• Lord President of the Council Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds, 1632
• Secretary of State Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury, 1660

   

In foreign affairs Danby showed a stronger grasp of essentials. He desired to increase English trade, credit and power abroad. He was a determined enemy both to Roman influence and to French ascendancy. As he wrote in a memorandum in the summer of 1677 an English Minister must consider how England's interests stand and all considerations including trade and public opinion pointed to Holland not France as the ally. He terminated the war with Holland in 1674, and from that time maintained a friendly correspondence with William of Orange. In 1677, after two years of tedious negotiations, he overcame all obstacles, and in spite of James's opposition, and without the knowledge of Louis XIV, effected the marriage between William and Mary that was the germ of the Revolution and the Act of Settlement. This national policy, however, could only be pursued, and the minister could only maintain himself in power, by acquiescence in the king's personal relations with the king of France settled by the Treaty of Dover in 1670, which included Charles's acceptance of a pension, and bound him to a policy exactly opposite to Danby's, one furthering French and Roman ascendancy.

Though not a member of the Cabal ministry, and in spite of his own denial, Danby must, it would seem, have known of these relations after becoming Lord Treasurer. In any case, in 1676, together with Lauderdale alone, he consented to a treaty between Charles and Louis according to which the foreign policy of both kings was to be conducted in union, and Charles received an annual subsidy of £100,000. In 1678 Charles, taking advantage of the growing hostility to France in the nation and parliament, raised his price, and Danby by his directions demanded through Ralph Montagu (afterwards Duke of Montagu) six million livres a year (£300,000) for three years. Simultaneously Danby guided through parliament a bill for raising money for a war against France; a league was concluded with Holland, and troops were actually sent there. That Danby, in spite of these compromising transactions, remained in intention faithful to the national interests, appears clear from the hostility with which he was still regarded by France. In 1676, Ruvigny described Danby to Louis XIV as intensely antagonistic to France and French interests, and as doing his utmost to prevent the treaty of that year. In 1678, on the rupture of relations between Charles and Louis, a splendid opportunity of paying off old scores was afforded Louis by disclosing Danby's participation in Charles's demands for French gold.

The circumstances of Danby's acts (and King Charles's) now came together to bring about his fall. Although both abroad and at home his policy had generally embodied the wishes of the ascendant party in the state, Danby had never obtained the confidence of the nation. His character inspired no respect, and during the whole of his long career, he could not rely on the support of a single individual. Charles is said to have told him when he made him treasurer that he had only two friends in the world, himself and his own merit. He was described to Samuel Pepys as "one of a broken sort of people that have not much to lose and therefore will venture all", and as "a beggar having £1100 or £1200 a year, but owes above £10,000". His office brought him in £20,000 a year, and he was known to make large profits by the sale of offices; he maintained his power by corruption and by jealously excluding from office men of high standing and ability. Gilbert Burnet described him as "the most hated minister that had ever been about the king".

Worse men had been less detested, but Danby had none of the amiable virtues which often counteract the odium incurred by serious faults. John Evelyn, who knew him intimately, described him as "a man of excellent natural parts but nothing of generosity or gratefulness". The Earl of Shaftesbury, doubtless no friendly witness, spoke of him as an inveterate liar, "proud, ambitious, revengeful, false, prodigal and covetous to the highest degree", and Burnet supported his unfavorable judgment. His corruption, his submission to a tyrannical wife, his greed, his pale face and lean person, which had replaced the handsome features and comeliness of earlier days, were the subject of ridicule, from the witty sneers of Halifax to the coarse jests of the anonymous writers of innumerable lampoons. By his championship of the national policy he raised up formidable foes abroad without securing a single friend or supporter at home, and his fidelity to the national interests was now, through an act of personal spite, to be the occasion of his downfall.

