Protector's fall, and was sent to the Tower (12 Oct. 1549). On 17 Feb. 1549-50, at a thin meeting of the council with Warwick absent, his release was ordered, but it was countermanded on the following day, and he was not set at liberty until he acknowledged a debt of 3000l. to the king (22 Feb.) Early in the following year he was reappointed governor of Hull, in which capacity he came into frequent collision with the mayor and townsmen (Tickell, pp. 214 et sqq.) On 18 May 1551 he was released from his recognisances, but on 17 Oct. following he was again sent to the Tower on a charge of conspiring against Northumberland's life. He remained in prison until after Somerset's execution, and on 27 Jan. 1551-2 he was tried on a charge of felony, apparently under the act passed by Northumberland's influence in the parliament of 1549-50 (Statutes of the Realm, iv. i. 104). Stanhope was no doubt implicated in Somerset's endeavours to supplant Northumberland, but there is no evidence that he aimed at taking the duke's life (Baga de Secretis, pouch xx; cf. Deputy-Keeper of the Records, 4th Rep. App. ii. 230-2). He was condemned and sentenced to be hanged, but the sentence was commuted, and he was beheaded on Tower Hill, 26 Feb., stoutly maintaining his innocence. An act confirming his attainder was passed on 12 April following (Lords' Journals, i. 425). An anonymous three-quarter-length portrait of Stanhope belongs to Mr. Sewallis Evelyn Shirley.
Stanhope's widow, Anne, daughter of Nicholas Rawson of Aveley, Essex, was allowed to retain the priory of Shelford during life. She died on 20 Feb. 1587-8 (see Archæologia, xxxi. 212-4), and was buried in Shelford church, where there are monuments to her and her husband. She left, among other issue: (1) Sir Thomas Stanhope (d. 1596), father of Sir John Stanhope (1560-1611), who was father of Philip Stanhope, first earl of Chesterfield [q. v.]; (2) John, first baron Stanhope [q. v.], and two sons named Edward who are confused by Strype [see Stanhope, Sir Edward, d. 1608]. From a daughter, Jane, who married Roger Townshend, were descended the viscounts Townshend.
[Authorities quoted; Cal. State Papers, Dom.; Lit. Remains of Edward VI (Roxburghe Club); Machyn's Diary (Camden Soc.); Acts of the Privy Council, 1542-53; Cal. Hatfield MSS. vol. i.; Strype's Works; Holinshed's Chron. ed. Hooker, iii. 1081; Stow's Annals, p. 607; State Papers, Henry VIII, vols. i. v.; Off. Ret. Members of Parl.; Tytler's Edward VI and Mary, ii. 13, 19, 44, 46-7, 50, 74; Collins's Peerage, iii. 300 et sqq.; Brown's Nottinghamshire Worthies, pp. 108-9; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. v. 516, vi. 38.1]
STANHOPE, PHILIP, first Earl of Chesterfield (1584–1656), son of Sir John Stanhope of Shelford, Nottinghamshire, by Cordell, daughter of Richard Allington, esq., was born in 1584, and knighted by James I on 16 Dec. 1605 (Doyle, Official Baronage, i. 370; Collins, Peerage, ed. Brydges, iii. 421). On 7 Nov. 1616 he was raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Stanhope of Shelford, paying 10,000l. for that dignity (Court and Times of James I, i. 426, 436). On 4 Aug. 1628 Charles I created him Earl of Chesterfield (Doyle).
When the civil war broke out Chesterfield and his family vigorously supported the king's cause. According to Lloyd, he refused to sit in the Long parliament after it declined to suppress the tumults raised in support of the popular party (Memoirs of Excellent Personages, 1668, p. 651). In November 1642 he received a commission to raise a regiment of dragoons for Charles I. About December his house at Bretby was taken and plundered by Sir John Gell (Glover, Derbyshire, App. pp. 62, 70). Chesterfield, who succeeded in escaping, established himself at Lichfield with about three hundred men, but was besieged there by Gell and Lord Brooke, and obliged to surrender (Rushworth, v. 143).
The parliament ordered him to be sent to London, but allowed him to remain a prisoner on parole in his lodgings in Covent Garden, instead of committing him to the Tower (Lords' Journals, v. 682, vi. 17, 19, 84, 511). Chesterfield's estates were sequestrated, and in November 1645 he petitioned the House of Lords for an allowance for his maintenance, alleging that his losses amounted to 50,000l. (ib. vii. 698, ix. 43). Ultimately he was granted 51. per week by parliament, and his fine for delinquency fixed at 8,698l. (Calendar of Committee for Compounding, p. 1264). Chesterfield died at London on 12 Sept. 1656, and was buried in the church of St. Giles-in-the-Fields.
Chesterfield married: first, in 1605, Catherine, daughter of Francis, lord Hastings, who died on 28 Aug. 1636. By her he had six sons. Of these John, the eldest, matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in November 1622, and died in July 1625 (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1500-1714, p. 1408).
Henry, the second son, matriculated at the same time as his brother, was knighted on 2 Feb. 1626, represented Nottinghamshire in the first two parliaments of Charles I and East Retford in the third, and died on 29 Nov.
