study of music. From 1759 until his death, 29 Aug. 1764, he was rector of St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe and St. Anne's, Blackfriars.
He was the composer of several chants—one of which is still occasionally heard—and anthems. He also published a set of six hymns, under the title of ‘The Cure of Saul,’ and, in collaboration with Thomas Sharp, ‘Divine Harmony, being a Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes in Score, &c.,’ London, 1798.
[Grove's Dict. of Music, i. 727; Gent. Mag. xxxiv. 399; Cat. of Oxford Graduates, p. 314.]
HENLEY, ROBERT, first Earl of Northington (1708?–1772), lord chancellor, was the second son of Anthony Henley [q. v.] Henley was educated at Westminster School. He matriculated at St. John's College, Oxford, on 19 Nov. 1724, aged 16, was elected a fellow of All Souls, and graduated B.A. on 10 March 1728–9, and M.A. on 5 July 1733. He was admitted a student of the Inner Temple on 1 Feb. 1728, and having been called to the bar on 23 June 1732, joined the western circuit. In his youth he was a hard drinker, and when suffering in later life from a severe fit of gout was overheard in the House of Lords muttering to himself, ‘If I had known that these legs were one day to carry a chancellor, I'd have taken better care of them when I was a lad’ (Memoir, p. 13). His rough and boisterous manners at the bar not unfrequently involved him in altercations with witnesses, and Bishop Newton records a curious anecdote of his being compelled to apologise at Bristol to a pugnacious quaker for the liberties which he had taken with him in cross-examination (Works, vol. i.; Life, pp. 16, 17). Henley spent most of his leisure time at Bath, where he made the acquaintance of Jane, daughter and coheiress of Sir John Huband, bart., of Ipsley, Warwickshire, whom he married on 1 Dec. 1743. His elder brother Anthony (whose marriage to Elizabeth, elder daughter of James, third earl of Berkeley, is amusingly referred to in Mrs. Delany's Autobiography, 1st ser. i. 156–7) dying in 1745, Henley came into possession of the paternal estates in Hampshire and Dorsetshire, together with the town house on the south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, in which he resided when lord chancellor. On 23 April 1745 he was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn, for the purpose of holding chambers in that inn. At the general election in the summer of 1747 he was returned to parliament for the city of Bath, which constituency he continued to represent until June 1757. He joined the Leicester House party, and soon after the death of Frederick, prince of Wales (March 1751), was appointed solicitor-general to the young prince, afterwards George III. On 12 July 1751 he became a king's counsel, and in Michaelmas term was elected a bencher of the Inner Temple. In this year he was also appointed recorder of Bath. Henley was a very successful leader, not only on the western circuit, but at Westminster, both in banc and at nisi prius. In 1754 he was promoted to the post of attorney-general to the Prince of Wales, and on 6 Nov. 1756 was appointed attorney-general in the Devonshire and Pitt administration, being knighted the same day. In accordance with the practice at that time he left the court of king's bench on receiving this appointment, and removed to the court of chancery. On the formation of the coalition ministry by the Duke of Newcastle and Pitt, in the following year Henley, on Pitt's recommendation, received the appointment of lord keeper of the great seal. He was sworn into office and admitted to the privy council on 30 June 1757, and was duly installed in the court of chancery on the first day of Michaelmas term. Henley took his seat as speaker of the House of Lords on 1 July 1757 (Journals of the House of Lords, xxix. 189). He presided over the house as a commoner for nearly three years, but on 27 March 1760 was created Lord Henley, Baron of Grainge in the county of Southampton, in anticipation of the trial of Lord Ferrers for the murder of his steward, John Johnson, it being thought right that the first law officer of the crown should preside. He sat as lord high steward on that occasion on 16 April 1760 and the two following days (Howell, State Trials, 1813, xix. 885–973). Horace Walpole, in a letter to George Montagu, dated 19 April 1760, ridicules his undignified manners (Letters, Cunningham's edit. iii. 299), but his judgment seems to have been both grave and appropriate (Howell, State Trials, xix. 958–959). On 16 Jan. 1761, having delivered up the seal to George III, Henley received it back with the title of lord chancellor (London Gazette, 1761, No. 10070). As a further reward for his steadfast allegiance to the king, he was created Viscount Henley and Earl of Northington on 19 May 1764, and on 21 Aug. in the same year was appointed lord-lieutenant of Hampshire. On 16 April 1765 and the following day he presided as lord high steward at the trial of William, fifth lord Byron, for killing William Chaworth in a duel (Howell, State Trials, xix. 1177–1236). Though frequently incapacitated from his duties by repeated attacks of gout, Northington continued to act as lord chancellor during
