ROCKINGHAM Charles Watson Wentworth, second Marquis of (1730-1782), twice prime minister of England, was the only son of Thomas Watson Wentworth, whose father had inherited the great Wentworth estates in Yorkshire on the death of William Wentworth, fourth earl of Strafford, and who had himself succeeded his second cousin as sixth Lord Rockingham in 1746 and been created marquis of Rockingham in the same year. Charles Watson Wentworth was born in 1730 on the 19th of March (Albemarle), or the 13th of May (Collins), and was educated at Eton. He showed his spirit as a boy by riding across from Wentworth to Carlisle in 1745 with but one servant, to join the duke of Cumberland in his pursuit of the Young Pretender. He was created earl of Malton in the peerage of Ireland on 4th September 1750, and succeeded his father as second marquis of Rockingham on 14th December in the same year. In 1751 he became lord-lieutenant of the North and West Ridings of Yorkshire and a lord of the bedchamber, and in 1760 was made a knight of the Garter. After George III. had begun his policy of dividing the great Whig families, those Whig noblemen and gentlemen who did not choose to join the sections headed by the Grenvilles, the duke of Bedford, or any other great nobleman, selected as their chief the young marquis of Rockingham. In May 1762 the king’s favourite, the earl of Bute, became first lord of the treasury, and the marquis of Rockingham was amongst those who in the following year were dismissed from their lord-lieutenancies. The opposition now grew so strong that Lord Bute resigned in April 1763 and the king, true to his policy, appointed George Grenville to be his successor. But Grenville’s section of the Whig party was not strong enough to maintain him in power long, and on 12th ...