Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/272

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father's sense. As young noblemen go, 'tis possible he may make a good figure amongst them' (Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 1837, ii. 209). He was appointed master of the staghounds north of the Trent on 8 July 1738, and on 20 March 1741 was elected a knight of the Garter. On 17 April 1741 he became one of the lords of the bedchamber, a post, however, which he did not long retain. Upon the outbreak of the rebellion in 1745, Kingston, at his own expense, raised a regiment of light horse, which greatly distinguished itself against the rebels at the battle of Culloden. He was gazetted a colonel in the army on 4 Oct. 1745, major-general on 19 March 1755, and lieutenant-general on 4 Feb. 1759. At the coronation of George III in September 1761, Kingston was the bearer of St. Edward's staff. In January 1763 he was appointed lord lieutenant and custos rotulorum of Nottinghamshire, and also steward of Sherwood Forest, but resigned both these offices in August 1765. In September 1769 he became recorder of Nottingham, and on 26 May 1772 he was promoted to the rank of general in the army. He died at Bath on 23 Sept. 1773, aged 62, and was buried at Holme-Pierrepont, Nottinghamshire, on 19 Oct following.

Kingston is described by Walpole as being 'a very weak man, of the greatest beauty, and finest person in England' (Journal of the Reign of King George III, 1859, i. 259). He went through the ceremony of marriage with the notorious Elizabeth Chudleigh [q. v.], the wife of the Hon. Augustus John Hervey (afterwards third Earl of Bristol) [q. v.], at St. George's, Hanover Square, on 8 March 1769. In the riot which occurred in London on the 22nd of that month, Kingston was 'taken for the Duke of Bedford, and had his new wedding coach, favours, and liveries covered with mud ' (WALPOLE, Letters, 1857, v. 149). All his honours became extinct upon his death without issue. On the death of the Countess of Bristol in August 1788, his estates devolved upon his nephew, Charles Meadows, who assumed the name of Pierrepont, and was subsequently created Earl Manvers. Kingston lost a large number of valuable manuscripts, letters, and deeds by fires at Thoresby (4 April 1745) and at New Square, Lincoln's Inn (27 June 1752). There is no record of any speech or protest by him in the House of Lords. A full-length portrait of Kingston, signed P. Tillemans, belonged in 1867 to Earl Manners.

[Thomas Whitehead's Original Anecdotes, 1792 ; Walpole's Memoirs of the Eeign of King George III, 1845, iii. 351-2; G. E. C.'s Complete Peerage, iv. 407 ; Doyle's Official Baronage, 1886 T ii. 302; Collins's Peerage, 1812, v. 628-9 n. Burke's Extinct Peerage, 1883, p. 428; Eddison's Hist, of Worksop, 1851, pp. 165-81 ; The Beauties of England and Wales, vol. xii. pt. i. Bx 368-70 ; Historical Register, vol. vii., Chron. Diary, p. 27; Political State of Great Britain, vi. 47-8; Gent. Mag. 1773 pp. 470-1, 1745 p. 218, 1752 pp. 287, 381, 1769 p. 165; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. iv. 269, 418, 8th ser. v. 307, vi. 388.]


PIERREPONT, HENRY, first Marquis of Dorchester (1606–1680), born in 1606, was the eldest son of Robert Pierrepont, first earl of Kingston [q. v.] He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In the parliament of 1628–9 Pierrepont, as Viscount Newark, represented Nottinghamshire. On 11 Jan. 1641 he was summoned to the House of Lords as Baron Pierrepont of Holme Pierrepont (Doyle, Official Baronage, i. 609). There he delivered two speeches: the first in defence of the right of bishops to sit in parliament, the second on the lawfulness and conveniency of their intermeddling in temporal affairs (Old Parliamentary History, ix. 287, 322). In 1642 the king appointed him lord lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, and he took an active part in raising forces for the royal army. On 13 July 1642 he made a speech to the assembled trained bands of the county at Newark, urging them to take up arms in the king's cause (reprinted in Cornelius, Annals of Newark-on-Trent, p. 110). But an attempt which he made to obtain possession of the powder belonging to the county was successfully defeated by John Hutchinson (Memoirs of Col. Hutchinson, i. 142–53, 347; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1641–3, p. 368). In 1643 he succeeded his father as second Earl of Kingston. He followed the king to Oxford, and remained there till the war ended. The university conferred on him the degree of M.A., and Charles rewarded his adherence by creating him Marquis of Dorchester (25 March 1645) and admitting him to the privy council (1 March 1645) (Doyle, Official Baronage; Wood, Fasti Oxon. ii. 36). At the Uxbridge treaty he acted as one of the king's commissioners, and earned great reputation among the soldiers by his opposition to the rest of the council when they decided to surrender Oxford to Fairfax (Munk, Coll. of Phys. ed. 1878, i. 284). In March 1647 he surprised Hyde and the more rigid royalists by compounding for his estate. He had not actually fought in the king's armies, and his delinquency consisted in sitting in the Oxford parliament. His fine, therefore, was fixed at 7,467l., which was