strengthened by the settlement of Spanish affairs, which had left the emperor their single isolated opponent. On 6 Jan. 1730 Stanhope was created Baron Harrington of Harrington, Northamptonshire. On 21 Feb. he was reappointed a plenipotentiary at Soissons, where negotiations with the emperor were still going on; but in May he was declared successor to Townshend as secretary of state for the northern department. His colleague was the Duke of Newcastle, who had done much to forward his promotion. He remained secretary during the remaining years of the Walpole administration. He never cordially coalesced with Sir Robert, but made himself acceptable to George II by favouring his German interests. The British ambassador at Vienna had to officially affirm that Harrington was acting in concert with the Walpoles so early as February 1731 (Thomas Robinson to Horatio Walpole, 3 Feb. 1731). In March a treaty was signed with the emperor, who obtained a guarantee of the pragmatic sanction in exchange for his accession to the treaty of Seville; but Harrington was obliged to instruct Thomas Robinson (afterwards first Baron Grantham) [q. v.] to leave the question of Hanoverian interests for future consideration. On the outbreak of the war of the Polish succession in 1733, he was in favour of supporting the emperor against France, but was overruled by the Walpoles; and in the following year he arranged with George II the sending to England of Thomas Strickland [q. v.], bishop of Namur, as a secret envoy from Charles VI (Horatio Walpole to Sir Robert, 22 Oct. 1734). Harrington had a long and secret conference with Strickland, which gave great uneasiness to the Walpoles; but the mission was discredited by the influence of Horatio Walpole with the queen (ib. pp. 442-4).
The cabinet was much divided on questions of foreign policy, and contradictory instructions were sent to the ambassadors, according as the war policy of Harrington and the king or the peace policy of the Walpoles and the queen predominated. Harrington thought that England had no excuse for not supporting the emperor, and propounded to Horatio Walpole a plan for a joint ultimatum from England and Holland to France (ib. i. 465-6). In the end he was obliged to carry out the peace policy of the premier, and to accept as a basis of negotiation the secret arrangement between France and the emperor. The preliminaries arranged at the end of 1735 won the approbation even of Bolingbroke (ib. i. 470; cf. Hervey, Memoirs, ii. 174).
Soon after this the king became dissatisfied with Harrington, and even proposed to dismiss him. When he went to Hanover in the summer of 1736, he insisted on taking Horatio Walpole with him to act as secretary (Coxe, Walpole, i. 480). This Hervey attributes to the influence of the queen and Walpole, who had been annoyed at Harrington's conduct in the previous year, when he had sent over from Hanover despatches arraigning all the acts and measures of the queen's regency, and had even been suspected of advising the king to sign military commissions which, having delegated his powers, he was incapacitated from doing.
According to Hervey, many thought that at this time Harrington had been worked upon by Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth earl of Chesterfield, to form a plan of becoming first minister. But George II disliked him, although not constantly, as did Queen Caroline. On 1 Aug. 1737 Harrington accompanied Sir R. Walpole to St. James's to attend the accouchement of the Princess of Wales. On this occasion the queen, who always disguised her dislike, joked with him upon his gallantry. Walpole and Harrington also had a conversation with Frederick, prince of Wales, at the bedside, of which they were requested by the king to draw up an account (see Minutes in Hervey's Memoirs, iii. 192-4). In talking of this scandalous incident with the Prince of Wales. Alexander, lord Marchmont, described Harrington as a good-natured honest man, but not of very great reach, adding that he 'did nothing but as directed.'
In the closing years of Walpole's ministry Harrington again opposed him by acting with the party of Newcastle and Hardwicke, who were in favour of war with Spain. In 1741 he negotiated behind the premier's back a treaty with France for the neutrality of Hanover, and was careful not to commit himself to any opinion displeasing to the king (Coxe, Memoirs of Lord Walpole, ii. 27, 35). Nevertheless, it was by Walpole's influence that he retained office on the rearrangement of the ministry on that minister's fall. But he had to give up the secretaryship of state to Carteret, receiving in its place the presidency of the council. He was so dependent on his official salary that in 1740 he had applied both to the king and to Walpole for a tellership of the exchequer, alleging the 'extreme streightness' of his circumstances (Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. ii. 274-5). On 9 Feb. 1742 he was advanced to an earldom. In the following year he acted as one of the lords justices. He now joined with the Pelhams in opposing Car
