The minister Robert Harley becomes Baron Harley,…
November 1711 CE
The minister Robert Harley becomes Baron Harley, of Wigmore in the County of Hereford, and Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer (the latter, despite its form, being a single peerage), on May 23, 1711.
Harley claims the title of Oxford because of his relationship through marriage to the previous holders, the De Veres.
The title of Earl Mortimer has been added in case a claim is laid to the Oxford earldom.
He is on May 29 appointed Lord Treasurer, and on October 25 becomes a Knight of the Garter.
Well might his friends exclaim that he had grown by persecutions, turnings out, and stabbings.
A further attempt is made on his life in November with the Bandbox Plot, in which a hat-box, armed with loaded pistols to be triggered by a thread within the package, had been sent to him; the assassination attempt is forestalled by the prompt intervention of Jonathan Swift.