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Richard Temple was born on 24 oct 1675, the son of Sir Richard Temple 3rd Bt and Mary Knapp. Educated at Eton and Christs College, Cambridge. He followed the usual course of gentlemen at that time, combining a military and political career. He was commissioned into the Buffs on 30 June 1685 and then served in the Warwickshire Regiment in 1689. He fought in Ireland alongside William III and in the Nine Years War, being present at Namur. He was a Whig MP for Buckingham and Buckinghamshire 1697-1713.
He fought with the Duke of Marlborough at Venlo and Roermond, also Oudenarde and the Siege of Lille, and later at Malplaquet. In Parliament he voted in favour of allowing refugee Protestants into the country. In 1715 he was married to Anne Halsey daughter of the brewer Edmund Halsey. Her inheritance enabled Temple to revamp his estate at Stowe, using the architect, John Vanbrugh and gardener Charles Bridgeman. He was Colonel of six regiments. The first was the Princess Anne of Denmark’s Dragoons but this was taken from him in 1713 by the Harley Ministry following Temple's vote against the Treaty of Utrecht. But when George I ascended the throne in 1714 he was created Baron Cobham and appointed ambassador to Vienna. He was upgraded to Viscount Cobham in 1718. He was patron to young Whig politicians, notably William Pitt the Elder and George Grenville. They were known as Cobham’s Cubs. He secured a commission for Pitt in his regiment, the KDG. However, he still pursued his military career and was put in command of a force of 4,000 which raided Vigo on the Spanish coast and occupied it for 10 days. In Parliament he supported the government of Sir Robert Walpole but fell out with him in 1733. His colonelcies were dependent on his success in parliament and he was removed from the King’s Dragoon Guards in June 1733 when he opposed the Excise Bill. But two years later, on 27 Oct 1735 he was promoted to General. He reached the rank of Field Marshal on 10 July 1742. He died at Stowe on 13 Sep 1749. The portrait was painted c1740 by Jean Baptiste van Loo.
1710 Colonel of Princess Anne of Denmark’s Dragoons (4th Hussars) |
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