Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Erle, Thomas
ERLE, THOMAS (1650?–1720), general, of Charborough, Dorsetshire, was second son of Thomas Erle, who married Susan, fourth daughter of the first Lord Say and Sele (Collins, vi. 32), and died during the lifetime of his father, Sir Walter Erle, knt., the parliamentarian, who died in 1665 (Hutchins, Dorsetshire, iii. 126). Thomas Erle appears to have succeeded to the family estates at the death of his grandfather (ib.), and in 1678 was returned to parliament for the borough of Wareham, Dorsetshire, which he represented many years. On 27 May 1685 he was appointed a deputy lieutenant for Dorsetshire, and a letter of the same date to ‘Mr. Thomas Erle of Charborough’ directs him, in the absence of the lieutenant (Lord Bristol), to do ‘all manner of acts and things concerning the militia which three or more deputy lieutenants are by the statute empowered to do’ (Home Off. Mil. Entry Book, i. 184). His appointment as deputy lieutenant is the first mention of his name in existing war office (home office) records. On 13 June following similar letters were issued to two other deputy lieutenants of Dorsetshire, Colonel Strangways, of the ‘western regiment of foot,’ and Sir Henry Portman, bart., who were further directed, if necessary, to march the militia out of the county. This was the date on which the ‘red’ regiment of Dorsetshire militia entered Bridport to oppose the Duke of Monmouth's advance (Macaulay, History, vol. i.). Drax, Erle's successor in the Charborough estates, caused an inscription to be put up over an ice-house in the grounds recording that ‘under this roof, in the year 1686, a set of patriotic gentlemen of this neighbourhood concerted the great plan of the glorious revolution with the immortal King William …’ (Hutchins, iii. 128). According to Narcissus Luttrell, who styles him ‘major,’ Erle was raising men after William of Orange landed (Relation of State Affairs, i. 482). On 8 March 1689 he was appointed colonel of a new regiment of foot, with which he went to Ireland and fought at the battle of the Boyne and the siege of Limerick in 1690, and in the campaign of 1691, where he much distinguished himself at the battle of Aghrim, in which he was twice taken by the Irish and as often rescued by his own men. Erle, who is described by General Mackay at this time as a man of very good sense, a hearty lover of his country and likewise of his bottle, had meanwhile been transferred, on 1 Jan. 1691, to the colonelcy of Luttrell's regiment (19th foot), which he took to Flanders and commanded at the battle of Steinkirk, 3 Aug. 1692. The same year he made his only recorded speech in the house in the debate on the employment of foreign generals (Parl. Hist. v. 718). Erle was made a brigadier-general 22 March 1693, and left a sick bed at Mechlin to head his brigade at the battle of Landen, where he was badly wounded. About the end of the year his name appears as a subscriber of 2,333l. 6s. 8d. to the ‘General Joint Stock for East India’ under the charter of 11 Nov. 1693 (All Souls' Coll. MS. 152D, fol. 45 b). He commanded a brigade in the subsequent campaigns in Flanders, and was with the covering army during the siege of Namur. From 1694 to 1712 Erle was governor of Portsmouth. In June 1696 he became major-general, and in 1697 his original regiment, referred to in some official records under the misleading title of the ‘1st battalion of Erle's’ (Treas. Papers, lx. 20, 21), was disbanded. In 1699 Erle was appointed second in command under Lord Galway in Ireland, and on the accession of Queen Anne was made commander-in-chief there, and for a time was one of the lords justices. Some of his official letters to Hyde, earl of Rochester, at this time are among the Hyde Papers in the British Museum (Add. MS. 15895), including ‘Proposals for the Defence of Ireland during ye Warre’ (ib. fol. 265). In 1703 he became a lieutenant-general, and in 1705 lieutenant-general of the ordnance on the recommendation of Marlborough. Summoned