MARK OF THOMAS HEMING, LONDON, 1768

HENRY ST. JOHN AND THE DUKE OF YORK
Henry St. John (1738-1818), of Rockley, Wiltshire accompanied Prince Edward Duke of York (1739-1767) on his ill-fated journey through the Mediterranean as his Groom of the Bedchamber. The Duke had made his maiden speech in the Lords in May 1767, which was hostile to the government, much to the anger of the King, consequently the Duke decided to spend the summer abroad. The party visited Brussels and then Paris, being entertained by Louis XV and Queen Marie. The Duke became ill whilst travelling south and on 31 August they arrived at Monaco. He remained there with 'a malignant fever', (London Gazette, 29 Sept 1767), the guest of Honoré III, Prince of Monaco, until he died on 17 September. St. John accompanied the body back to England, for burial in Henry VII's Chapel in Westminster Abbey.

St. John been educated at Eton College then joined the army in 1754. He entered politics in 1761 as M.P. for Wootton Bassett, a seat he held until 1784, sitting briefly again in 1802. He had been made Groom of the Bedchamber of the Duke of York in 1763 and travelled with him in 1764. ‘I am very happy to attend him in his travels in Italy, a country I wanted much to see’, St. John wrote to George Selwyn on 24 July 1764. After the Duke's untimely death on the 1767 trip, St. John was given a lieutenant-colonelcy on the island of Minorca by the King, in gratitude for his services to his late brother, the Duke, however, St. John complained that the pay and the post was the same he had received six years previously. He made his views clear in a letter, 'I thank my stars (though I met with great indulgence from my late master, and was honoured with his friendship), that it is no longer my fate to follow the caprices of a young prince. My income has been considerably lessened by the loss of my place, and it has not been made up to me, which, when I have mentioned it to foreigners, they have been all astonished... at the shabbiness of our court...'. He left Minorca in late 1768, returning to politics.

During the crisis over the Falkland Islands, in December 1770, he had to rejoin his regiment in Minorca only to return early in 1771, having been appointed Groom of the Bedchamber to the King. He continued to vote with the government and aligned with his brother Lord Bolingbroke. Although he married Barbara, daughter of fellow M.P. Thomas Bladen, of Glastonbury, Somerset, the marriage was childless and on his death in 1818 his estate passed to his widow.