Before the Glorious Revolution he was in close contact with a group of army officers conspiring against King James, including his brother Captain Henry Wharton.

The following year he attacked the government's creation of Harley's Dozen, 12 new Tory peers in order to secure passage of their peace agreement.

Anne's antipathy to him was partly the product of her dislike for the Whig Junto, the "five tyrannising lords", which William III had shared to some extent,[5] but owed far more to his debauched and irreligious character.

[6] The most striking charge was that in 1682, when drunk, he had broken into the church in Great Barrington, Gloucestershire, urinated against the communion table and defecated in the pulpit.

[7] The story is probably true: certainly in 1705, during a debate on Church matters in the House of Lords, Wharton was left speechless when Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds reminded him of it.

[9] As the dominant politician in Aylesbury, he was partly responsible for the landmark constitutional case of Ashby v White, which established the principle that for every wrong there is a remedy.

That, with such vices, he should have played a great part in life, should have carried numerous elections against the most formidable opposition by his personal popularity, should have had a large following in Parliament, should have risen to the highest offices of the State, seems extraordinary.

But he lived in times when faction was almost a madness; and he possessed in an eminent degree the qualities of the leader of a faction.Under George I of Great Britain, he returned to favour.