to England (Marl. Desp. i. 612), among other services he raised a regiment of dragoons for Ireland (disbanded later), the colonelcy of which was given to Lord Cutts [q. v.], who succeeded Erle in the Irish command in 1705 (Treas. Papers, xcv. 62). In 1706 he was appointed to a command in the expedition under Lord Rivers, and Marlborough, who appears to have appreciated Erle's good sense and trustworthiness, writing to him in Dorsetshire 29 July 1706, apologises ‘for contributing to calling you away from so agreeable a retirement, which I should not have done if I had not thought it absolutely necessary to the service that a person of your experience and authority should be joined with Lord Rivers in his expedition’ (Marl. Desp. iii. 34). Erle proceeded to Spain in January 1707 (ib. iii. 293), and appears to have commanded the centre at the battle of Almanza, 23 April 1707. He returned home in March 1708, and soon after was appointed commander-in-chief of a combined expedition to the coast of France (commission in Treas. Papers, cvii. 62). The troops were put on board Sir George Byng's fleet, and, after some unimportant movements between the Downs and the French coast, were landed at Ostend and employed there during the siege of Lille (see Marl. Desp. vol. iv.). At the end of the year Erle, whose health was much broken by repeated attacks of gout, returned home. In 1709 he sold the colonelcy of his regiment (19th foot) to the lieutenant-colonel, George Freke. He retained the lieutenant-generalship of the ordnance, and was appointed commander-in-chief in South Britain. In 1711 he was made a general of foot in Flanders, in succession to Charles Churchill, but never took up the appointment. In 1712 he was removed from his post at the ordnance and as commander-in-chief on political grounds. Except in 1715, when he was sent down to put Portsmouth in a state of defence, he was not employed again. He died at Charborough 23 July 1720, and was buried in the vault of the parish church beside his wife, Elizabeth, second daughter of Sir William Wyndham, bart., of Orchard Wyndham, Somersetshire, who died before him. By her he left one child, a daughter, who married Sir Edward Ernle, third baronet, of Maddington, Wiltshire, and died in 1728 (see Burke, Extinct Baronetages, under ‘Ernley’). Her second daughter married Henry Drax of Ellerton Abbey, Yorkshire, some time secretary to Frederick, prince of Wales. Drax thus succeeded to the Charborough property, which is held by his descendants. Erle represented Wareham as a whig from 1678 to 1718, except in 1698 and 1700, when he was returned for Portsmouth on both occasions with Admiral Sir George Rooke. He was returned both for Portsmouth and Wareham in 1702 and 1708, and each time elected to sit for Wareham. He resigned his seat on receiving a pension of 1,200l. a year in 1718. He was M.P. for Cork in the Irish parliament 1703–13. His portrait was painted by Kneller and engraved by J. Simson. There was a Thomas Erle appointed major and exempt in the 3rd troop of horse guards in 1702 (Home Off. Mil. Entry Book, v. 87), who is believed to have been father of Major-general Thomas Erle, colonel 28th foot, who died in 1777.
[Hutchins's Dorsetshire (1813), pp. 126–9; Granger's Biog. Hist. ii. 197; Collins's Peerage, 5th ed. vi. 32; D'Auvergne's Narratives of Campaigns in Flanders; Marl. Desp. Hutchins mentions that a collection of Erle's letters to the Earl of Rochester is or was in the library at Charborough; some are in the Hyde Papers in British Museum, Add. MS. 15895; others in the Marquis of Ormonde's, see Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. Incidental notices of Erle will be found in Luttrell's Relation of State Affairs, vols. i–vi.; in Treasury Papers, indexed in Calendars of Treasury Papers, 1702–9, 1709–14; in Home Off. Military Entry Books, i–viii. which are in Public Record Office, London; and in All Souls' Coll. MSS. 152A ff. 53, 54, 54 b, 152D ff. 21, 22 b, 45 b, 152E ff. 5 b, 162, 163 b, 152F f., 154 f. 120.]