Family and Education

b. c.1661, o. surv. s. of Edward Noel, 1st Earl of Gainsborough. educ. Winchester 1675-8. m. 30 Dec. 1687, Catherine (d. 7 Feb. 1704), da. of Fulke Greville, 5th Baron Brooke of Beauchamps Court, 2da. suc. fa. as 2nd Earl of Gainsborough Apr. 1689.

Offices Held

Freeman, Winchester 1679, Portsmouth 1682, Lymington 1686; j.p. Rutland 1680-d.; dep. gov. Gosport 1682-7; dep. lt. Hants and Rutland 1682-5, jt. ld. lt. 1685-7; commr. for assessment, Hants and Rutland 1689.1

Biography

The heir to £10,000 a year, Noel was ‘not very agreeable in shape, but in other respects valuable enough’ to make him a suitable match for the Earl of Chesterfield’s daughter, who, however, ‘could by no means be persuaded to like him’, and it was five years before a less fastidious young lady could be found. Meanwhile he became lieutenant-governor of Gosport on the advice of George Legge, to whom his father wrote:

You will find loyalty so entailed on him, that all the cunning lawyers of the House of Commons, into which I design to bring him next session, will not be able to alter that sentiment and change his honest principles.

He was elected unopposed for Hampshire, of which he was joint lord lieutenant with his father, in 1685, and listed by Danby in the Opposition. He was a moderately active Member of James II’s Parliament, being appointed to five committees, including those to consider expunctions in the Journals (26 May) and to draw up the address against the employment of Roman Catholic officers in the army (14 Nov.), and moved for a grant of no more than £400,000 for supply, half of which had already been voted for the suppression of Monmouth’s rebellion. Another speech in the same debate attributed to him by Anchitell Grey was probably delivered by Lord Castleton  (George Saunderson). He was dismissed from the lieutenancy with his father in 1687, but in the following April the King’s electoral agents reported that he and Lord Wiltshire (Charles Powlett II) would probably carry Hampshire ‘against all other interest’. He is unlikely to have stood in 1689, and in any case succeeded to the peerage soon afterwards. A non-juror, he never took his seat in the Lords, and died ‘of a diabetes’ on 21 Sept. 1690. His heir was his cousin, the son of Baptist Noel.2

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: Eveline Cruickshanks / Basil Duke Henning

Notes

• 1. CSP Dom. 1682, pp. 471, 473, 565; 1685, pp. 73, 144; 1687-9, p. 113; Winchester corp. assembly bk. 5, f. 119; L. King, Old Times Re-visited, 191; R. East, Portsmouth Recs. 365.
• 2. HMC Ormonde, n.s. vi. 486, 507; HMC Dartmouth, i. 76; Grey, viii. 365; Luttrell, ii. 106.