# Protestant Exiles from France/Book Second - Chapter 3 - Section X

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Sec. 10. — The Earl of Galway’s Private Life during the beginning of Queen Anne’s Reign.
Lord Galway retired from the government of Ireland with a pension of £1000 a-year. This is mentioned in the Appendix to the Irish House of Commons’ Journal of 1702, with the note, “He has no other place or pension from the Crown.” His Irish estate had been sold by Government Commissioners to the London Hollow Sword Blade Company; and he had now to seek a home. Among English counties, Hampshire alone had homelike attractions for him. There Lady Russell and an attached circle of relations and acquaintances had residences, where they often lived. He accordingly became the tenant of the mansion-house of Rookley, in the parish of Crawley, near Winchester, and only a few miles from Stratton House. After a laborious and stormy manhood, he, at the age of fifty-four, now settled in the ​country with great thankfulness, and soon became so enamoured with his study and his garden, that he hoped to be left in quiet for the remainder of his days.
War was declared by Queen Anne in alliance with the Emperor, the States-General, &c. (and as the successor of King William, of glorious memory), against France and Spain on 4th May 1702. Lord Godolphin (whose son was a son-in-law of Marlborough) was virtually Prime-Minister. Marlborough had charge of the war. “The greatest politician of the age,” Robert, Earl of Sunderland, died on the 28th September. His family name was Spencer, and he was grandson to Rachel de Ruvigny’s brother-in-law, William, second Lord Spencer, the husband of Lady Penelope Wriothesley. He was thus distantly connected with Lady Russell and Lord Galway. He was succeeded by his only surviving son, Charles, third Earl of Sunderland, aged twenty-seven, who was Marlborough’s other son-in-law. Both he and the comparatively aged Godolphin felt great regard and veneration for Lord Galway. In a letter dated from the Camp at Robermont, 16th September 1703, the Duke of Marlborough thanks Lord Galway for his kind feelings towards the family at Althorp.
The political exile, his father’s old friend, the Seigneur de St. Evremond, died in London on the 9th September 1703. The last occupation of Lord Galway’s private life was to act as his executor. Two of the bequests were £50 to refugees of any religion, and £50 to French Protestant Refugees. Another clause was, “I give to my Lord Galway £60 to buy a ring, desiring him to accept thereof, and that I should make him my testamentary executor.” The will was proved by “Henry, Earl of Gallway,” 17th September 1703.
He loved his retirement, and the politics of the Court might have been quite content that he should never leave it; yet, the demand for such services, as few but he could or would render to the Protestant cause, made it almost certain that his country would again employ him. Among the “characters” drawn up about this date for the information of the Electress Sophia, he is characterized thus:— “Lord Gallway, Lieutenant-General. He is the son of Monsieur Rouvigny, &c. He is one of the finest gentlemen in the army, with a head fitted for the cabinet as well as the camp, is very modest, vigilant and sincere, a man of honour and honesty, without pride or affectation, wears his own hair, is plain in his dress and manners.”