Charles Arbuthnot

Arbuthnot was son of John Arbuthnot, FRS of Rockfleet, and his wife Anne Stone, daughter of the banker Robert Stone;{{cite web |title=Arbuthnot, Charles (1767-1850), of Woodford, Northants. History of Parliament Online |url=http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/arbuthnot-charles-1767-1850 |website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}} he was brother of bishop Alexander Arbuthnot, General Sir Thomas Arbuthnot and General Sir Robert Arbuthnot. He was born in Rockfleet, County Mayo, Ireland, but much of his upbringing was with Andrew Stone, his mother's relation. He was educated at Westminster School, and matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford in 1784, graduating B.A. in 1788. He then went on a Grand Tour.{{alox2|title=Arbuthnot, Charles (2)}}

Arbuthnot joined the Foreign Office in 1793, where he impressed William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville.{{cite ODNB|id=607|first=Neville|last=Thompson|title=Arbuthnot, Charles (1767–1850)}} He sat as Member of Parliament for East Looe between 1795 and 1796, after William Wellesley Pole stepped down because he could not support the war policies of William Pitt the younger.{{cite web |title=East Looe 1790-1820, History of Parliament Online |url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/constituencies/east-looe |website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}}

Arbuthnot also held a number of diplomatic postings, notably as consul general in Portugal between 1800 and 1801, as Minister to Sweden. He served under Henry Addington as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs between November 1803 and June 1804. In 1804 he was sworn of the Privy Council.{{London Gazette |issue=15714 |date=26 June 1804 |page=789 }}

Appointed on 6 June 1804 as Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Arbuthnot was the first ambassador in Constantinople under a new arrangement, whereby the Levant Company provided a consul-general, in this case Isaac Morier, who saw to commercial work.{{cite book |last1=Berridge |first1=Geoffrey R. |title=British Diplomacy in Turkey, 1583 to the present: A study in the evolution of the resident embassy |date=31 July 2009 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-474-2983-8 |page=33 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TGawCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA33 |language=en}} In 1806 Arbuthnot negotiated a trade treaty with the Reis ül-Küttab, Ahmed Vâsıf.{{cite book |last1=Menchinger |first1=Ethan L. |title=The First of the Modern Ottomans |date=10 August 2017 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-19797-8 |page=247 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ih4xDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA247 |language=en}} He travelled out with William Pole-Tylney, nephew to Arthur and Richard Wellesley.{{cite web |title=Pole Tylney Long Wellesley, William (1788-1857), of Wanstead Hall, Essex. History of Parliament Online |url=http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/pole-tylney-long-wellesley-william-1788-1857 |website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}}

Arbuthnot was tasked in the early days of 1807 to bring Selim III into the Anglo-Russian camp opposed to France. He was unable to do that. In the context of a renewed Russo-Turkish War and tariff evasion under the commercial treaty, Arbuthnot pursued his own line, prepared to use force.{{cite book |last1=Talbot |first1=Michael |title=British-Ottoman Relations, 1661-1807: Commerce and Diplomatic Practice in Eighteenth-century Istanbul |date=2017 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=978-1-78327-202-0 |page=206 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F7Q4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA206 |language=en}}

Selim with Horace Sébastiani successfully resisted a British naval expedition in the Dardanelles operation. Arbuthnot left Constantinople on 29 January 1807.

Arbuthnot was Member of Parliament for Eye between 1809 and 1812, taking up the seat when Henry Wellesley resigned.{{cite web |title=Eye 1790-1820, History of Parliament Online |url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/constituencies/eye |website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}} He became Secretary to the Treasury in 1809, and began attempts to manage public opinion for the government, by centralising management of the press.{{cite book |last1=Hamilton |first1=C. I. |title=The Making of the Modern Admiralty: British Naval Policy-Making, 1805–1927 |date=3 February 2011 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-49654-4 |page=97 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8S4yyAkysYgC&pg=PA97 |language=en}}

Under Spencer Perceval, and then Lord Liverpool, Arbuthnot was Joint Secretary to the Treasury between 1809 and 1823.

