Edward Noel, 1st Earl of Gainsborough

Edward Noel, 1st Earl of Gainsborough, 4th Viscount Campden (1641 – January 1689) was an English peer, styled Hon.

On 3 February 1681, he was created Baron Noel and entered the House of Lords, and was appointed Custos Rotulorum of Hampshire.

In 1682, he was given several local offices in Hampshire: Governor of Portsmouth, Constable of Porchester Castle, and Lieutenant of South Bere Forest.

He succeeded his father in October as Viscount Campden and as Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of Rutland, and was further honoured at the end of the year when he was created Earl of Gainsborough on 1 December 1682.

[1] Between December 1687 and January 1688, during the purge of James II, he was dismissed from all his Hampshire offices in favour of the Duke of Berwick, although he was commissioned a captain in the Queen Dowager's Regiment of Foot in 1687.

Posthumous portrait of Edward Noel, 1st Earl of Gainsborough (by J. Henesy, 1737)
Arms of Noel: Or, fretty gules a canton ermine
Arms of Wriothesley: Azure, a cross or between four hawks close argent