared only sometimes at council, to shew his respect to the commission which he bore, for he had already tasted all the comfort which court favour could bestow; he had been high in office, respected by his sovereign and the idol of the people; but now when the evening of life approached, he began to look upon such enjoyments with less veneration, and thought proper to dedicate some of his last hours to quiet and meditation.  Being advised to go to Bath for the recovery of his health, he there ended his life on the 29th of January 1705-6, and was buried at Witham on the 17th of February following.