Viscount Cobham
(1675 - 1749)
Colonel of new foot regiments raised in 1702 for Marlborough's campaigns in the Spanish Wars of Succession, Cobham made his name as an excellent soldier and through his Whig politics. His marriage to a brewery heiress, Anne Halsey, and shrewd choice of appointments made him a wealthy man and for loyalty to the Hanoverian monarchs, he was created Viscount in 1718. He now had the financial means and social standing to expand his domestic empire. His lack of children meant that he focused his attention of the large number of nephews he had, or in the case of William Pitt (the Elder), nephew-in-law. These 'Cobham's Cub' were a political tour de force and eventually brought about Walpole's downfall in 1742. It was the eldest of this group who inherited Stowe in 1749.