(1694 - 1758), 1st s. of 3rd E. of Carlisle; sty. Vct. Morpeth - 1738 when suc. fa. as 4th E.; educ. Eton and Trin. Camb. 1711; MP 1715 - 38; m. 1 1717 Ldy. Frances Spencer (d. 1742), dau. of 2nd E. of Sunderland, 2 1743 Hon. Isabella Byron, dau. of 4th B. Byron (see Isabella, Cts. of Carlisle); KG 1756.
1714 - 15 Padua (by 20 Dec. 1714), Venice (Jan. - 22 Feb. 1715), Rome (Mar. - Jul.), Venice
1738 - 9 Venice (by Nov. 1738), Rome, Leghorn, Florence (by 19 Jun. - 26 Jul. 1739), [England by 8 Nov. 1739]
On his first tour (as Viscount Morpeth) he was in Padua in December 1714 with George Chardin (later his secretary) and Ralph Carr.1 He was then in Venice until the end of February 1715, when he left with Lord Essex and Robert Mansell for Rome.2 William Kent noticed him in Rome in letters of 16 April and 20 July;3 he became acquainted with the antiquarian Ficoroni4 and at the end of the year, when he had returned to Venice, Lord Harrold observed that 'My Ld Morpeth and several other young Gentlemen I have mett with since their return from Rome, have laid some money, as two or three hundred pounds in those things [medals etc.] in order to acquire taste and knowledge of antiquitys and form a little Cabinet and Series of them'.5 Morpeth also lost considerable sums in Robert Brown's gaming house in Venice.6
On his second visit, made shortly after his succession as the 4th Earl of Carlisle, he was accompanied by his son, Charles, Lord Morpeth (1719 - 41). Morpeth had been studying at Caen, but left unexpectedly (possibly for health reasons) and was in Venice with his father by November 1738.7 To judge from his subsequent correspondence, Carlisle then met in Venice the antiquarian A.M. Zanetti;8 by June 1740 seventeen paintings by Canaletto had arrived in Yorkshire through his agency.9 In Rome he again met Ficoroni and Stosch and he acquired gems from Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni.(10) He commissioned a remarkable series of six capricci by Panini,11 and invited the painter Andrea Casali to come to England.(12) By 19 June father and son had arrived in Florence from Leghorn; they departed on 26 July, intending to sail to France.(13) At Pont Beau Voisin in September Lady Mary Wortley Montagu discovered an ailing Lord Morpeth being 'carry'd in a Litter. His Distemper has been the Bloody Flux'.14 They were back in England by 8 November 1739; Lord Morpeth was to die in August 1741 of a 'venereal distemper which he caught in Italy'.15
The greater part of Lord Carlisle's outstanding collection of engraved gems passed to the British Museum in 1890.
1. Brown 1445. 2. SP 99/61, ff.11, 18 (Broughton, 11 Jan., 22 Feb. 1715). 3. Kent letters MSS. 4. D. Scarisbrick, Burl.Mag., 129[1987]:90, 92. 5. Wrest Park MSS (n.d. [mid-Dec. 1715 - Feb. 1716]). 6. SP 99/62, f.305 (Cunningham, 28 Jul. 1719). 7. Montagu Letters, 2:127. 8. Cf. Scarisbrick (at n4), 96. 9. See Yorkshire Houses, 13, 16, nos.32, 33. 10. Scarisbrick (at n4), 90. 11. See Yorkshire Houses, 16, nos.47, 48. 12. Vertue, 3:14. 13. SP 98/42, ff.155, 184 (Newsletters, 22 Jun., 27 Jul. 1739). 14. Montagu Letters, 2:148. 15. HMC Carlisle, 195, 204.