In appointing a new secretary of state, Danby had preferred Sir William Temple, a strong adherent of the anti - French policy, to Charles Montagu (later the Earl of Halifax). Montagu, after a quarrel with the Duchess of Cleveland, was dismissed from the king's employment. He immediately went over to the opposition, and in concert with Louis XIV and Paul Barillon, the French ambassador, who supplied him with a large sum of money, arranged a plan for effecting Danby's ruin. He obtained a seat in parliament; and in spite of Danby's endeavor to seize his papers by an order in council, on 20 December 1678 caused two incriminating letters written by Danby to him to be read aloud to the House of Commons by the Speaker. The House immediately resolved on Danby's impeachment. At the foot of each of the letters appeared the king's postscripts, "I approve of this letter. C.R.", in his own handwriting; but they were not read by the Speaker, and were entirely ignored in the proceedings against the minister, thus emphasizing the constitutional principle that obedience to the king's orders is not a bar to impeachment.

Danby was charged with having assumed royal powers by treating matters of peace and war without the knowledge of the council, with having raised a standing army on pretense of war with France, with having obstructed the assembling of Parliament, and with corruption and embezzlement in the treasury. Danby, when communicating the "Popish Plot" to Parliament, had from the first expressed his disbelief in Titus Oates's revelations, he now stood accused of having "traitorously concealed the plot". He was voted guilty by the Commons; but while the Lords were disputing whether the accused peer should have bail, and whether the charges amounted to more than a misdemeanor, Parliament was prorogued on 30 December and dissolved three weeks later. In March 1679, a new Parliament hostile to Danby was returned, and he was forced to resign the treasurership; but he received a pardon from the king under the Great Seal, and a warrant for a marquessate. His proposed advancement in rank was severely reflected upon in the Lords, Halifax declaring it in the king's presence the recompense of treason, "not to be borne". In the Commons, his retirement from office did not appease his antagonists. The proceedings against him were revived, a committee of privileges deciding on 23 March 1679 that the dissolution of Parliament did not abate the impeachment. The Lords passed a motion for his committal, and, as in Clarendon's case, his banishment. This was rejected by the Commons, who passed a bill of attainder. Danby had gone to the country, but returned to London on 21 April to protest the threatened attainder, and was sent to the Tower of London. In his written defense, he pleaded the king's pardon, but on 5 May 1679 it was pronounced illegal by the Commons. This declaration was repeated by the Commons in 1689, and was finally embodied in the Act of Settlement 1701.

The Commons now demanded judgment against the prisoner from the Lords. Further proceedings, however, were stopped by the dissolution of Parliament in July; but for nearly five years Danby remained in the Tower. A number of pamphlets asserting his complicity in the Popish Plot, and even accusing him of the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, were published in 1679 and 1680; they were answered by Danby's secretary, Edward Christian in Reflections. In May 1681 Danby was indicted by the Grand Jury of Middlesex for Godfrey's murder on the accusation of Edward Fitzharris. His petition to the king for a trial by his peers was refused, and an attempt to prosecute the publishers of the false evidence in the king's bench was unsuccessful. For some time all appeals to the king, to Parliament, and to the courts were unavailing; but on 12 February 1684 his application to Chief Justice Jeffreys was successful, and he was set at liberty on bail of £40,000, to appear in the House of Lords in the following session. He visited the king the same day, but took no part in public affairs for the rest of the reign.

Following the accession of James II, Danby was discharged from his bail by the Lords on 19 May 1685, and the order declaring dissolution of Parliament not to be abatement of impeachment was reversed. He took his seat in the Lords as a leader of the moderate Tory party. Though a strong Tory and supporter of the hereditary principle, James's attacks on Protestantism soon drove him into opposition. He was visited by Dykvelt, William of Orange's agent; and in June 1687 he wrote to William assuring him of his support. On 30 June 1688, he was one of the seven leaders of the Revolution who signed the Invitation to William. In November, he occupied York for William, returning to London to meet William on 26 December. He appears to have thought that William would not claim the crown, and at first supported the theory that as the throne had been vacated by James's flight, the succession fell to Mary. This met with little support, and was rejected both by William and by Mary herself, so he voted against the regency and joined with Halifax and the Commons in declaring the prince and princess joint sovereigns.

