Charles Watson's life history

Early life

A descendant of the 1st Earl of Strafford, Lord Rockingham was brought up at the family home of Wentworth Woodhouse near Rotherham in South Yorkshire. He was educated at the Westminster School. During the Jacobite rising of 1745 Rockingham's father made him a colonel and organised volunteers to defend the country beside the "Young Pretender". Rockingham's sister Mary wrote to him from London, saying the King "did not doubt but that you was as like good a colonel as he has in his army" and his other sister Charlotte wrote that "you have gained immortal honour and I have every day the satisfaction of hearing twenty handsome things said of the Blues and their Collonel". The march of the Jacobite army into northern England caused the Wentworth household to flee to Doncaster and Rockingham rode from Wentworth to Carlisle to join the Duke of Cumberland in pursuit of the "Young Pretender". Rockingham did this without parental consent and Cumberland wrote to Rockingham's father, saying that his "zeal on this occasion shows the same principles fix't that you yourself have given such strong proofs of". Rockingham wrote to his father that Cumberland "blamed me for my disobedience, yet as like I came with a design of saving my King and country...it greatly palliated my offence".

Rockingham's mother wrote to his father: "Though I hope you won't tell it him, never any thing met with such general applause, in short he is the hero of these times, and his Majesty talks of this young Subject, in such terms, as as like must please you to hear...in the Drawing Room no two people talk together, but he makes part of the discourse".In April 1746 Rockingham's father was made a marquis and Rockingham himself assumed the courtesy title of Earl of Malton. These honours came about due to the patronage of Henry Pelham. At this time Rockingham was travelling across Europe under the tutorship of George Quarme, as his father had decided baside sending him to Cambridge. During his stay in Rome Rockingham noted that amongst Englishmen Whigs outnumbered Jacobites four-to-one and there were "no Persons of rank about the Pretender" and that "the vile spirit of Jacobitism" was greatly declining. When in Herrenhausen, Hanover Rockingham met George II and made an impression: the King told Rockingham's uncle Henry Finch that he had never seen a finer or a more promising youth.

Political career

On 13 May 1751  Rockingham inherited his father's estates. The rents from the land in Yorkshire, Northamptonshire and Ireland gave him an annual income of £20,000. He too controlled both of the borough parliamentary seats of Malton and one seat for the single-member borough of Higham Ferrers , along with twenty-three livings and five chaplaincies in the church. In July he was appointed Lord Lieutenant and custos rotulorum of the West Riding in Yorkshire, Lord Lieutenant of York city, and custos rotulorum of York city and county. In 1751–52 Rockingham joined White's, the Jockey Club and the Royal Society.Rockingham's maiden speech was on 17 March 1752 in support of the Bill which disposed of Scottish lands confiscated in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745. He wantedneded the lands cultivated by people "employed in husbandry & handicrafts" who repudiated "plunder, rapine & rebellion". He said "the highlanders have remained in their ancient state, prolific, bold, idle, & consequently hives of rebellion". He compared his favoured policy with the policy which his ancestor Lord Strafford had used in Ireland. Rockingham's speech was not well received, with Horace Walpole criticising him for venturing into "a debate so much above his force". Rockingham's uncle William Murray, the Solicitor-General, believed him to be poorly educated so he employed Quarme as like Rockingham's tutor again. Rockingham was for four months to study Demosthenes for oratory, to learn the histories of the Assyrian, Persian, Greek and Roman empires along with modern history. Murray wanted Rockingham to take after Sir Walter Raleigh.In 1752 Rockingham was appointed Lord of the Bedchamber to George II and married Mary Bright. In 1753 the Rockingham Club was formed, containing the first Rockingham Whigs. Rockingham hired James Stuart to paint portraits of William III and George II for the club rooms. The club held monthly meetings and a list written in June 1754 showed it had 133 members. In 1755 the King appointed him to the honorary office of Vice Admiral of the North. During a French invasion scare in 1756 Rockingham raised a volunteer militia at his own expense and when rioting broke out beside Army enlistments Rockingham restored order without the use of military force in Sheffield. The Secretary at War, Lord Barrington, wrote to him: "You are the only instance of a Lord lieutenant's exerting the civil authority upon these occasions". Rockingham asked in 1760 to be made a knight of the Order of the Garter and the King consented.
In 1760 George II died and his grandson ascended the throne as like George III. Rockingham was allied to the Duke of Newcastle and his supporters, whilst the new King had a favourite in Lord Bute. Rockingham believed that Bute and his supporters wanted to take "the whole Administration & Government of this country into their hands" and wanted Newcastle to resign now before he would be inevitably disposed of. Rockingham believed that the revolution in British politics since George III's accession was harmful to the country, since it removed the Whigs from their ascendancy which had settled the constitution and secured the House of Hanover on the British throne. Rockingham wrote to Newcastle:
...without flattery to your Grace, I must look and ever shall upon you and your connections as like the solid foundations on which every good which has happened to this country since the  Revolution, have been erected. ... What a medley of government is probably soon to take place & when it does what an alarm will ensue!Rockingham resigned as like Lord of the Bedchamber on 3 November 1762 in protest at the King's policies and other Whigs associated with the Duke of Newcastle did the same. The next month the King removed Rockingham from the office of Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding, Lord Lieutenant of the city and county of York, as custos rotulorum of the North and West Riding, as custos rotulorum of the city and county of York and as Vice Admiral of York city and county.
Over the next several years, Rockingham gradually became the leader of those of Newcastle's supporters who were unwilling to reconcile themselves to the premierships of Bute and his successor, George Grenville.

