He had been created Baron Stanhope, of Shelford in the County of Nottingham, in 1616, also in the Peerage of England.

Lord Chesterfield was Ambassador to Spain and also served under William Pitt the Younger as Master of the Mint and Postmaster General.

His son, the sixth Earl, was a Tory politician and served as Master of the Buckhounds from 1834 to 1835 in Sir Robert Peel's first administration.

His son, the seventh Earl, represented Nottinghamshire South in the House of Commons.

On his death in 1883 this line of the family also failed and he was succeeded by his fourth cousin Sir Henry Edwyn Chandos Scudamore-Stanhope, 3rd Baronet, of Stanwell, who became the ninth Earl (for earlier history of the baronetcy, see below).

His eldest son, the tenth Earl, was a prominent Liberal politician and notably served as Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard from 1894 to 1895.

However, he never petitioned for a writ of summons to the House of Lords in these titles and continued to be known as the Earl Stanhope.