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Anthony
Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
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Anthony Ashley Cooper,
Third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
Biography
The following
shows a selection of principal dates (OS) and events. It is based
largely on the biography compiled by Voitle (= Robert Voitle, The Third Earl of Shaftesbury 1671-1713 [Baton Rouge and
London, 1984]), but includes some details from the Day Book
(= The Journal or Day Book from Lady Day 1681, kept in
the Shaftesbury Archives at Wimborne St Giles).
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1671
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Anthony Ashley Cooper born 26 February in
London, eldest of seven children from the marriage between Anthony Ashley Cooper (1651-1699, the future second Earl of
Shaftesbury)1 and
Lady Dorothy Manners (c. 1656-1698)2; first years spent with his parents at St Giles’s House
on the family’s Dorset estate. |
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1674
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Guardianship for Anthony, his brother John (b. 1672)3
and any further siblings legally transferred in March to their
grandfather (1621-1683, created Earl of Shaftesbury in 1672, but now no
longer Lord Chancellor); exact date of move to Earl’s household unknown |
| 1675-1679 |
John Locke, physician, secretary and
life-long friend to the first Earl, takes charge of the boys’
education; a governess (Elizabeth Birch) is chosen who is fluent in
Greek and Latin. |
| 1680-1686 |
Attends E. Birch’s school in Clapham;
first Earl flees to Holland November 1682, dies there 21 January
1682/3; Anthony (after death of grandfather Lord Ashley) probably by
this time already at Winchester College4
where he remains until late 1685;
tutored after this (mostly in London) by Daniel
Denoune.5 |
| 1687-1689 |
Leaves in July 1687 to begin his grand
tour, together with Sir John Cropley (1663-1714, from this period
onwards one of Shaftesbury’s closest friends) and Denoune, probably
joined later by Thomas Sclater Bacon:6 they travel to Holland (visiting John Locke), France
(spending some months in Paris), Italy (Turin, Milan, Modena, Bologna,
Florence, Rome, Naples), then north via Genoa, Verona, Venice, through
Austria to Vienna, on to Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, returning to
England in May 1689. |
| 1690-1695 |
Periods of study, but also increasing
involvement in family affairs and estate business; work may have begun
in 1694 on An Inquiry concerning
Virtue. |
| 1695-1698 |
MP (Whig) for Poole from May 1695 to July
1698; first signs of serious ill health (asthma); prepares Select
Sermons of Dr Whichcot and the Preface
for printing (edition appears to have been published in late 1698);
works with John Toland on The Danger of Mercenary
Parliaments (also published in 1698); mother dies end of June 1698
(buried 6 July). |
| 1698-1699 |
First retreat, largely for the sake of his
health, to Holland (Rotterdam) late July 1698-May 1699; in contact
there with Benjamin Furly, Pierre Bayle, Jean Le Clerc, and Philipp van
Limborch; starts work on his Chartae Socraticae and
the Askemata; in his absence John Toland has the Inquiry concerning Virtue published (1699); after return
to England buys a new London residence in Little Chelsea. |
| 1699-1703 |
Death of father 2 November 1699;
Shaftesbury first takes his seat in House of Lords 19 January
1699/1700; publication of the pamphlet Paradoxes of State
January 1702; composition of The Adept Ladies probably
in same month; politically active until accession of Queen Anne 1702,
engaged in family affairs and running of Dorset estate. |
| 1703-1704 |
Second retreat August 1703-August 1704,
again in Rotterdam; continues work on Chartae Socraticae and Askemata;
publication 1704, possibly while in Holland, of The
Sociable Enthusiast; returns to England seriously ill. |
| 1705-1709 |
Years of intermittent relapses,
parliamentary and local (Dorset) politics, family duties, and study; A Letter concerning Enthusiasm (written in 1707)
published 1708; eight-month courtship of Lady Anne Vaughan abandoned
June 1709; the Moralists and Sensus
Communis published in 1709; marriage to Jane Ewer (c.
1689-1751) on 29 August 1709; couple takes up residence in Reigate. |
| 1710-1711 |
Publication of Soliloquy
May 1710; Miscellaneous Reflections, revised Inquiry, and preparations for Characteristicks
completed by March 1711; birth of only child Anthony Ashley Cooper 9
February 1710/11; decision taken to move to Naples for reasons of
health; the three volumes of Characteristicks
published in March and April 1711; leaves England 2 July 1711, reaching
Naples five months later; household moves into the Palazzo Mirelli at
Chiaia. |
| 1711-1713 |
Revision of the 1711 Characteristicks,
illustrations planned and commissioned for new edition; work on
proposed Second Characters; Earl dies 4 February
1712/13 at Chiaia; second edition of Characteristicks
published April 1715. |
1 Shaftesbury’s father studied for a
time at Oxford, entering Trinity College in April 1666: J. Foster, Alumni Oxonienses (Oxford, 1891-2), I, 324, possibly
before succumbing to the “disfiguring malady” (Voitle 2) which left him
something of a recluse (and was perhaps the reason why Dryden alluded
to the first Earl’s son as “a shapeless Lump”: Absalom and
Achitophel 172); the portrait
painted by Samuel Cooper (V&A: http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/11831-popup.html)
– if it does indeed show the future second Earl – is then likely to
have been painted in 1665 or 1666. The Day Book
entries made by Shaftesbury’s father betray a liking for chocolate and
include frequent medical expenses; he made rare trips to London (e.g.
in April 1685 “to kiss ye King’s hand”) and purchased the
occasional book: Thomas Fuller, The History of the
Worthies of England” (London, 1662); Robert Burton, The
Anatomy of Melancholy (unclear which edition); Thomas Fuller, The Holy State (again edition unknown). back
2 The couple sat in 1678-9
for Sir Peter Lely; cf. the two prints - Lord Ashley and Lady Ashley - in London's
National Portrait Gallery (Archive Collection). back
3 John
apparently also attended Winchester for a while (the Day
Book shows that he had to be brought home “in his ague”
on 20 February 1683/4) but was sent to Sherborne School at the end of
November 1686. On his secret marriage and his early death in the West
Indies (1692) cf. Voitle 38 ff. Among the Malmesbury Papers at
Winchester (Hampshire Record Office) there is a lock of “My dear
brother John’s hair” (kept by his sister Lady Elizabeth Harris: 9M73
G277) and a short text apparently written by John (see Reading Room). back
4
His father is usually thought to have sent him
there in 1683, some time after the first Earl’s death, but a note in
the Day Book indicates that he was actually taken
there for “placing” in late June 1682. back
5 A
Scotsman, probably the Daniel Denoune (Denoun, de Noune) who studied
medicine at Utrecht and graduated there on 27 June 1684. The dedication
in his thesis (Disputatio medica inauguralis,
de phthisi, etc.) includes names which suggest that Denoune hailed from East
Lothian, perhaps from Pencaitland or Haddington. It seems possible that
he was recommended as tutor by John Locke, who may have met him in
Holland. back
6T. Sclater Bacon (of Gray’s Inn, Middlesex), later MP for
Cambridge, d. 1736. Very little is known about his acquaintance with
Shaftesbury; cf. A Catalogue of the Library of
T.S. Bacon (London, [1737]; auction 14 March 1736/7), which lists
e.g. a 1683 life of the first Earl, A Letter concerning Enthusiasm,
the 1711 Characteristicks, and Maurice Ashley's Cyropaedia.
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Anthony Baron Ashley,
First Earl of Shaftesbury,
1621-83
John Locke, 1632-1704
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