2nd Earl of Egremont (1750-1763)
Born 1710 Died 1763
In 1749 Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset, was created Earl of Egremont, and on his childless death in February 1750 this title passed by special remainder to his nephew, Sir Charles Wyndham or Windham, Bart. , a son of Sir William Wyndham of Orchard Wyndham, Somerset. Charles, who had succeeded to his father's baronetcy in 1740, inherited Somerset's estates in Cumberland and Sussex.
He was a member of parliament from 1734 to 1750, and in October 1761 he was appointed secretary of state for the southern department in succession to William Pitt. His term of office, during which he acted in concert with his brother-in-law, George Grenville, was mainly occupied with the declaration of war on Spain and with the negotiations for peace with France and Spain, a peace the terms of which the earl seems to have disliked. He was also to the fore during the proceedings against Wilkes, and he died on the 21st of August 1763. Horace Walpole perhaps rates Egremont's talents too low when he says he had "neither knowledge of business, nor the smallest share of parliamentary abilities".
Extracted from the entry for EGREMONT, EARLS OF in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, the text of which lies within the public domain.