Nottingham, Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of

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Nottingham, Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of (1647–1730). A Tory politician, the sober Lord Nottingham was the chief standard-bearer of ‘high-church’ politics during the reigns of William III and Anne. He disapproved of James II's pro-catholic measures, but only when James fled in 1688 did he align with William of Orange. Appointed secretary of state, Nottingham's Toleration Act (1689) ensured the preservation of Anglican supremacy after the revolution, though his plan to include presbyterians and other nonconformists in a broadened church proved unacceptable. He lost office in 1693. During his second term as secretary, 1702–4, his independent-mindedness again made him a difficult colleague and his campaign for a bill against OCCASIONAL Conformity endangered the ministry's war measures in Parliament. A leader of the Hanoverian Tories, and excluded from the 1710–14 Tory ministry, he was made lord president by George I in 1714 but quarrelled with the Whig ministers in 1716 and was dismissed.

Andrew Hanham

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