James Vernon - Dismissal and Later Years

Dismissal and Later Years

A staunch Whig, Vernon viewed with undisguised alarm the death of the Duke of Gloucester (30 July 1700), and proposed that the king should again marry and the succession be settled, in default of issue, in the Hanoverian line, thus passing over Anne. This proposition rendered him so odious to the tories that, soon after the accession of Anne, he was dismissed and replaced by the Earl of Nottingham. By way of pension he was provided (29 June 1702) with the sinecure office of Teller of the Receipt of the Exchequer, of which he was deprived on the decisive victory of the Tories in 1710, he was one of the commissioners to whom, on 28 August 1716, the privy seal was entrusted during Sunderland's absence on the continent, but held no other office during the reign of George I. His last days were spent in retirement at Watford, Hertfordshire, where he died on 31 January 1726-7. His remains were interred in Watford parish church.