manner, but in architecture and fine art he was reputed a consummate judge. In the result, says Bishop Kennet, ‘though the situation seems to be somewhat horrid, this really adds to the beauty of it; the glorious house seems to be art insulting nature.’
But in his retirement he was secretly engaged in concerting plans for bringing in the Prince of Orange. James, suspecting his loyalty, first sent to summon him to court; the earl excused himself, and his kinsman, the Duke of Newcastle, whom the king sent later, could not change his purpose. In May 1687 Dijkvelt left England with letters from Devonshire, Bedford, Shrewsbury, Nottingham, and the Hydes, asking William to come over to the nation's assistance. Communications were usually kept up through Edward Russell and Henry Sidney, who were now in London, now in Holland, and through Vice-admiral Herbert, who remained at the Hague. After the birth of James's son, in 1688, the invitations became more urgent, and Devonshire was one of the whig lords who signed the cipher letter of 30 June. He was now reconciled to Danby, whom he owned he had misjudged, and with him, Lord Delamere, and Mr. D'Arcy, he laid plans for a rising. The meetings took place at Sir Henry Goodrick's in Yorkshire, and at Whittington, near Scarsdale in Derbyshire, in a farmhouse chamber, long known in the country-side as the ‘plotting parlour.’ At first it was designed that William should land in the north. Devonshire was to secure Nottingham, and Danby, York. The attack on York was to precede that on Nottingham, the former having a governor and a small garrison, who might take alarm if Nottingham, an open town, were first occupied. However, on hearing of William's landing at Brixham, the earl at once moved on Derby, and, being always one who kept on terms with the leaders of the middle class, invited the mayor and gentry to join him, and read to them his ‘Declaration in Defence of the Protestant Religion.’ For a short time he was in danger; a courier arrived with a letter in his boot-heel announcing James's flight and William's march on London, but it was hardly legible; the news was not credited, and James's party took heart. The earl, however, presently moved on Nottingham, and was well supported, and there he issued a proclamation justifying the rising and drilled troops. He raised a regiment of horse, afterwards the 4th regiment, and one of the first to go to Ireland next year, and was himself its colonel, and on 25 Nov., hearing of a plan to intercept the Princess Anne, while on her way from London to take refuge with him, he marched out to meet her, and conducted her to the castle. For some time he entertained her at his own charge, and then, his stock running low, accepted some contributions, and ‘at last borrowed the public money in such a manner as to satisfy the collectors and please the country.’ When Anne removed to Oxford to join Prince George, the earl escorted her to Christ Church, and thence, with one or two more, hastened to London, and met William at Sion House. On 25 Dec. the lords assembled at Westminster, and Devonshire was forward in procuring the address to the Prince of Orange, praying him to carry on the government till a convention could meet. The convention met 22 Jan. 1688–9, and the earl argued against Clarendon and Rochester for James's deposition and for a king, not merely a regent. This was rejected, whereupon he and forty others entered their protest, and finally it was carried. He now received the favours of the new sovereign. On 14 Feb. he was sworn of the privy council, on 16 March appointed lord-lieutenant of Derbyshire and lord-steward of the household; he was elected a knight of the Garter on 3 April and installed on 14 May. At the coronation on 11 April he acted for the day as lord high steward of England, and bore the crown, while his daughter bore the queen's train.
He now devoted himself to procuring the remission of his own fine and the reversal of the attainders of Lord Russell, Colonel Sidney, and others. On 18 Jan. 1689–90 he sailed with the king from Gravesend for the congress at the Hague. He was with the king when, at great peril to his life, William left the fleet in a shallop to hasten on shore. At the Hague he made a peculiarly splendid figure, outshining with his plate and furniture almost all the other nobles there assembled. On 9 March he gave a banquet to the elector of Brandenburg, the landgrave of Hesse, and the Prince de Commeray, at which the king appeared incognito, and in March of the year following he was present at the siege of Mons in attendance on the king, and with him returned to Whitehall on 13 April. Early in July, after the battle of Beachy Head, he and the Earl of Pembroke placed themselves at the queen's disposal, and were sent to Dover, and thence to the fleet, to inquire into its conduct under Lord Torrington during that battle (Hutton Correspondence, Camd. Soc., ii. 155, 156). In the same year, when Admiral Russell objected to the plan for a landing by Schomberg and Ruvigny on the French coast, on the ground that the men-of-war were of too great draught for the purpose, Devonshire was one of the ministers
