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157 IRISH SCHOOL, EARLY 18TH CENTURY
Portrait of the Second Viscount Barrington of Ardglass
Half-length, standing in a blue coat, holding a letter, wearing a hat;
together with the companion portrait of his wife, Mary Lovell
A pair, Oil on canvas, 125.5 x 102cm
Viscount Barrington (1717-1793) was a prominent official under George II becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary for
War, amongst other prominent offices. He married an heiress in 1740.
His peerages inherited from his father, John Shute, are curious and not exactly honourable. Shute, a shady character, had
somehow managed to inherit estates from unrelated people and had been used by the Hanoverians to persuade the Scot
Presbyterians to accept the German succession by disseminating Protestant polemics.
George I, to raise money, was able to bypass the Westminster parliament by selling Irish peerages, the Irish establishment
being powerless to stop it. Shute, now called Barrington, pocketed the proceeds of the Harburgh lottery and bought an Irish
peerage. As MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed this did not disallow him from continuing to sit in the Westminster parliament. How-
ever even that body, not noted for its lack of corruption, threw him out in 1723.
€ 20,,000 - 25,000