Danby had rendered extremely important services to William's cause. On 20 April 1689 he was created Marquess of Carmarthen and made lord - lieutenant of the three ridings of Yorkshire. He was, however, still greatly disliked by the Whigs, and William, instead of reinstating him as Lord Treasurer, appointed him to the lesser post of Lord President of the Council in February 1689. He could not conceal his vexation and disappointment, which were increased by the appointment of Halifax as Lord Privy Seal. The antagonism between the "black" and the "white" marquess (the latter being the nickname given to Carmarthen in allusion to his sickly appearance), which had been forgotten in their common hatred to the French and to Rome, revived in all its bitterness. He retired to the country and was seldom present at the council. In June and July, motions were made in Parliament for his removal; but notwithstanding his great unpopularity, on Halifax's retirement in 1690 he again acquired the chief power in the state, which he retained until 1695 by bribes in Parliament and the support of the king and queen.

In 1690, during William's absence in Ireland, Carmarthen was appointed Mary's chief advisor. In 1691, attempting to compromise Halifax, he discredited himself by the patronage of an informer named Fuller, soon proved an impostor. He was absent in 1692 when the Place Bill was thrown out. In 1693, Carmarthen presided in great state as Lord High Steward at the trial of Lord Mohun; and on 4 May 1694 he was created Duke of Leeds. The same year he supported the Triennial Bill, but opposed the new treason bill as weakening the hands of the executive. Meanwhile, fresh attacks were made upon him. He was accused unjustly of Jacobitism. In April 1695, he was impeached once more by the Commons for having received a bribe of 5000 guineas to procure a new charter for the East India Company. In his defense, while denying that he had received the money and appealing to his past services, Leeds did not attempt to conceal the fact that according to his experience bribery was an acknowledged and universal custom in public business, and that he himself had been instrumental in obtaining money for others. Meanwhile his servant, who was said to have been the intermediary between the Duke and the Company, fled the country; and no evidence to convict, the proceedings fell apart.

In May 1695, Danby was ordered to cease his attendance at the council. He returned in October, but was not included among the Lords Justices appointed regents during William's absence in this year. In November he was granted a DCL by the University of Oxford. In December, he became a commissioner of trade, and in December 1696, governor of the Royal Fishery Company. He opposed the prosecution of Sir John Fenwick, but supported the action taken by members of both Houses in defense of William's rights in the same year. In 1698, he entertained Tsar Peter the Great at Wimbledon, He had for some time lost the real direction of affairs, and in 1699 he was compelled to retire from office and from the lord - lieutenancy of Yorkshire.

In Queen Anne's reign, in his old age, the Duke of Leeds was described as "a gentleman of admirable natural parts, great knowledge and experience in the affairs of his own country, but of no reputation with any party. He hath not been regarded, although he took his place at the council board". The veteran statesman, however, by no means acquiesced in his enforced retirement, and continued to take an active part in politics. As a zealous churchman and Protestant he still possessed a following. In 1705 he supported a motion that the church was in danger, and in 1710 in Henry Sacheverell's case spoke in defense of hereditary right. In November of this year he obtained a renewal of his pension of £3500 a year from the post office which he was holding in 1694, and in 1711 at the age of eighty was a competitor for the office of Lord Privy Seal. Leeds's long and eventful career, however, terminated soon afterwards by his death in Easton Neston, Northamptonshire, England on 26 July 1712.

Leeds's estates and titles passed to eldest surviving son and heir Peregrine (1659 - 1729), who had been in the house of Lords as Baron Osborne since 1690, but is best remembered as a navel officer in the Royal Navy were he rose to the rank of Vice Admiral.

