Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland

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The 1st Earl of Portland.

Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland, KG (1 March 1577 – 13 March 1634/1635), was Chancellor of the Exchequer and later Lord Treasurer of England under James I and Charles I, being one of the most influential figures in the early years of Charles I's Personal Rule and the architect of many of the policies that enabled him to rule without raising taxes through Parliament.

Weston was the eldest son and heir of Sir Hierome Weston, High Sheriff of Essex, and the former Mary Cave. He was born at Roxwell, Essex, and was a student of the Middle Temple. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for a number of constituencies including Maldon (1601-1603), Midhurst (in the parliament of 1604-1611), Essex (in the Addled Parliament of 1614), Arundel (1622), Callington (1625) and Bodmin (1626). He was knighted in 1603.

During the reign of King James I of England, Weston was sent on embassies to Bohemia, Brussels, and Spain. On the last assignment, he negotiated for the restitution of the Palatine. Upon his return to England in 1621, he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, and retained the post after the accession of Charles I; he proved a capable financial manager but incurred popular hatred as a (justly) suspected Roman Catholic, while also later earning the enmity of the (Catholic) queen, Henrietta Maria for refusing grants to her favourites. He opposed wars with Spain in 1623 and France in 1626, but managed to find ways of raising the money to fund them when required, even when it was impossible to secure the co-operation of Parliament.

Weston was elevated to the peerage on 13 April 1628, as Baron Weston, of Neyland. He was subsequently made Lord Treasurer of England and invested with the Order of the Garter. His policies proving highly unpopular, he escaped impeachment in 1629 only by the dissolution of Parliament, but played an important role in the King's Personal Rule without Parliament, finding new sources of revenue while preventing any further increase in the King's expenditure, and being for a time the most influential of Charles's advisers. He persuaded the King to make peace with France in 1629 and Spain in 1630, removing the biggest drain on the treasury, and to sign the secret treaty with Spain in 1634. By the time he died in 1635, the Crown was solvent.

On 17 February 1633, Weston was created Earl of Portland. Lord Portland was married twice. His first wife was Elizabeth Pincheon of Writtle in Essex. His second wife was Frances Walgrave of Boreley in Essex. He had three children by his first marriage, including Lady Mary Weston (2 January 1603-after August 1678), who married the 2nd Lord Aston of Forfar in 1629. He had eight children by his second marriage, including Elizabeth Weston, who married the 2nd Viscount Netterville, and his son Thomas, who later succeeded as 4th Earl. His nephew, Jeremiah Clarke, became a Governor of Rhode Island in the American colonies.

On his death, he was succeeded by his second but eldest surviving son, Jerome.

[edit] Styles from birth to death

• Mr. Richard Weston (1577-1603)
• Sir Richard Weston (1603-1628)
• The Rt. Hon. The Lord Weston (1628-1630)
• The Rt. Hon. The Lord Weston, KG (1630-1633)
• The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Portland, KG (1633-1635)

[edit] References

• Dictionary of National Biography
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page
• www.british-civil-wars.co.uk

v • d • e Chancellors of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom Godfrey Giffard · Hervey de Stanton · William Catesby · John Bourchier, Baron Berners · John Baker · Walter Mildmay · John Fortescue of Salden · George Home · Julius Caesar · Fulke Greville · Richard Weston, Earl of Portland · Edward Barrett of Newburgh · Francis Cottington · John Colepeper · Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon · Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury · John Duncombe · John Ernle · Henry Booth · Richard Hampden · Charles Montagu · John Smith · Henry Boyle · Robert Harley · Robert Benson · William Wyndam · Richard Onslow · Robert Walpole · James Stanhope · John Aislabie · John Pratt · Samuel Sandys · Henry Pelham · William Lee · Henry Bilson Legge · George Lyttelton · William Muarry, Earl of Mansfield · William Barrington · Francis Dashwood · George Grenville · William Dowdeswell · Charles Townshend · Frederick North · John Cavendish · William Pitt the Younger · Henry Addington · Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice · Spencer Perceval · Nicholas Vansittart · Frederick John Robinson · George Canning · Charles Abbott · John Charles Herries · Henry Goulburn · John Spencer · Thomas Denman · Robert Peel · Thomas Spring Rice, Baron Monteagle · Francis Baring · Henry Goulburn · Charles Wood · Benjamin Disraeli · William Gladstone · George Cornewall Lewis · George Ward Hunt · Robert Lowe · Stafford Northcote · Hugh Childers · Michael Hicks Beach · William Vernon Harcourt · Randolph Churchill · George Goschen · Charles Ritchie · Austen Chamberlain · H. H. Asquith · David Lloyd George · Reginald McKenna · Andrew Bonar Law · Robert Horne · Stanley Baldwin · Neville Chamberlain · Philip Snowden · Winston Churchill · John Simon · Kingsley Wood · John Anderson · Hugh Dalton · Stafford Cripps · Hugh Gaitskell · Rab Butler · Harold Macmillan · Peter Thorneycroft · Derick Heathcoat-Amory · Selwyn Lloyd · Reginald Maudling · James Callaghan · Roy Jenkins · Iain Macleod · Anthony Barber · Denis Healey · Geoffrey Howe · Nigel Lawson · John Major · Norman Lamont · Kenneth Clarke · Gordon Brown · Alistair Darling

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