Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos: George Grenville (Nugent Buckingham)

George Nugent-Temple Grenville (1753–1813). First Marquis of Buckingham and father of Richard Temple, the first Duke. Second son of George Grenville and Elizabeth Wyndham. Brother of William Wyndham Grenville, who was for a short while Prime Minister (see Family Tree).

Buckingham was a man of considerable industry and some financial ability; but his overbearing manner, his excessive pride, and his extreme proneness to take offence and fitted him for political life. Horace Walpole described him as having “many disgusting qualities, has pride, obstinacy, and want of truth, with natural propensity to avarice.” [DNB]

George III said of him:

I hate nobody, why should anybody hate me... I beg pardon. I hate the Marquis of Buckingham.

Horace Walpole was even less polite:

He was weak, proud, avaricious, peevish, fretful... and had every one of those defects in the extreme with their natural concomitant, obstinacy. [Horace Walpole in Cokayne et al., The Complete Peerage, 2:407]

He was appointed Teller of the Exchequer, at the age of 10. This was a lucrative position, gaining him tens of thousands of pounds a year (see Tellership Sinecure). He, however, completed two successful terms as Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, though not without controversy (see 1789 below).

Age	Year	Date	Event
0	1753	17 June	Born
			Educated at Eton
10	1764	March	Assumes Tellership of the Exchequer on death of Lord Macclesfield, a post of great profit
16	1770	20 April	Matriculated at Christ Church Oxford but did not take a degree
21	1774	October	Elected a member for Buckinghamshire; politically active in the Commons until 1779
22	1775	16 April	Married Hon. Mary Elizabeth Nugent, elder daughter of Robert, Viscount Clare, afterwards Earl Nugent. 4 children
25	1778		Receives military commission
26	1779	September	On the death of his father, became the 2nd Earl Temple; politically active in the Lords 1789
26	1779	October	Obtained a royal licence to take the names and arms of Nugent and Temple in addition to Grenville and also to subscribe the name of Nugent before all titles of honour
27	1780		Appointed Lieutenant of Bucks Militia
28	1782	30 March	Became Lord Lieutenant and custos rotulorum[1] of Buckinghamshire
29	1782	31 July	Appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; took up post on 15 September
29	1783	5 February	Royal warrant issued authorising him to create a new Order of St Patrick.
29	1783	March	Resigns from Ireland; returns in early June
			Strong supporter of King George III and acted as the kings agent in the Lords
30	1783	11 December	Opposed Fox’s East India Bill in the king’s name leading to the dismissal of the Fox-North coalition and appointment of William Pitt. Grenville was censured by the Commons for this action and his brother, Thomas, voted for the censure.
30	1783	19 December	Appointed Home Secretary by William Pitt; resigned 22 December
30	1784	4 December	Created Marquis of Buckingham
32	1786	June	Elected and invested a Knight of the Garter
33	1787	November	Again appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, arriving at Dublin on 16 December
34	1788	14 October	Succeeded to the Irish earldom of Nugent on death of Robert Nugent.
34	1789	6 February	James Grattan (1783–1854) protests against ‘the expensive genius of the Marquis of Buckingham in the management of public money.’
34	1789	17 February	Nugent Buckingham refuses transmit an address by both houses of the Irish parliament to the Prince of Wales, requesting him to exercise the king’s authority during the king's madness
34–35	1789		King recovers and Buckingham dismisses from office many who opposed him
35	1789	30 September	In declining health, he resigns office and thereafter takes little part in political life.
35	1789	3 October	Seeks Dukedom on death of Duke of Chandos
40	1794	14 March	Receives rank of Colonel in army
44–45	1798		Served in Ireland as Colonel of the Buckinghamshire militia regiment
49-50	1803		Retires from Bucks Militia
59	1813	11 February	Dies at Stowe; buried at Wotton

[1] Custos rotulorum: the keeper of the English county records, and by virtue of that office the, highest civil officer in the county.


Satirical sketch of Nugent Buckingham by Robert Dighton, July 1811	A more sympathetic portrait
	Portrait by Robert Jackson. This hangs at Stowe.