William Bentinck, Earl of Portland, the famous friend and confidant of William III, had already won his spurs as a diplomat, and in 1697 had been the chief instrument, together with Marshal Boufflers, whereby William III and Louis XIV had made what was virtually a separate agreement with regard to peace, behind the backs of William's allies

Edward Villiers, Earl of Jersey, had been envoy at The Hague since 1695 and was one of the Plenipotentiaries at the Congress of Ryswick.

Charles Montagu, later created first Duke of Manchester was transferred from Venice to Paris after the recall of Jersey. He also received the meagre formal instructions that had been given to his predecessors, and it cannot be said that his correspondence reveals any enhanced importance accruing to the British embassy in Paris.

In March 1709 conferences were begun between the Dutch and their allies' representatives at The Hague, and President Rouille, whom Louis XIV, greatly pressed by the results of the hard winter of 1709 and the failure of the Turks to promise a diversion in the East, had sent to negotiate a peace

Matthew Prior, the poet, who had been secretary to the embassies of Portland, Jersey and Manchester, and had been sent on a secret mission to Paris in November 1700, was employed by the Tory ministry, on account of his knowledge of the French court, to open direct negotiations with France in July 1711.

Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, Secretary of State, was sent in August 1712 to prepare and approach as near as possible to a conclusive agreement with France and Spain.

Of Bishop Robinson it is unnecessary to say much here. It is enough to refer the reader to the account of him which is to be found in Mr. Chance's Diplomatic Instructions, Sweden, 1689-1727, and to the Dictionary of National Biography.

Prior at first had no official character, but in November 1712 he carried over a letter from Louis XIV to Queen Anne, and returned to Paris with credentials as plenipotentiary. His magnificence in France was eclipsed in December 1712 by the arrival of Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, who, after the signature of the peace of Utrecht, took on the character of an ambassador extraordinary, and was the chief negotiator at the actual time of the signature of the peace.

A Full account of this nobleman's career will be found in the Dictionary of National Biography (s.v. Dalrymple), and in J. Murray Graham, Annals of the Viscount and First and Second Earls of Stair (Edinburgh, 1875), which contains copious extracts from the papers preserved at Oxenfoord Castle.

James , Earl Stanhope, who had become Secretary of State on George I's accession, was the mainspring of the Whig administration. He had in the past combined no small skill as a soldier with profound sagacity as a statesman, and until his death in 1721 he was George I's closest adviser, to the prejudice even of Bernstorff and the Hanoverians. His life is treated in the Dictionary of National Biography, but no monograph, based on the original papers at Chevening, seems yet to have been published

Robert sutton, who was in deacon's orders, appears to have accompanied Lord Lexington to Vienna, as chaplain, in 1694. On his uncle's leaving Vienna, at the end of 1697, he remained as Secretary, and ended by being British resident at the Imperial capital until 1701, when he was knighted and went to Constantinople as ambassador.