Arbuthnot sat for Orford between 1812 and 1818, a pocket borough of the 2nd Marquess of Hertford, in a deal with the Liverpool ministry on behalf of Edmond Alexander MacNaghten.{{cite web |title=Orford 1790-1820, History of Parliament Online |url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/constituencies/orford |website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}} Arbuthnot and Robert Jenkinson, later Lord Liverpool, had known each other in college days at Christ Church.{{cite book |last1=Hutchinson |first1=Martin |title=Britain's Greatest Prime Minister |date=1 January 2021 |publisher=BoD – Books on Demand |isbn=978-0-7188-9564-8 |page=22 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HMhxEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA22 |language=en}}

Arbuthnot held the position of Patronage Secretary, and also played the role of "general cabinet fixer".{{cite book |last1=Bew |first1=John |title=Castlereagh: A Life |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-993159-0 |page=306 |language=en}} In September 1812, John McMahon, private secretary to the Prince Regent, tried Arbuthnot in an attempt to shut down a series of scurrilous articles in the Morning Chronicle. They purported to be an epic and extended review of a poem by Charlotte Dacre on the Prince and his circle, and referenced the Prince's affair with the Marchioness of Hertford. These squibs have been attributed by David V. Erdman to Lord Byron.{{cite journal |last1=Erdman |first1=David V. |title=Byron's Mock Review of Rosa Matilda's Epic on the Prince Regent — A New Attribution |journal=Keats-Shelley Journal |date=1970 |volume=19 |pages=102–104 |jstor=30210623 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30210623 |issn=0453-4387}} Liverpool disapproved of the subsidy Arbuthnot was giving Lewis Goldsmith, founder of The Anti-Gallican Monitor, a project of 1811 of Arbuthnot and John Charles Herries; and ran it down, ending it in 1814.{{cite book |last1=Sack |first1=James J. |title=From Jacobite to Conservative |date=27 May 1993 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-43266-5 |pages=14 and 21 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F-xYv1Ds3x8C&pg=PA21 |language=en}}

During Arbuthnot's time in charge of patronage, a Treasury appointment, over 2,000 sinecure posts were abolished. He noted the effect the reforms were having on his influence on Members of Parliament.{{cite book |last1=Evans |first1=Eric J. |title=Political Parties in Britain 1783-1867 |date=5 December 2006 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-83560-6 |page=39 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w-WPAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT39 |language=en}} He is taken to have been the de facto Tory whip.{{cite book |last1=Huch |first1=Ronald K. |last2=Ziegler |first2=Paul R. |title=Joseph Hume, the People's M.P. |date=1985 |publisher=American Philosophical Society |isbn=978-0-87169-163-7 |page=19 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yn3GhKJKLlkC&pg=PA19 |language=en}} The responsibility for party discipline was only later recognised by a seat in the Cabinet.

Subsequently Arbuthnot sat for St Germans between 1818 and 1827. The constituency was controlled by John Eliot, 2nd Baron Eliot (as he was in 1818).{{cite web |title=St. Germans 1790-1820, History of Parliament Online |url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/constituencies/st-germans |website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}} Under Liverpool he was First Commissioner of Woods and Forests between 1823 and 1827.

Arbuthnot was Member of Parliament for St Ives between 1828 and 1830 and for Ashburton between 1830 and 1831. At St Ives he was the favoured successor of Sir Christopher Hawkins, 1st Baronet. For a time in 1828 a rival candidate was promoted, Guy Lenox Prendergast, but he withdrew before the poll.{{cite web |title=St. Ives 1820-1832, History of Parliament Online |url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/constituencies/st-ives |website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}} Ashburton was controlled by landlords Robert Trefusis, 18th Baron Clinton and Sir Lawrence Vaughan Palk. Arbuthnot was elected with Palk in 1830, and resigned in 1831.{{cite web |title=Ashburton 1820-1832, History of Parliament Online |url=https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/constituencies/ashburton |website=www.historyofparliamentonline.org}}

Under Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Arbuthnot was First Commissioner of Woods and Forests in 1828 and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster between 1828 and 1830. In the 1830s he remained a major figure in the party management of the Tories, working with John Charles Herries, William Holmes and Joseph Planta.{{cite book |last1=Salmon |first1=Philip J. |title=Electoral Reform at Work: Local Politics and National Parties, 1832-1941 |date=2002 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=978-0-86193-261-0 |page=44 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XNVt5Cj1CUcC&pg=PA44 |language=en}}