With the accession in 1685 of James II Shrewsbury was appointed a captain in order to defeat the Monmouth rebellion, although he resigned his commission in 1687 after refusing to bow to pressure from James to convert back to the Catholic faith. Making contact with William of Orange, Shrewsbury's home became a meeting place for the opposition to James II and Shrewsbury was one of seven English statesmen to sign the invitation to William to invade England in June 1688. In September he fled England for Holland and returned with William to England in November. Shrewsbury was influential in the making of the Revolution Settlement, arguing strongly in favor of recognizing William and Mary as sovereigns.

However in 1690 Shrewsbury resigned from William's government due to ill health and opposition to the dissolution of Parliament and the dropping of the Bill that would have required an oath abjuring James as king. In opposition, Shrewsbury contacted the exiled Stuart court in France as a prelude to a Stuart restoration. However in 1694 Shrewsbury returned to government and was prominent in persuading the House of Commons to vote for the funds needed for William's war against France. Ill health led to his resignation in 1698 but he returned to the government in 1699 until resigning again in 1700.

From 1700 until 1705, Shrewsbury was in self - imposed exile abroad, visiting France, Switzerland, Italy, and marrying Countess Adelaide Roffeni. Upon his return to England, Shrewsbury concentrated on the construction of Heythrop Park. In April 1710 Shrewsbury return to government and was an early supporter of the Tory efforts to negotiate peace with France to end the War of the Spanish Succession, concerned at the negative financial impact it was having on landowners. However he was uncomfortable with peace negotiations that left out Britain's ally, the Dutch. In November 1712 he was appointed ambassador to France and then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, returning to England in June 1714.

In July Shrewsbury was appointed Lord Treasurer but in August Queen Anne died and George I succeeded her. the new Whig regime opposed Shrewsbury remaining in government and by 1715 had lost all his governmental offices, although until his death he remained George's Groom of the Stole. Shrewsbury opposed the Whig's attack on the previous Tory ministers and opposed their other policies in the Lords, making contact with the Stuart Pretender, sending him money. He died of inflammation of the lungs in 1718.

He was the only son of the 11th Earl of Shrewsbury and his second wife, formerly Anna Maria Brudenell, a daughter of 2nd Earl of Cardigan (she became the notorious mistress of the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, who killed her husband in a duel in 1668). Talbot was a godson of King Charles II, after whom he was named, and he was brought up as a Roman Catholic, but in 1679 under the influence of John Tillotson he became a member of the Church of England.

On his father's death he succeeded to the Earldom of Shrewsbury, received an appointment in the household of Charles II, and served in the army under James II. Nonetheless, in 1687 he was in correspondence with the Prince of Orange, and he was one of the seven signatories of the letter of invitation to William in the following year. He contributed towards defraying the expenses of the projected invasion, and having crossed to Holland to join William, he landed with him in England in November 1688 during the Glorious Revolution.

Shrewsbury became Secretary of State for the Southern Department in the first administration of William and Mary, but he resigned office in 1690 when the Tories gained the upper hand in parliament. While in opposition he brought forward the Triennial Bill, to which the King refused assent. In 1694 he again became Secretary of State; but there is some evidence that as early as 1690, when he resigned, he had gone over to the Jacobites and was in correspondence with James at his court in exile at Saint - Germain - en - Laye, though it has been stated on the other hand that these relations were entered upon with William's connivance for reasons of policy.

However this may be, William appears to have had no suspicion of Shrewsbury's loyalty, for on 30 April 1694 the latter was created Marquess of Alton and Duke of Shrewsbury, and he acted as one of the regents during the King's absence from England in the two following years. In 1696 definite accusations of treason were brought against him by Sir John Fenwick, which William himself communicated to Shrewsbury; and about this time the Secretary of State took but a small part in public business, again professing his anxiety to resign. His plea of ill health was a genuine one, and in 1700 the king reluctantly consented to his retirement into private life.

For the next seven years Shrewsbury lived abroad, chiefly at Rome, whence in 1701 he wrote a celebrated letter to Lord Somers expressing his abhorrence of public life and declaring that if he had a son he "would sooner bind him to a cobbler than a courtier, and a hangman than a statesman."

