without consulting Marlborough and Godolphin, took the lord chamberlain's staff from the Marquis of Kent and bestowed it upon Shrewsbury (Wyon, Reign of Queen Anne, ii. 189–90; cf. Michael, Englische Geschichte, 1896, p. 253; see also Wentworth Papers, p. 136, as to Rochester's prediction of the speedy collapse of the intriguers Harley and Shrewsbury). Soon afterwards (January 1711) the Duchess of Shrewsbury was appointed a lady of the bedchamber.
Shrewsbury now entered fully into the plans of the tory ministry, and was one of the persons commissioned by the queen (August 1711) to enter into the preliminary negotiations with Ménager with a view to the conclusion of peace with France. In these transactions he showed his usual vacillation (Wyon, ii. 318, citing Torcy's Mémoires), and it is curious to find that he had already taken steps to place himself on a friendly footing with the elector of Hanover (Macpherson, Original Papers, ii. 194–5). The queen's refusal to allow him, after the debate on the address in December 1711, to conduct her from the House of Lords to her coach was thought to indicate that he and his new tory friends had again fallen in the royal favour (Wyon, ii. 342, from Swift's Journal to Stella); but the alarm proved unfounded. Shrewsbury was expected to be named lord-lieutenant of Ireland (Wentworth Papers, p. 243), but in November 1712 he was prevailed upon to accept the embassy to France with a view to accelerating the conclusion of peace. He was very courteously received by Louis XIV, who paid him the unusual compliment of providing him with a furnished mansion at Paris, the Hôtel de Soissons, and the duchess was much liked in France (ib. pp. 308, 321). But he declined taking part in the Utrecht negotiations, and it seems to have been a prescient desire on his part for more satisfactory terms as to commercial relations than were actually obtained from France which led to a coolness that ended in his recall (June 1713; for Bolingbroke's very definite instructions to Shrewsbury as to terms of peace, see Stanhope's Reign of Queen Anne, p. 542). In September 1713 he was appointed to the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, towards which he had for some time been believed to incline (Wentworth Papers, pp. 282, 284), though in the opinion of Argyll such an appointment was a slight to Shrewsbury, ‘the only man whose word is to be relyed on’ (ib. p. 355). At Dublin faction was at its height, the Roman catholics siding with the tories, and the protestant dissenters with the whigs; a succession of tumults had taken place, in the midst of which it had been necessary to summon parliament in order to obtain supplies. Shrewsbury disappointed the expectations of the tories and catholics by celebrating the anniversary of the birth of William III with unusual magnificence (it was in connection with his toast on this occasion that the bishop of Cork pronounced drinking to the dead to be a wicked custom savouring of popery). He afterwards exerted himself in the direction of conciliation, and dissolved parliament after obtaining the required supplies (Wyon, ii. 473–5).
In June Shrewsbury was in London, in personal attendance on the queen and voting against the schism bill (Wentworth Papers, pp. 387–8). Various rumours ran as to the part played by him in the conflict between Oxford and Bolingbroke; the circumstances under which on July 30, two days before the queen's death, she placed the treasurer's staff in the hands of Shrewsbury, who had been recommended for the office at a meeting of the council in which Argyll and Somerset had taken part, are detailed elsewhere [see Anne, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland]. His courageous acceptance of the responsibility thrust upon him on so supremely critical an occasion made him for the moment the foremost man in the realm; and, as one of the lords justices appointed in accordance with the provisions of the Regency Act, he had a prominent share in the proceedings by which the accession of George I was duly accomplished. He showed, however, no desire to occupy a prominent position in the first administration of the new king, which was formed with a rapidity said not to have been to Shrewsbury's taste. On 26 Sept. he accepted the office of groom of the stole and keeper of the privy purse to the king, and on 17 Oct., having previously resigned the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland and the lord-treasurership, which he had continued simultaneously to hold, he accepted the lord-chamberlainship. The duchess, who, as has been stated above, enjoyed exceptional favour at the court of King George, was gratified by being made a lady of the bedchamber to the Princess of Wales.
Shrewsbury was not included in the cabinet council, and in truth he would have been out of place there among the whigs from whom he had become estranged, however true a friend he had proved himself to the protestant succession. In the debates on the address (April 1715) he was one of those who objected to the allusion to the damage inflicted upon the reputation of Great Britain by the action of the late
