221 WILLIAM BENTINCK, EARL OF PORTLAND. His descent from an old Dutch family.-His birth in 1649, and appointment as Page of Honour to the Prince of Orange. -Instance of his early attachment to the Prince.—Sir W. Temple's opinion of him.-Bentinck accompanies the Prince on his invasion of England. - Is shortly afterwards created Earl of Portland, and made a Knight of the Garter. Is lampooned in consequence. Accompanies William to Ireland, and distinguishes himself at the battle of the Boyne. -His disinterestedness with respect to a bribe offered him. -He is sent Ambassador-Extraordinary to France. Is disliked by the English. Is rivalled in the King's favour by Arnold Van Keppel, afterwards Earl of Albemarle.-Dies of a pleurisy and malignant fever in 1709. WILLIAM, Earl of Portland, the early favourite of King William, was the third son of Henry Bentinck, Herr Van Diepenham, and was descended from a family who had long resided in Overyssel, one of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. He was born in 1649, and at an early age was appointed page of honour to William, then Prince of Orange, from which post he was shortly afterwards advanced to be a gentleman of his bedchamber. On an occasion of William being attacked with the small-pox, the young page gave a proof of personal attachment to his master, which the latter, to his credit, never forgot. The disease, to use a medical term, not rising properly, it was recommended by the physicians, that, if possible, a young person should be procured, who should lie nightly in the same bed with the Prince. Some difficulty was found in discovering a youth of respectable birth who had courage enough to expose himself to contagion; till at last, Bentinck, though he had never had the small-pox, consented, from personal regard for his master, to run the obvious risk. Sir William Temple observes in his Memoirs,— "I cannot forbear to give Monsieur Bentinck the character due to him, of the best servant I have known in princes' or private families. He tended his master during the whole course of his disease, both day and night; and the Prince told me, that whether he slept or no he could not tell; but in sixteen days and nights, he never called once that he was not answered by Monsieur Bentinck as if he had been awake. The first time the Prince was well enough to have his head opened and combed, Monsieur Bentinck, as soon as it was done, begged of his master to give him leave to go home, for he was able to hold up no longer. He did so, and fell immediately sick of the same disease, and in great extremity, but recovered just soon enough to attend the Prince into the field." From this period Bentinck became the established favourite of the Prince; his station was always next to his master in the day of battle; and, on these occasions, he as carefully watched over his safety amidst the roar of cannon, as he had formerly regarded it in the silence of the sick chamber. On Previous to the Revolution, Bentinck had been employed by his master in several important missions; and when, in 1668, the Prince embarked on his expedition to England, the former accompanied him in the same vessel. the accession of William to the English throne, the tried attachment and faithful services of his Dutch favourite were not forgotten, and he received the appointments of Groom of the Stole, Privy Purse, and First Gentleman of the Bedchamber. On the 13th of February, 1689, he was sworn of the Privy Council, and, two days previous to the Coronation, was created by letters patent, dated 9th April, 1689, Baron of Cirencester, Viscount Woodstock, and Earl of Portland. William, moreover, conferred on him the command of the Dutch regiment of Horse Guards which had accompanied him to England; and, some years afterwards, gave him the rangerships of the Great and Little Parks at Windsor, and honoured him with the Order of the Garter. The latter dignity was much grudged by the English nobility, and was such as should never have been conferred on a Dutchman of indifferent birth and of no very splendid qualities. In a lampoon of the period, we find : Next cringing B-k place, whose earth-born race The military services of the Earl of Portland, if not brilliant, were at least respectable. In 1690 he accompanied the King to Ireland, where he displayed considerable skill and gallantry at the celebrated battle of the Boyne. He was present with his master during the foreign campaigns of 1692 and 1693, and distinguished himself at the celebrated battle of Landen, where he received a wound in his hand. Bentinck again accompanied King William to Flanders in 1694, and during the campaign of that and the following year, acquired fresh laurels by the gallantry he displayed in the field, and by other services which he performed for his master. At the close of the war, William, pleased to have an oppor * Advice to a Painter, State Poems, vol. ii. p. 429. tunity of distinguishing his Dutch favourite, proposed to reward him by a large grant of crown lands in the principality of Wales. But on this, as on other occasions, the King was destined to have his views thwarted by the pertinacious jealousy of his new subjects. Partly on the ground of the splendour of the grant, and partly owing to a reasonable doubt, whether the lands in question could be legally alienated from the Principality, the King's proposal met with a very violent opposition in the House of Commons. William, though doubtless he was secretly annoyed at this interference with his prerogative, nevertheless listened to the remonstrance of the Commons with apparent indifference, and returned the following characteristic answer to their address: "Gentlemen, "I have a kindness for my Lord Portland, which he has deserved of me by long and faithful services; but I should not have given him these lands, if I had imagined the House of Commons could have been concerned. I will therefore recall the grant, and find some other way of showing my favour to him.”* Favourites are naturally objects of national jealousy; and the magnificent grants conferred * Dalrymple, vol. iii. p. 148. VOL. I. |