AN ENGLISH PEER'S PARLIAMENTARY ROBE

Charles Robert Spencer, Viscount Althorp, continued the family political and entered politics at the age of twenty-two when he was elected a Whig MP for the North Northamptonshire in 1880. His youth, slim figure and sartorial sophistication meant that at Westminster he was initially regarded as a dandy. However, having trained as a barrister, encouraged by his much older half-brother the Red Earl, he developed a reputation as an accomplished speaker with a quick wit. He became a government whip and parliamentary Groom in Waiting in 1886, and remained an MP until 1895. In 1905 he was created Viscount Althorp of Great Brington in order to accede to the position of Lord Chamberlain, and was thereafter barred from the House of Commons, much to his chagrin (C. Spencer, The Spencer Family, London, 1999, pp. 289-305).