During the last years of Arbuthnot's life, after the death of his second wife Harriet, he turned over the family home to his eldest son, and moved into the Duke of Wellington's London residence, Apsley House, as his confidential friend. Their story is told in Wellington and the Arbuthnots by E. A. Smith.{{cite book|author-link=Harriet Arbuthnot|last=Arbuthnot|first= Harriet|editor1-last=Bamford|editor1-first= F.|editor2-link=Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|editor2=Duke of Wellington|title=The journal of Mrs. Arbuthnot, 1820–1832|location=London|publisher= MacMillan|date= 1950}}

Charles Arbuthnot died at Apsley House in August 1850, aged 83. Spiridione Gambardella's portrait of him is kept there.{{cite DNB|wstitle=Arbuthnot, Charles|volume=2}} He was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery.{{Cite ODNB|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/607|title=Arbuthnot, Charles|first = Neville | last = Thompson}}

• The Correspondence of Charles Arbuthnot (1941), edited by Arthur Aspinall{{cite book |last1=Arbuthnot |first1=Charles |title=The Correspondence of Charles Arbuthnot |date=1941 |publisher=Royal Historical Society |isbn=978-0-86193-065-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CvooAAAAYAAJ |language=en}}

File:Samuel William Reynolds - Mrs Arbuthnot - B1970.3.380 - Yale Center for British Art.jpg

Arbuthnot was first married on 28 February 1799 to Marcia Mary Anne Clapcott Lisle, at Cholmondeley House, Piccadilly. She had been Lady-in-Waiting since 1795 to Caroline of Brunswick, Princess of Wales. She died in Constantinople on 24 May 1806.

Arbuthnot married a second time on 31 January 1814 at Fulbeck, Lincolnshire, to Harriet Fane (1793–1834), daughter of the Hon. Henry Fane. Harriet was fascinated by politics. During her marriage to Arbuthnot, she became a hostess at society dinners given by Arbuthnot's good friend, the Duke of Wellington. Smith rejects the suggestion that Harriet was Wellington's mistress. Her diaries were published as The Journal of Mrs Arbuthnot in 1950.Smith, E.A. Wellington and the Arbuthnots: a triangular friendship (UK, Alan Sutton Publishing, 1994) {{ISBN|0-7509-0629-4}}.

With his first wife Marcia, Arbuthnot's children were:

• Charles George James Arbuthnot (1799–1870).Portugal, Select Baptisms, 1570-1910 He married Charlotte Eliza Vivian, daughter of Hussey Vivian, 1st Baron Vivian.{{cite book |title=The Gentleman's Magazine |date=1842 |publisher=W. Pickering |page=544 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oKbPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA544 |language=en}}
• Caroline Emma Arbuthnot (1802–1852)
• Henry Arbuthnot (1803–1875), married in 1830 Charlotte Rachael Scott, daughter of Thomas Scott, 2nd Earl of Clonmell.{{cite book |last1=Debrett |first1=John |title=Debrett's Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland. revised, corrected and continued by G.W. Collen |date=1840 |page=179 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DuwDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA179 |language=en}}
• Marcia Emma Georgiana Arbuthnot (1804–1878), who married William Cholmondeley, 3rd Marquess of Cholmondeley.

Arbuthnot had an illegitimate son, from the days before he first married, mentioned in correspondence with his clerical friend John Sneyd (1763–1835), brother of Walter Sneyd. These letters discuss also his nickname "Gosh", which spread from his familiar circle to being generally used, and mistaken for his surname; and his interest in John de Mainauduc, Irish-Huguenot practitioner of animal magnetism.{{cite book |last1=Canning |first1=George |title=George Canning and His Friends: Containing Hitherto Unpublished Letters, Jeux D'esprit, Etc |date=1909 |publisher=J. Murray |pages=3–7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QmdnAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA3 |volume=I |editor-first=Josceline |editor-last=Bagot |language=en}} Of Arthur Paget, Arbuthnot's replacement in 1807 at Constantinople, George Canning as incoming Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the second Portland administration wrote "I must send him to repair if possible the mischief poor Gosh has been doing there."{{cite book |last1=George III |title=The Later Correspondence of George III.: January 1802 to December 1807 |date=1968|volume=IV |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=574 note 2 |language=en}}

