does not appear that he made any objection. They arrived there on the 6th, and Stanhope sent to Stahrenberg, who was at Cifuentes, seventeen miles off, for further orders. He also asked him to send some ammunition. Meanwhile the Bourbon army had marched with astonishing rapidity from Talavera (forty-five leagues in seven days), and on the morning of the 8th it appeared on the hills above Brihuega. Stanhope, who had only about 750 horse, was not able to ascertain the enemy's force, and by evening he was surrounded. He had barely time to send off an aide-de-camp to Stahrenberg; and he made such arrangements as he could to defend the town, which was enclosed by an old and unflanked wall. He had eight squadrons and eight battalions, but they were very weak. The British troops numbered little more than 2,800 officers and men, and, in addition to them, there was one Portuguese battalion of about seven hundred (Return furnished on 13 Dec. 1710, in Foreign Office Papers).
Having made two breaches, Vendôme assaulted them with twenty battalions at 4 P.M. on the 9th. They were vigorously defended, and the fighting was obstinate for three hours. But the streets were searched by artillery and musketry fire from the hills above; a fresh breach was made by a mine; and when six hundred of the defenders had been killed and wounded, Stanhope capitulated, seeing 'that the enemy had a considerable body of men in the town, and that in our whole garrison we had not five hundred men who had any ammunition left.' One of his officers, Pepper, wrote afterwards to Marlborough that he might have retired into the castle (Coxe, Marlborough, iii. 160); but the tone of the letter does not entitle it to much weight, and there seems no reason to question the stoutness of his defence, though Stanhope ought not to have let himself be surprised in so bad a post and with insufficient ammunition.
Stahrenberg was rather slow in coming to his assistance, and halted for the night about halfway between Cifuentes and Brihuega (London Gazette, 3-6 March). Next morning he advanced, found the enemy under Vendôme drawn up to receive' him, and was defeated in the battle of Villa- Viciosa.
Stanhope's military career ended at Brihuega. He was kept a prisoner at Saragossa for more than a year and a half. He had been at once authorised to propose his exchange for the Duke of Escalona, but the exchange was not accepted so long as there was any reason to fear his influence against the conclusion of peace. He came home through France, and met Bolingbroke at Fontainebleau, but declined to be presented by him to Louis XIV.
Stanhope arrived in England on 16 Aug. 1712 (O. S.) He was welcomed by the whigs, who were now out of favour with both court and country, and he became one of the leaders of the opposition in the House of Commons. In the election of 1710 he had been defeated for Westminster, but was again returned for Cockermouth; and when he lost that seat in 1713, he was elected for Wendover. The government bore him no good will, and sent a commission into Spain to sift the accounts of his expenditure. But instead of establishing anything against him, it turned out that a balance was due to him. His answer to the report of the commissioners was published in 1714 (40 pp.) He had been given the colonelcy of a regiment of horse in July 1710, but the regiment was disbanded at the peace.
He took an active part in the opposition to the treaty of commerce with France in May 1713, and spoke forcibly against the Schism Act in the following year. Bolingbroke has described him as 'not apt to despair, especially in the execution of his own projects' (Letters on History, i. 225); and he speaks of himself as 'ever inclined to bold strokes.' His sanguine and resolute character made him play a leading part in baffling the Jacobite intrigues and securing the Hanoverian succession. He made arrangements with Cadogan (acting on behalf of Marlborough, who was then at Antwerp) to bring over troops from Hanover upon the queen's death, but they proved to be needless.
On 14 Sept. 1714 four days before George I landed in England Stanhope was appointed secretary of state for the southern department, and on the 24th he was made privy councillor. Charles Townshend, second viscount Townshend [q. v.], the principal secretary of state, being in the lords, Stanhope led the House of Commons in concert with Walpole, who was not at first in the cabinet. In the new parliament which met in March 1715 he represented Newport (I. W.) In June, after the impeachment of Bolingbroke and Oxford had been carried, he moved and carried the impeachment of Ormonde. When the Jacobite rising took place in August, he had the chief direction of the measures for its suppression; and he employed in this work the officers who had served under him in Spain — Carpenter, WiUs, and Pepper. He is said to have afterwards saved the life of John Nairne, lord Nairne[q.v.],one of the six peers condemned.
He took an active part in the passing of the Septennial Act; but the sphere most
