In 1677, Scarsdale became
Captain of the Honourable Band of Gentlemen Pensioners, a ceremonial bodyguard whose main function was a social club for young aristocrats; in 1682, he sold the position to Huntingdon for £4,500. In 1678, he was appointed captain in
Lord Gerard's regiment; recruited to serve in the latter part of the
Franco-Dutch War, it never saw action. In the
March 1679 election, he was returned as
Member of Parliament for
Newark, with the help of his cousin
Sir Francis Leke (1627–1679). This took place during the 1679–1681
Exclusion Crisis, ostensibly a campaign to 'exclude' the Catholic
James, Duke of York, from the succession. It also reflected wider concerns over the Crown's efforts to rule without Parliament, heightened by the association between Catholicism and the
absolutist regime of
Louis XIV. When a bill to exclude James seemed likely to pass,
Charles II suspended Parliament in July. By the time the House reassembled, Scarsdale had been
elevated to the Lords as Lord Deincourt, where he sat alongside his father. He abstained from voting on the Exclusion Bill but supported the execution of the
Viscount Stafford for treason in November 1680, as did seven of eight members of Stafford's own family. However, the anti-Catholic campaign known as the
Popish Plot led to widespread public unrest and the execution of 22 almost certainly innocent "conspirators"; in 1681,
Titus Oates, source of the accusations, claimed
the Queen had conspired to poison Charles. This was seen as a step too far and most moderates withdrew their support for exclusion, including Scarsdale, who had succeeded his father as Earl in January 1681. He is mentioned several times by contemporaries as part of a circle of hard-living courtiers, including the Wharton brothers,
Henry and
Thomas. Even by the standards of the period, Wharton, who later held
senior government office, was considered "void of moral or religious principle"; in 1682, he allegedly broke into a church and defecated in the pulpit. In 1684, Scarsdale was appointed
Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire; when James became king in February 1685, he was made colonel of a Regiment of Horse and
Groom of the Stole to
Prince George of Denmark. Many supported James because memories of the 1638 to 1651
Wars of the Three Kingdoms meant they feared the consequences of removing the 'natural' heir; this resulted in the rapid collapse of the
Monmouth and
Argyll rebellions in June 1685. However, the
Church of England and the legal system were considered essential elements of a stable society; James' religious policies undermined the former, his attempts to enforce them attacked the latter. In late 1687, James tried to ensure a Parliament that would vote for his
Declaration of Indulgence. This was done by requiring Lord-Lieutenants to administer the so-called 'Three Questions'; only those who confirmed their support for repealing the Test Act would be allowed to stand for election. Many resigned rather than do so, including Scarsdale, who was replaced as Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire by Huntingdon and dismissed from his other offices. Scarsdale had Jacobite sympathies; in other words he supported the exiled Stuarts. Among other demonstrations of this, he was one of only five peers to formally protest in the House of Lords Journal against the passing of the Act of Settlement (1701), an act which confirmed the Stuarts' exclusion from the throne [Journals of the House of Lords, vol.16, p. 699, May 1701]. Scarsdale died childless in 1707 and his titles passed to his nephew,
Nicholas; a member of the Tory administration who spent large sums of money remodelling the family home of
Sutton Scarsdale Hall. ==References==