George Carteret

Vice Admiral Sir George Carteret, 1st Baronet (c. 1610 â€" 18 January 1680 N.S.), son of Elias de Carteret, was a royalist statesman in Jersey and England, who served in the Clarendon Ministry as Treasurer of the Navy. He was also one of the original Lords Proprietor of the former British colony of Carolina and New Jersey. Carteret, a town in New Jersey as well as Carteret County in North Carolina, both in the USA, are named after him. He acquired the manor of Haynes, Bedfordshire (alias Hawnes) in about 1667.

Early life

Carteret was the son of Elias de Carteret and Elizabeth Dumaresq of Jersey, who both died in 1640 (George dropped the "de" from his surname when he entered the English navy, concerned that it sounded too French). He was "bred for the sea" and served as an officer in various naval ships in the 1630s and commanded the Mary Rose before becoming Comptroller of the Navy in 1641.

As a result of his early life at sea, he received little or no formal education, and his embarrassing ignorance was a source of much ridicule in later life. Andrew Marvell mocked his poor command of English, and Samuel Pepys remarked that his ignorance of even the most basic Latin phrases would cause a schoolboy to be whipped; "such ignorance is not to be borne in a Privy Councillor', wrote Pepys severely.

Civil War and Commonwealth

On the commencement of the Civil War he retired from the navy, and withdrew with his family to Jersey, but subsequently returned to aid the projects of the royalists. He afterwards, on the ruin of the royal cause, afforded an asylum to the Prince of Wales (Charles Stuart) and other refugees of distinction within his government of Jersey where he served as Bailiff (1643â€"1651), and defended the island against the Parliamentarians, Elizabeth Castle being the last fortress that lowered the royal banner.

George Carteret also had Charles II proclaimed King in Saint Helier on 17 February 1649, after the execution of his father, Charles I. Charles II never forgot this gesture whereby Jersey became the first of his realms to recognise his claim to the throne. However, he had to surrender Jersey to the Commonwealth of England. He then went into exile in France, where he was imprisoned in 1657 and then exiled from there, after which he went to Venice.

Restoration

At the Restoration, having shared Charles's banishment, Sir George formed one of the immediate train of the restored monarch on his triumphant entry into London. The next day Carteret was sworn into the Privy Council, appointed Vice-Chamberlain of the Household, and constituted Treasurer of the Navy. His career for the next decade is documented in the diary of Samuel Pepys who joined him as Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board in 1660. In 1667, he exchanged his office as Vice-Chamberlain with Lord Anglesey for that of Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, an office which he sold in 1669 for £11,000. His influence seems to have been at its height in 1665, when he boasted to Pepys that the King did nothing without his knowledge; however as the naval war dragged on the Treasurer of the Navy was an obvious target and Pepys noted that by the spring of 1666 Carteret was being attacked on all sides. By the autumn of 1667 he confessed to Pepys that he was longing for the quiet of retirement.

American colonies

The fidelity with which Carteret, like John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton, had clung to the royal cause, gave him also great influence at court. He had, at an early date, taken a warm interest in the colonization of America. In recognition of all the help given to him during his exile in Jersey in the 1640s, Charles II gave Carteret a large grant of land previously named New Netherlands, which he promptly renamed New Jersey. With Berkeley, he became one of the proprietors of the Province of Carolina prior to their becoming jointly interested in East Jersey. Carteret County, North Carolina and town of Carteret, New Jersey are named after him, and the city of Elizabeth, New Jersey is named after his wife.

In 1665, Carteret was one of the drafters of the Concession and Agreement, a document that provided freedom of religion in the colony of New Jersey. It was issued as a proclamation for the structure of the government for the colony written by the two proprietors, Berkeley and Carteret.

Later life

In 1669, he faced expulsion from the House of Commons to which he had been elected in 1661 to represent Portsmouth, for misconduct as Vice Chamberlain, being accused of embezzlement. After an announcement from the king expressing his satisfaction with Carteret and an acquittal by the House of Lords, the inquiry against him lapsed.

In 1673, he was appointed one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and continued in the public service until his death on 14 January 1680.

Shortly before Carteret's death, the king proposed to give him the title Baron Carteret, but Carteret died too soon, so the honour was granted to his grandson George.

Family

In the Chapel of Mont Orgueil Castle, May 1640, George Carteret married his cousin Elizabeth de Carteret, daughter of Philippe de Carteret II, 3rd Seigneur de Sark. They had three sons-

• Philip (1641â€"1672), their eldest son, married Lady Jemima Monague, daughter of Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich, and had four children: his eldest son George was raised to the peerage. Philip was killed at the Battle of Sole Bay, along with his father-in-law
• James (d. after 1679), was a captain in the Royal Navy, married and had children
• George (d.1656), who died unmarried

- and five daughters:

• Elizabeth (who never married)
• Rachel
• Louisa-Margaret, who married Sir Robert Atkyns of Sapperton, only son of Sir Robert Atkyns, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer
• Anne who married Sir Nicholas Slanning, 1st Baronet
• Caroline, who married Sir Thomas Scott, son of Edward Scott and Lady Catherine Goring, daughter of George Goring, 1st Earl of Norwich.

Elizabethtown, North Carolina is named for the wife of Lord Carteret.

Notes

References

• Firth, C. H.; Knighton, C.S. (reviewer) (January 2008) [2004]. "Carteret, Sir George, first baronet (1610?â€"1680)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4803.  (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) The first edition of this text is available as an article on Wikisource:  "Carteret, George". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885â€"1900. 
• Henning, Basil Duke (1983). The House of Commons, 1660â€"1690 III. London: Secker&Warburg. p. 30. ISBN 0-436-19274-8. 

Further reading

• New Jersey Archives, First Series. Newark, NJ, 1880â€"1893, Volume 1, page 25.
• Whitehead, William Adee, East Jersey under the proprietary governments. New York, New-Jersey historical society, 1846, page 104.
• O'Callaghan, ed., Documents relating to the Colonial history of the State of New York, 1849â€"1851. Volume 2, page 410.
• Marvell, Andrew, The poems and letters of Andrew Marvell; edited by H. M. Margoliouth. 3d ed. rev. by Pierre Legouis with the collaboration of E. E. Duncan-Jones. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971.
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Carteret, Sir George". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

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