George Carpenter, 1st Baron Carpenter


George Carpenter, 1st Baron Carpenter of Killaghy was a British army officer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1715 to 1727. He was Commander-in-Chief in Scotland between 1716 and 1725.

Life

Carpenter was born 10 February 1657 in Ocle Pychard, Herefordshire, youngest of seven children. His parents were Warncombe and Eleanor Carpenter, whose family had owned property in the county for over 400 years, the main estate being Homme near Dilwyn. Herefordshire was part of the Royalist heartland during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and Warncombe served in the army of Charles I.
In 1671, Carpenter was appointed as Page to Ralph Montagu, Charles II's Envoy to Louis XIV of France. He returned home the next year and began a military career that lasted until 1725.

Career

Carpenter's appointment to Montagu's household shows his family were well-connected; the Montagus supported Parliament in the Civil Wars but were key players in the 1660 Restoration. Ralph's brother Edward, the Earl of Sandwich was a close associate of the future James II before his death at the Battle of Solebay in 1672. Ralph Montagu's role as Envoy was extremely sensitive as the 1670 Secret Treaty of Dover committed Charles to support France in the deeply unpopular Anglo-Dutch War of 1672-74. Despite this, Montagu opposed James during the Exclusion Crisis, supported William III in the 1688 Glorious Revolution and later became a Whig. These connections were an important element in Carpenter's career.
In 1685, Carpenter joined the 'Earl of Peterborough's Regiment of Horse', a new regiment raised when James II expanded his army after the Monmouth rebellion. The Earl of Peterborough was a Catholic who remained loyal to James in 1688 and was replaced as Colonel by Edward Villiers. During the Nine Years War, Carpenter served in Ireland as Lt-Colonel of what was now 'Villiers Regiment,' fighting at the Boyne and Aughrim. When the Treaty of Limerick ended the war in Ireland in October 1691, the regiment returned to England.
In 1693 Carpenter married Alice Margetson, daughter of the Irish peer William Caulfeild, Viscount Charlemont and a widow whose previous husband John Margetson died at the first Siege of Limerick in 1690. In January 1694, Brigadier-General Richard Leveson became Colonel and as 'Leveson's Regiment of Horse' the unit was based in Flanders until the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697; Carpenter's son George was born in 1697 in Ghent. In 1703 he purchased the position of Colonel of the 3rd the Kings Own regiment, a position he held until 1732. He also acquired that year the estates of Baramount and Killaghy in County Kilkenny and became Member of Parliament for Newtownards in the Irish Parliament.
During the War of the Spanish Succession, Carpenter was appointed Quartermaster and General of Cavalry in the Anglo-Dutch force led by Charles, 3rd Earl of Peterborough sent to Spain in 1704 to support Archduke Charles, Austrian candidate for King of Spain. In 1706 James Stanhope was appointed English Minister in Spain; at Almansa in 1707, Carpenter's repeated cavalry charges mitigated an Allied defeat by saving the guns and baggage train. Stanhope replaced Peterborough as military commander in 1708; Carpenter took part in the victory at Almenara in 1710 but a few months later was badly wounded and taken prisoner with many others including Stanhope at Brihuega. This ended the war in Spain in favour of Phillip V; Carpenter was later exchanged and promoted to Lieutenant-General.
Stanhope was a prominent Whig and when George I succeeded Queen Anne in 1714, Carpenter was nominated Envoy to Emperor Charles VI. Before taking this position the Jacobite rising of 1715 broke out and Carpenter was put in charge of government forces in Northern England. He prevented the Jacobites seizing Newcastle, forcing them into the Battle of Preston where they were attacked by troops under Major-General Charles Wills. The first assaults were repulsed but the Jacobites were surrounded by Wills and Carpenter and surrendered on terms. Wills and Carpenter served together in Spain and had quarrelled at some point; Carpenter later claimed Wills was taking all the credit for Preston and challenged him to a duel which was prevented by mutual friends.
Carpenter was returned as Member of Parliament for Whitchurch in Hampshire at the 1715 general election. He served as Governor of Menorca from 1716 to 1718 and Commander-in-Chief, North Britain from 1716 to 1724. He was created Baron Carpenter, of Killaghy in the County of Kilkenny in the Peerage of Ireland on 29 May 1719. In December 1722 he was elected MP for Westminster after the Westminster results of the 1722 general election were declared void. He did not stand at the 1727 general election.
Carpenter died on 10 February 1732 a few months after his wife and was buried in the church of Owslebury in Hampshire.

Family

George and Alice had two children;
Alice also had two daughters from a previous marriage;
Lord Carpenter's Arms appear to be of French or Norman heritage, "Paly of six, argent and gules, on a chevron azure, 3 cross crosslets or." Crest, on a wreath a globe in a frame all or. Supporters, two horses, party-perfess, embattled argent and gules. Motto: "Per Acuta Belli". These arms descend from John Carpenter, the younger who was the noted Town Clerk of London during the reigns of King Henry V & King Henry VI.
These arms are often referred to as the Hereford Arms, named for the later ancestral home of the Carpenter family in Hereford, England. The crest, supporters & motto apparently has changed several times over the centuries.
Sir William Boyd Carpenter, an English clergyman of the Established church of England, Bishop of Ripon, afterwards a Canon of Westminster and Chaplain to the reigning sovereign of England, wrote in a letter dated 7 August 1907 that his family bore the Hereford Arms. Sir Noel Paton, upon painting the Family Arms, informed him that the supporters were originally a round-handled sword, which in drawing over time became shortened, until nothing but the cross and globe were left beneath it. Those Hereford Arms were used by "John Carpenter, town clerk of London, who died 1442 A. D." His grandson John Boyd-Carpenter, Baron Boyd-Carpenter, continued the Arms into the new century by passing it down to his son, Thomas Boyd-Carpenter, who was himself knighted after a military career as a Lieutenant-General and for public service.
There is no direct male to male Carpenter descent connecting Lord Carpenter & Sir William Boyd Carpenter. The family connection is by marriage through the females in the family.
The Hereford Coat of Arms described above should not be confused with the Arms of Bishop Richard Carpenter presented in the "Visitations of the County of Oxford taken in 1566, 1574, and 1634, published in 1871, which describe the arms displayed in the buildings at the University in Oxford – "In the Lyberarye of Baliall College." – as recorded by the officials performing the visitations in those years. The Visitations describe the arms of Bishop Richard Carpenter as: "Paly of nine Gu. and Az. on a chevron Arg. surmounted by a mitre Or, three cross crosslets of—nine pales alternating red and blue, with a silver chevron bearing three gold cross-crosslets.