(1682 - 1726), 1st. surv. s. of 1st E. of Portland; sty. Vct. Woodstock 1689 - 1709 when suc. fa. as 2nd E.; m. 1704 Ldy. Elizabeth Noel, dau. of 2nd E. of Gainsborough; MP 1705 - 9; ; cr. D. of Portland 1716; gov. Jamaica 1721 - 6.
1702 [dep. The Hague Oct. 1701] Venice (by 3 - 20 Mar. 1702), Padua (20 Mar.), Ferrara, Bologna (27 Mar.), Ravenna, Loreto, Rome (8 Apr. - 17 Jun.), Florence (by 1 - 15 Jul. - ), Siena, Bologna (by 22 Aug.), Venice (by 1 - 8 Sep. - ), Padua, Vicenza, Verona [Trent, by 16 Sep.; The Hague, 1 May 1703]
Although he would have preferred to fight with his father's regiment in the imminent wars of the Spanish Succession, Lord Woodstock set out from The Hague on his grand tour in October 1701 with his tutor, the Huguenot historian Paul de Rapin.1 He found himself welcomed in Germany, but he was put out by the 'orgueil insupportable' of Vienna.
He spent seven months in Italy but his letters do not suggest he was particularly excited by the experience. He arrived in Venice in March 1702, having followed a precipitous route from Trent. He was not impressed with the Carnival but attended the opera and the theatre (he was to be a patron of the opera in London).2 His father then advised Woodstock to join Prince Eugene who was campaigning in Italy, but he was not keen to join a regiment of German soldiers and was, in any case, receiving innumerable courtesies from the Doge and Mocenigo, brother of the Venetian ambassador in London. He left Venice towards the end of March and came to Rome through Padua,3 Bologna and Loreto. It was Lent and he found Rome rather forlorn; 'Je n'ay encore vu personne de la Ville, ? cause que tout le monde est en d?votion', he wrote on 15 April, and then discovered that Holy Week was little better, with overrated processions which required perpetual falling on one's knees each time the Pope passed. Rapin told Lord Portland (17 June) that Woodstock 'n'a pas eu ici beaucoup de plaisir, et n'y peut faire que des visites de Ceremonie, o? tous les pas sont mesur?s'. He exchanged visits with the Duke of Shrewsbury4 but, as he wrote on 29 April, 'L'on mene une vie fort retir?e ici'; one had to look at quantities of antiquities, pictures and statues, and 'apr?s cela il n'y a pas grand chose ? faire'. He was unable to visit Naples, since war prevented him visiting any town with a Spanish garrison, and on leaving Rome in June he went to Florence and on to Venice in September. His tutor, who had been dull company ('depuis qu'il est parti de la Haye je ne l'ay pas vu de bonne humeur'), left him at Nuremberg in October, Woodstock returning on his own through Germany and reaching The Hague by May 1703.
1. See Eg.1706 (Woodstock and Rapin's letters to Ld. Portland). 2. Gibson 1989, 80 - 2. 3. Brown 1171. 4. Shrewsbury Jnl. (Apr., 4 May 1702).