Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery

Major-General Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery, KT, PC, FRS (28 July 1674 – 28 August 1731) was a British army officer and politician who represented Huntingdon in the House of Commons of England from 1701 to 1705.

Early life The second son of Roger Boyle, 2nd Earl of Orrery, and his wife Lady Mary Sackville (1647–1710), daughter of Richard Sackville, 5th Earl of Dorset, he was born at Little Chelsea, London. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and soon distinguished himself by his learning and abilities.

Career

Like the first earl, he was an author, soldier and statesman. He translated Plutarch's life of Lysander, and published an edition of the epistles of Phalaris, which engaged him in the famous controversy with Bentley. He was a member of the Irish Parliament and sat for Charleville between 1695 and 1699. He was three times member for the town of Huntingdon; and on the death of his brother, Lionel, 3rd earl, in 1703, he succeeded to the title.

In 1706, he married Lady Elizabeth Cecil, daughter of John Cecil, 5th Earl of Exeter and Lady Anne Cavendish, at Burghley House. Their son and heir, John, was born the following year.

He joined the British Army, attaining the rank of brigadier by 1709, (when he became a major general), and was sworn one of Her Majesty's Privy Council in 1711; he distinguished himself at the Battle of the Wood.

Shield of Arms of Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery, KT, PC, FRS, surmounting the collar of the Order of the ThistleCharles Boyle received several additional honours in the reign of George I; but having had the misfortune to fall under the suspicion of the government for playing a part in the Jacobite Atterbury Plot, he was committed to the Tower in 1722, where he remained six months, and was then admitted to bail. On a subsequent inquiry, he was discharged.

Later life Boyle died at his house in Westminster in 1731 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. He bequeathed his personal library and collection of scientific instruments to Christ Church Library; the instruments are now on display in the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford.

His son John, the 5th Earl of Orrery, succeeded to the earldom of Cork on the failure of the elder branch of the Boyle family, as earl of Cork and Orrery.