File:Harriet Arbuthnot.jpg (1793–1834), second wife of Charles Arbuthnot, portrait by John Hoppner, now in the Foundation Lazzaro Galdiano, Madrid]]

==References==

{{reflist|refs=

{{cite web

| url = https://heritagealive.co.uk/the-iron-dukes-lady/

| title = THE IRON DUKE'S LADY

| work = Heritage Alive UK

| accessdate = 2020-05-23

| quote = By January 1835, Charles handed his estate at Woodford to his son, and followed the diaries to Aspley House. He and Wellington lived there together, surrounded by the legacy of Harriet’s influence, until Charles died in 1850.

}}

}}

• {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20210823023546/http://www.kittybrewster.com/members/i.htm Arbuthnot family tree]}}
• {{NPG name}}
• {{Hansard-contribs | mr-charles-arbuthnot | Mr Charles Arbuthnot }}
• {{UK National Archives ID}}
• The Correspondence of Charles Arbuthnot. A. Aspinall. 1941; Royal Historical Society.

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{{s-par|gb}}

{{succession box

| title = Member of Parliament for East Looe

| with = Robert Wood

| before = Hon. William Wellesley-Pole
Robert Wood

| after = John Buller
William Graves

| years = 1795–1796

}}

{{s-par|uk}}

{{succession box

| title = Member of Parliament for Eye

| with = Mark Singleton

| years = 1809–1812

| before = Hon. Henry Wellesley
Mark Singleton

| after = Mark Singleton
Sir William Garrow

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{{succession box

| title = Member of Parliament for Orford

| with = Edmond MacNaghten

| years = 1812–1818

| before = William Sloane
Lord Henry Seymour Moore

| after = Edmund Alexander Macnaghten
John Douglas

}}

{{succession box

| title = Member of Parliament for St Germans

| with = Seymour Thomas Bathurst 1818–1826

| with2 = Charles Ross 1826–1827

| years = 1818–1827

| before = William Henry Pringle
Henry Goulburn

| after = Charles Ross
James Loch

}}

{{succession box

| title = Member of Parliament for St Ives

| years = 1828–1830

| with = James Halse

| before = Sir Christopher Hawkins, Bt
James Halse

| after = William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley
James Morrison

}}

{{succession box

| title = Member of Parliament for Ashburton

| with = Sir Lawrence Palk, Bt

| years = 1830–1831

| before = Sir Lawrence Palk, Bt
William Sturges Bourne

| after = Sir Lawrence Palk, Bt
William Stephen Poyntz

}}

{{s-off}}

{{succession box

| title=Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

| before=The Marquess of Bristol

| after=Hon. William Eliot

| years=1803–1804

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{{succession box

| title = Joint Secretary to the Treasury

| with = Richard Wharton 1809–1814

| with2 = Stephen Rumbold Lushington 1814–1823

| years = 1809–1823

| before = William Huskisson
Hon. Henry Wellesley

| after = Stephen Rumbold Lushington
John Charles Herries

}}

{{succession box

| title=First Commissioner of Woods and Forests | before=William Huskisson | after=The Earl of Carlisle | years=1823–1827}}

{{succession box

| title=First Commissioner of Woods and Forests

| before=William Sturges Bourne

| after=Viscount Lowther

| years=1828

}}

{{succession box

| title=Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster | before=The Earl of Aberdeen | after=The Lord Holland | years=1828–1830}}

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{{succession box

| title = Ambassador to Sweden

| years = 1802–1804

| before = Daniel Hailes

| after = Hon. Henry Manvers Pierrepont

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{{succession box

| title = Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire

| years = 1804–1807

| before = William Drummond

| after = Hon. Sir Arthur Paget

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{{Arbuthnot family}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Arbuthnot, Charles}}

Category:Chancellors of the Duchy of Lancaster

Category:Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for East Looe

Category:Tory MPs (pre-1834)

Category:British MPs 1790–1796

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Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for St Germans

Category:UK MPs 1807–1812

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Category:UK MPs 1830–1831

Charles Arbuthnot

Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom

Category:Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery

Category:1767 births

Category:1850 deaths

Category:Politicians from County Mayo

Category:Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Sweden

Category:Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to the Ottoman Empire

Category:Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for St Ives