By the notoriously lax standards of the Restoration Court, his private life was remarkably free from scandal, which won him favour in the more sober post-Revolution state.

[2] Lady Sunderland had him educated after his father's death, first engaging a Calvinist tutor for him, Dr Thomas Pierce, and afterwards sending him to Christ Church, Oxford.

[4] His political skills and energetic character rapidly marked him as a rising man: even Bishop Burnet, who disliked him, praised his statesmanship and his "quick and ready apprehension, and swift decision of business".

Sunderland's relations with Paul Barillon, whose long tenure as Ambassador from Louis XIV (from 1677 to 1688) produced many memorable exchanges between the two, were tenuous and strained.

When Louis failed to give James any assistance against the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, Sunderland told Barillon sharply "the King your master may have plans I cannot discern, but I hope he will put things right by making it clear that this has all been a misunderstanding".

[10] To prevent Barillon from gaining too much influence, Sunderland intercepted and leaked an unusually indiscreet dispatch where the Ambassador boasted of having blocked an Anglo-Dutch treaty.

However, while he enjoyed the confidence of Queen Mary of Modena, it was clear that he was growing uncomfortable under the recently enthroned James: the violently hostile reception he got from the public when he gave evidence at the Trial of the Seven Bishops left him badly shaken.

"[13] Sunderland escaped in disguise to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where he lay low for some time, before being officially arrested, and immediately released, by the Dutch authorities.

Offering his service to the Prince of Orange, he moved on to Utrecht, where he remained quietly for the duration of the upheavals in England, when William III and Mary II took the throne.

Despite his notorious rudeness and bad temper, Sunderland had a surprising ability to make lasting friendships, and some of his friends, including John Evelyn and Thomas Tenison, had influence with the new régime.

Over the next years, the King frequently visited him and gave him confidence, but Sunderland did not dare to fully enter public life until September 1693, when he took a house in the city.

He repeatedly advised the King to select all of his ministers from one political party, and eventually effected a reconciliation between William and his sister-in-law, the later Queen Anne.

[17] His remarkable ability to adapt to the wishes of three different monarchs was considered a fault rather than a virtue: as Burnet observed "he came by this to lose so much that even those who esteemed his parts depended little on his probity".

[18] While his own private life was blameless, Sunderland in the winter of 1697–98 became involved in a scandal when his daughter Elizabeth's husband, Lord Clancarty, a leading Jacobite, escaped from the Tower of London.