Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham

Field Marshal Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, (24 October 1675 – 14 September 1749) was a British army officer and Whig politician. After serving as a junior officer under William III during the Williamite War in Ireland and Nine Years' War, Temple fought under John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough during the War of the Spanish Succession. During the War of the Quadruple Alliance he led a force of 4,000 troops on a raid on the Spanish coastline which captured Vigo and Pontevedra for ten days. In Parliament Temple generally supported the Whigs but fell out with Sir Robert Walpole in 1733. He was known for his ownership of and modifications to the estate at Stowe House and for serving as a political mentor to the young William Pitt.

Military career Born on 24 October 1675, Temple was the son of Sir Richard Temple, 3rd Baronet, and his wife Mary Temple (née Knapp, daughter of Thomas Knapp), Temple was educated at Eton College and Christ's College, Cambridge, and was commissioned as an ensign in Prince George of Denmark's Regiment on 30 June 1685. After becoming a captain in Babington's Regiment in 1689, he fought under William III during the Williamite War in Ireland against the Jacobite Irish Army of James II. He was present at the Siege of Namur in July 1695 during the Nine Years' War.

Temple succeeded his father as 4th Baronet in May 1697 and as Whig member of parliament for Buckingham later that year: he continued to represent either Buckingham or Buckinghamshire for the next 16 years. and created Viscount Cobham in April 1718.

Temple was a mentor and Patron to a number of young Whigs, the most notable being William Pitt. Collectively they became known as Cobham's Cubs. Two of them, Pitt and Temple's nephew George Grenville went on to be prime minister. In September 1719, during the War of the Quadruple Alliance, Temple led a force of 4,000 troops on a raid on the Spanish coastline which captured Vigo and occupied it for ten days before withdrawing.

Temple generally supported the government of Sir Robert Walpole once it came to power in April 1721 and was rewarded with the colonelcy of the King's Own Regiment of Horse later that year. and Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire in March 1728.

Later life Temple fell out with Prime Minister Robert Walpole in 1733 and formed a faction in the Whig Party to oppose the Excise Bill which resulted in his being stripped of his colonelcy again. Temple became colonel of the 1st Troop of Horse Grenadier Guards that same day, He died at Stowe on 13 September 1749 and was buried there.

Family In September 1715 Temple married Anne Halsey, daughter of Edmund Halsey who had owned the Anchor Brewery: her inheritance allowed Temple to maintain the Stowe estate; they had no surviving children. ). Cobham came to an agreement with his heirs, distant cousins on whom the estate would have been entailed, on order to favour the family of his sister Hester Grenville. Hester's eldest son would take the name Grenville-Temple and eventually inherit the title 2nd Viscount Cobham and the estates of Wotton and Stowe.

Legacy

Temple was admired by Alexander Pope, and Temple's gardens were praised by Pope in his Epistle to Burlington as a wonder. Pope wrote a "moral epistle" to Temple in 1733 and published it in the same year as An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard Lord Visct. Cobham. Pope praises Temple as a practical man of the world whose "ruling passion" was service to his country, whatever the cost. Basil Williams said Temple "had all the coarse, roystering bluffness of the hardened old campaigners of that time".