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Boyle
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Boyle

him, and retired to his estate at Shewalton, to which he had succeeded on the death of a brother in 1837. He died on 30 Jan. 1853.

Boyle was always distinguished for his noble personal appearance. Sir J. W. Gordon painted full-length portraits of him for the Faculty of Advocates and for the Society of Writers to the Signet. Mr. Patrick Park also made a bust of him for the hall of the Society of Solicitors before the Supreme Courts in Edinburgh.

Boyle was twice married: first, on 24 Dec. 1804, to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Alexander Montgomerie of Annick, brother of the twelfth Earl of Eglintoun, who died on 14 April 1822; he had nine children by her, the eldest of whom, Patrick Boyle, succeeded to his estates; and secondly, on 17 July 1827, to Camilla Catherine, eldest daughter of David Smythe of Methven, lord Methven, a lord of session and of justiciary, who died on 25 Dec. 1880, leaving four children.

[Wood's Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, 1813; Lodge's Peerage and Baronetage, 1883; Gent. Mag., passim; Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice, 1813; Caledonian Mercury and Glasgow Herald, 7 Feb. 1853; Edinburgh Evening Courant and Ayr Observer, 8 Feb. 1853; Times, 9 Feb. 1853; Illustrated London News, 29 Jan. and 12 Feb. 1853.]

A. H. G.

BOYLE, HENRY, Lord Carleton (d. 1725), politician, was the third and youngest son of Charles, lord Clifford, of Lanesborough, by Jane, youngest daughter of William, duke of Somerset, and grandson of Richard Boyle, second earl of Cork [q. v.] He sat in parliament for Tamworth from 1689 to 1690, for Cambridge University—after a contest in which Sir Isaac Newton supported his opponent—from 1692 to 1705, and for Westminster from 1705 to 1710. Although he was at the head of the poll at Cambridge in 1701, he did not venture to try his fortune in 1705. From 1699 to 1701 he was a lord of the treasury, and in the latter year he became the chancellor of the exchequer; from 1704 to 1710 he was lord treasurer of Ireland, and in 1708 he was made a principal secretary of state in the room of Harley. Two years later he was displaced for St. John, and the act formed one of those bold steps on the part of the tory ministry which 'almost shocked' Swift. Boyle is generally said to have been the messenger who found Addison [q. v.] in his mean lodging, and by his blandishments, and a definite promise of preferment and the prospect of still greater advancement, secured the poet's pen to celebrate the victory of Blenheim and its hero. In return, it is said, for his good offices on this occasion, the third volume of the ‘Spectator’ was dedicated to Boyle, with the eulogy that among politicians no one had 'made himself more friends and fewer enemies.' Southerne, the dramatist, was another of the men of letters whom he befriended. Boyle was engaged as one of the managers of the trial of Sacheverell. On 20 Oct. 1714 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Carleton of Carleton, Yorkshire, and from 1721 to 1725 was lord president of the council in Walpole's administration. He died a bachelor at his house in Pall Mall on 14 March 1725. He left this house, known as Carlton House, to the Prince of Wales, and it was long notorious as the abode of the prince regent: the name is still perpetuated in Carlton House Terrace. The winning manners and the tact of Lord Carleton have been highly praised. He was never guilty, so it was said by his panegyrists, of an imprudent speech or of any acts to injure the success of the whig cause. Swift, however, accuses him of avarice.

[Budgell's Lives of Boyles, 149-55; Swift's Works; Chalmers; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, iv. 19, 40, 47; Lodge's Peerage, i. 175.]

W. P. C.

BOYLE, HENRY, Earl of Shannon (1682–1764), born at Castlemartyr, county Cork, in 1682, was second son of Lieutenant-colonel Henry Boyle, second son of Roger Boyle, first earl of Orrery [q. v.] Henry Boyle's mother was Lady Mary O'Brien, daughter of Murragh O'Brien, first earl of Inchiquin, and president of Munster. Henry Boyle's father died in Flanders in 1693, and on the death of his eldest son, Roger, in 1705, Henry Boyle, as second son, succeeded to the family estates at Castlemartyr, which had been much neglected. In 1715 he was elected knight of the shire for Cork, and married Catherine, daughter of Chidley Coote. After her death he married, in 1726, Henrietta Boyle, youngest daughter of his relative, Charles, earl of Burlington and Cork. That nobleman entrusted the management of his estates in Ireland to Henry Boyle, who much enhanced their value, and carried out and promoted extensive improvements in his district. In 1729 Boyle distinguished himself in parliament at Dublin in resisting successfully the attempt of the government to obtain a vote for a continuation of supplies to the crown for twenty-one years. Sir Robert Walpole is stated to have entertained a high opinion of the penetration, sagacity, and energy of Boyle, and to have styled him 'the King of the Irish Commons.' Boyle, in 1733, was