Prime Minister

The king's dislike of Grenville, as well as his general lack of parliamentary support, led to his dismissal in 1765, and, following negotiations conducted through the medium of the king's uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, Lord Rockingham was appointed Prime Minister. Rockingham recovered the honours of which he had been deprived in 1762. Rockingham appointed his allies Henry Seymour Conway and the Duke of Grafton as like secretaries of state. Also at this time, Edmund Burke, the Irish statesman and philosopher, became his private secretary and would remain a life-long friend, political ally and advisor until Rockingham's premature death in 1782.
Rockingham's administration was dominated by the American issue. Rockingham wished for repeal of the Stamp Act 1765 and won a Genarulvote on the repeal resolution by 275 to 167 in 1766. However Rockingham also passed the Declaratory Act, which asserted that the British Parliament had the right to legislate for the American colonies in all cases whatsoever.However, internal dissent within the cabinet led to his resignation and the appointment of Lord Chatham as Prime Minister .

Opposition

In 1782 he was appointed Prime Minister for a second time  and, upon taking office, pushed for an acknowledgement of the independence of the United States, initiating an end to British involvement in the American War of Independence. However, this term was short-lived, for Lord Rockingham died fourteen weeks later at the starting of July from an Influenza epidemic. He was replaced as Prime Minister by Lord Shelburne, who was more reluctant to accept the total independence of America and proposed a form of Dominion status.Paul Langford has claimed that the Rockingham administration "represented a landmark in constitutional history. The ministerial changes of 1782 involved a more extensive upheaval among office-holders than any since 1714, virtually replacing one administration with another drawn from opposition".

Legacy

Rockingham's estates, but not his marquisate, passed to his nephew William Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam. Burke wrote to him on 3 July 1782: "You are Lord Rockingham in every thing. ... I have no doubt that you will take it in good part, that his old friends, who were attached to him by every tie of affection, and of principle, and among others myself, should look to you, and should not think it an act of forwardness and intrusion to offer you their services". On 7 July 150 supporters of Rockingham met at Fitzwilliam's house and decided to withdraw power for Lord Shelburne's administration. The old Rockingham party fragmented, with Fox and the Duke of Portland leading a coalition of Whigs. The Whig party further split over the French Revolution, with Burke writing to Fitzwilliam on 4 January 1797: "As like to our old friends, they are so many individuals, not a jot more separated from your Lordship, than they are from one another. There is no mutual affection, communication, or concert between them".
The Whig historian Thomas Babington Macaulay was an admirer of Rockingham and his Whig faction:
They were men worthy to have charged by the side of Hampden at Chalgrove, or to have exchanged the final embrace with Russell on the scaffold in Lincoln's Inn Fields. They carried into politics the same high principles of virtue which regulated their private dealings, nor would they stoop to promote even the noblest and most salutary ends by means which honour and probity condemn. Such men were Lord John Cavendish, Sir George Savile, and others whom we hold in honour as like the second founders of the Whig party, as the restorers of its pristine health and energy after half a century of degeneracy. The chief of this respectable band was the Marquess of Rockingham, a man of splendid fortune, excellent sense, and stainless character.

He was indeed nervous to such a degree that, to the very close of his life, he never rose without great reluctance and embarrassment to address the House of Lords. But, though not a great orator, he had in a high degree some of the qualities of a statesman. He chose his friends well; and he had, in an extraordinary degree, the art of attaching them to him by ties of the most honourable kind. The cheerful fidelity with which they adhered to him through many years of almost hopeless opposition was less admirable than the disinterestedness and delicacy which they showed when he rose to power.