and on 24 June the House of Lords dismissed the impeachment for want of prosecution (ib. p. 769). During the debate on the third reading of the Occasional Conformity Bill in December 1702, Halifax carried a resolution declaring that 'the annexing any clause or clauses to a bill of aid or supply, the matter of which is foreign to and different from the matter of the said bill of aid or supply, is unparliamentary and tends to the destruction of the constitution of this Government' (ib. xvii. 185), and as one of the managers of the subsequent conferences he successfully resisted the passing of the bill.
Halifax had now been struck off the list of privy councillors, but this was not considered enough by the more violent tories who regarded him with abhorrence. In January 1703 a resolution was passed in the House of Commons charging Halifax with neglect of his duty as auditor of the exchequer (Journals of the House of Commons, xiv. 140, 143). A committee of the House of Lords was appointed to consider this charge, which arose out of a recently delivered report of the commissioners of the public accounts. Halifax was examined before the committee, and on 5 Feb. a unanimous resolution was passed approving of his conduct as auditor (Journals of the House of Lords, xvii. 270-1). This led to an interminable wrangle between the two houses, and an address was presented by the House of Commons to the queen repeating the charge against Halifax, and requesting her to order the attorney-general 'effectually to prosecute at law the said Auditor of Receipt' (Journals of the House of Commons, xiv. 188-91). After much delay the case against Halifax was heard on 23 June 1704, and a nolle prosequi entered, 'so no verdict was given' (Luttrell, v. 438-9, 443 ; see also 483, 487, 488, 518). On 14 Dec. 1703 Halifax successfully moved the rejection of the Occasional Conformity Bill, and in the following year wrote 'an answer' to Bromley's speech in favour of tacking the Occasional Conformity Bill to the Land Tax Bill (Life, pp. 113-30). In March 1705 Halifax served as one of the managers on the part of the lords in their conference with the commons on the Aylesbury case. He continued out of office during the whole of Anne's reign, but on 10 April 1706 he was appointed one of the commissioners for negotiating the union with Scotland, and in the same month was selected to carry the insignia of the order of the Garter to the electoral prince. On 3 June 1709 he was made keeper of Bushey Park and Hampton Court. In 1710 he published 'Seasonable Questions concerning a New Parliament' (ib. pp. 157-9). He was appointed joint plenipotentiary to the Hague in July 1710, a post from which he had hitherto been excluded by Marlborough (see Coxe, Memoirs of the Duke of Marlborough, ii. 253-5, iii. 7-8, 268-70). On 15 Feb. 1712 Halifax carried, in the House of Lords, an address to the queen against the French project of treaty. In May 1713 he declared himself in favour of dissolving the union with Scotland, provided the Hanoverian succession could be secured (Parl. Hist. vi. 1219). He unsuccessfully opposed the passing of the Schism Bill in the following year and drew up an elaborate protest against it (Rogers, Complete Collection of the Protests of the House of Lords, 1875, i. 218-21). The 'queries,' which he handed in to the House during this debate, for 'the serious consideration' of the bishops, were written by Edmund Calamy, and not by Halifax as the author of Halifax's 'Life' would seem to imply (Life, pp. 236-9, and Calamy, Hist. Account of his own Life, ii. 284, 543-6). On the death of Anne, Halifax acted as one of the lords justices of Great Britain until the arrival of George I. On 11 Oct. 1714 he was appointed first lord of the treasury, and on the 16th of the same month was invested with the order of the Garter. By letters patent dated 19 Oct. 1714 he was raised to the dignities of Viscount Sunbury and Earl of Halifax, and as such took his seat in the House of Lords on 21 March 1715 (Journals of the House of Lords, xx. 26). On 13 Dec. 1714 he became lord-lieutenant of Surrey. Disappointed at not being made lord high treasurer, Halifax is said to have commenced negotiations with the tories (see Coxe, Life of Sir Robert Walpole, i. 81, and Lord Mahon, History of England, 1858, i. 133), but of this there seems to be little or no evidence. Halifax was taken suddenly ill on 15 May 1715 at the house of Mynheer Duvenvoord, one of the Dutch ambassadors, and died of inflammation of the lungs on the 19th. He was buried on the 26th of the same month in the Duke of Albemarle's vault on the north side of Henry VII's Chapel in Westminster Abbey, where a monument was erected to his memory (Neale, Westminster Abbey, vol. i. pt. 11. pp. 63-4).
Halifax possessed great administrative ability and keen business faculties. As a finance minister he achieved a series of brilliant successes. As a parliamentary orator his only rival was Somers. His ambition was great, his vanity excessive, and his arrogance unbounded. He was president of the Royal Society from 30 Nov. 1695 to 30 Nov. 1698, and he was a munificent patron of literature. Addison, Congreve, Newton, Prior, Stepney,