On the accession of Queen Anne the Whig leaders made an ineffectual attempt to persuade Shrewsbury to return to office. When he returned at last to England on 30 December 1705, he gradually became alienated from his old political associates, and in 1710 he accepted the post of Lord Chamberlain in the Tory administration, to which the queen appointed him without the knowledge of Godolphin and Marlborough; his wife was at the same time made a Lady of the Bedchamber.

After a diplomatic mission to France for the purpose of negotiating preliminaries of peace, Shrewsbury became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1713; but he was in London in July 1714 during the memorable crisis occasioned by the impending death of Queen Anne. On 29 July, when the queen was dying, the Earl of Oxford received his long delayed dismissal from the office of Lord Treasurer. On 30 July, Shrewsbury and other ministers assembled at Kensington Palace and, being admitted to the queen's bedchamber, Bolingbroke recommended the appointment of Shrewsbury to the vacant treasurership; Anne at once placed the staff of that high office in the duke's hands.

Thus, when the queen died on 1 August, Shrewsbury was in a position of supreme power with reference to the momentous question of the succession to the crown. He threw his influence into the scale in favor of the Elector of Hanover, and was powerfully influential in bringing about the peaceful accession of George I, and in defeating the design of the Jacobites to place the son of James II on the throne. His disinclination for the highest political offices remained, however, as great as before; and having resigned the lord - treasurership and the lord - lieutenancy of Ireland, he was appointed Lord Chamberlain. This place he resigned in July 1715. He died at his London home, Warwick House, Charing Cross, on 1 February 1718, from inflammation of the lungs, aged fifty - seven. He was buried in the family tomb at the parish church of Albrighton (near Wolverhampton), Shropshire.

The Duke of Shrewsbury was one of the greatest noblemen of the reign of Queen Anne. Though blind in one eye, he was strikingly handsome in person, his demeanor was dignified and his manners full of grace and courtesy. Swift described him as "the finest gentleman we have", and as "the favorite of the nation", while William III spoke of him as "the king of hearts". Like most of his contemporaries he endeavored to keep himself in favor both with the exiled house of Stuart and with the reigning sovereign in England; but at the two critical junctures of 1688 and 1714 he acted decisively in favor of the Protestant succession. At other times he appeared weak and vacillating, and he never wholeheartedly supported either Whigs or Tories, though he co-operated with each in turn. His magnanimous disposition saved him from the vindictiveness of the party politician of the period; and the weak health from which he suffered through life probably combined with a congenital lack of ambition to prevent his grasping the power which his personality and talents might have placed in his hands.

In 1705 Shrewsbury married,at Augsburg, Bavaria, Adelaide Roffeni, daughter of the Marquis Andrea Paleotti by his second wife Maria Cristina Dudley, 5th dau. of Carlo Dudley, titular Duke of Northumberland (himself son of Sir Robert Dudley (1674 - 1649), an Englishman turned member of the Tuscan nobility. This lady, who is said to have had "a great many engaging qualities" besides many accomplishments, was the subject of much malicious gossip. She was the widow, or as some declared, the mistress of a Count Brachiano; and Lady Cowper reported that the lady's brother had forced Shrewsbury to marry her "after an intrigue together". After Shrewsbury's return to England the duchess became conspicuous in London society, where the caustic wit of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was exercised at her expense. During the Paris embassy she became extremely popular, due to her hospitality and lively conversation. The Duc de Saint - Simon thought that her eccentricity bordered on madness, but did praise the simple, practical hairstyle which she made fashionable. On the accession of George I the duchess of Shrewsbury became a lady of the bedchamber to the Princess of Wales, a position which she retained till her death on 29 June 1726. Shrewsbury left no children, and at his death the dukedom became extinct, the earldom of Shrewsbury passing to his cousin Gilbert Talbot.