on Sunday shall receive another equivalent day of rest.” (Report of H. M. Ambassador to the U. S. vide supra). In Massachusetts, which may be fairly taken as representing the Eastern states, public service corporations, such as railway, street railway, steamboat, telegraph, telephone, electric lighting, water and gas companies, are permitted to serve the public in the usual manner. Public parks and baths are open. Tobacco may be sold by licensed inn holders, common victuallers, druggists and newsdealers. Bake shops may be open during certain hours. All other shops must be closed. Saloons are closed, and liquor can be served only to the guests of licensed inn holders. Horses, carriages, boats and yachts may be let for hire. All games and entertainments, except licensed sacred concerts, are prohibited. In Connecticut Sunday recreation is still prohibited, but electric and steam cars are allowed to run. Sunday is a close time for game and birds (1899). In many of the Western states base-ball, games and various entertainments for pay are permitted, and in some saloons are open. In many but not all the states such persons as by their religion are accustomed to observe Saturday are allowed to pursue their ordinary business on Sunday. In Delaware and Illinois barbers may not shave customers on Sundays; and in Georgia guns and pistols may not be fired (1898). In North Dakota the fines for Sabbath-breaking have been raised.
SUNDERLAND, CHARLES SPENCER, 3rd Earl of (c. 1674-1722), English statesman, was the second son of the 2nd earl, but on the death of his elder brother Henry in Paris in September 1688 he became heir to the peerage. Called by John Evelyn “a youth of extraordinary hopes,” he completed his education at Utrecht, and in 1695 entered the House of Commons as member for Tiverton. In the same year he married Arabella, daughter of Henry Cavendish, 2nd duke of Newcastle; she died in 1698 and in 1700 he married Anne Churchill, daughter of the famous duke of Marlborough. This was an important alliance for Sunderland and for his descendants; through it he was introduced to political life and later the dukedom of Marlborough came to the Spencers. Having succeeded to the peerage in 1702, the earl was one of the commissioners for the union between England and Scotland, and in 1705 he was sent to Vienna as envoy extraordinary. Although he was tinged with republican ideas and had rendered himself obnoxious to Queen Anne by opposing the grant to her husband, Prince George, through the influence of Marlborough he was foisted into the ministry as secretary of state for the southern department, taking office in December 1706. From 1708 to 1710 he was one of the five whigs, called the Junta, who dominated the government, but he had many enemies, the queen still disliked him, and in June 1710 he was dismissed. Anne offered him a pension of £3000 a year, but this he refused, saying “if he could not have the honour to serve his country he would not plunder it.”
Sunderland continued to take part in public life, and was active in communicating with the court of Hanover about the steps to be taken in view of the approaching death of the queen. He made the acquaintance of George I. in 1706, but when the elector became king the office which he secured was the comparatively unimportant one of lord-lieutenant of Ireland. In August 1715 he joined the cabinet as lord keeper of the privy seal, and after a visit to George I. in Hanover he secured in April 1717 the position of secretary of state for the northern department. This he retained until March 1718, when he became first lord of the treasury, holding also the post of lord president of the council. He was now prime minister. Sunderland was especially interested in the proposed peerage bill, a measure designed to limit the number of members of the House of Lords, but this was defeated owing partly to the opposition of Sir Robert Walpole. He was still at the head of affairs when the South Sea bubble burst and this led to his political ruin. He had taken some part in launching the scheme of 1720, but he had not profited financially by it; however, public opinion was roused against him and it was only through the efforts of Sir Robert Walpole that he was acquitted by the House of Commons, when the matter was investigated. In April 1721 he resigned his offices, but he retained his influence with George I. until his death on the 19th of April 1722.
Sunderland inherited his father's passion for intrigue, while his manners were repelling, but he stands high among his associates for disinterestedness and had an alert and discerning mind. From his early years he had a great love of books, and he spent his leisure and his wealth in forming the library at Althorp, which in 1703 was described as “the finest in Europe.” In 1749 part of it was removed to Blenheim.
The earl's second wife having died in April 1716, after a career of considerable influence on the political life of her time, in 1717 he married an Irish lady of fortune, Judith Tichborne (d. 1749). By Lady Anne Churchill he had three sons and two daughters. Robert (1701-1729), the eldest son, succeeded as 4th earl, and Charles (1706-1758), the second son, became the 5th earl. In 1733 Charles inherited the dukedom of Marlborough and he then transferred the Sunderland estates to his brother John, father of the 1st Earl Spencer (see Marlborough, Earls and Dukes of).
For the career of Sunderland see W. Coxe, Memoirs of Marlborough (1847-1848); Earl Stanhope, History of England (1853), and I. S. Leadam, Political History of England, 1702-1760 (1909).
SUNDERLAND, ROBERT SPENCER, 2nd Earl of (1640-1702), English politician, was the only son of Henry Spencer (1620-1643), who succeeded his father, William, as 3rd Baron Spencer of Wormleighton in 1636. This barony had been bestowed in. 1603 upon Sir Robert Spencer (d. 1627), the only son of Sir John Spencer (d. 1600) of Althorp, Northamptonshire, who claimed descent from the baronial family of Despenser. The fortunes of the family were founded by Sir John Spencer (d. 1522) of Snitterfield, Warwickshire, a wealthy grazier. His descendant, Sir Robert Spencer, the first baron, was in 1603, “reputed to have by him the most money of any person in the kingdom.” Sir Robert's grandson, Henry, the 3rd baron, was created earl of Sunderland in June 1643, and was killed at the battle of Newbury when fighting for the king a little later in the same year. He married Dorothy (1617-1684), daughter of Robert Sidney, 2nd earl of Leicester. She was the Sacharissa of the poems of her admirer, Edmund Waller, and for her second husband she married Sir Robert Smythe. Their son Robert, the 2nd earl, was educated abroad and at Christ Church, Oxford, and in 1665 married Anne (d. 1715), daughter of John Digby, 3rd earl of Bristol; she was both a beauty and an heiress, and is also famous for her knowledge and love of intrigue. Having passed some time in the court circle, Sunderland was successively ambassador at Madrid, at Paris and at Cologne; in 1678 he was again ambassador at Paris. In February 1679, when the country was agitated by real or fancied dangers to the Protestant religion, the earl entered political life as secretary of state for the northern department and became at once a member of the small clique responsible for the government of the country. He voted for the exclusion of James, duke of York, from the throne, and made overtures to William, prince of Orange, and consequently in 1681 he lost both his secretaryship and his seat on the privy council. Early in 1683, however, through the influence, of the king's mistress, the duchess of Portsmouth, Sunderland regained his place as secretary for the northern department, the chief feature of his term of office being his rivalry with his brother in-law, George Savile, marquess of Halifax. By this time he had made his peace with the duke of York, and when in February 1685 James became king, he retained his position of secretary, to which was soon added that of lord president of the council. He carried out the wishes of the new sovereign and after the intrigues of a few months he had the satisfaction of securing the dismissal of Lawrence Hyde, earl of Rochester, from his post as lord treasurer. He was a member of the commission for ecclesiastical causes, and although afterwards he claimed that he had used all his influence to dissuade James from removing the tests, and in other ways illegally favouring the Roman Catholics, he signed the warrant for the committal of the seven bishops, and appeared as a Witness against them. It should be mentioned that while Sunderland was thus serving James II., he was receiving a pension from France, and through his wife's lover, Henry Sidney, afterwards earl of Romney, he was furnishing William of Orange with particulars about affairs in England.
