Baron Le Despencer, the abeyance into which that barony had fallen on 26 August 1762, on the death of his uncle, John Fane, 7th Earl of Westmorland and 10th Baron Le Despencer, being thus terminated in Dashwood's favour. He was now premier baronet of England and in the same year, he was made Lord-Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, being succeeded in the colonelcy of the militia by John Wilkes. As Lord Le Despencer he now sank into comparative respectability and insignificance. He took a disgraceful part with John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, in raking up charges against their common friend Wilkes in connection with the Essay on Woman, and during Lord North's long administration from 1770 to 1781 he was joint Postmaster General. When, however, Chatham fell down in a swoon during his last speech in the House of Lords, Despencer was almost the only peer who came to his assistance. He died at West Wycombe after a long illness on 11 December 1781 and was buried in the mausoleum he had built there. His wife had died on 19 January 1769 and was also buried at Wycombe. Family On 29 May 1744 Horace Walpole wrote: "Dashwood (Lady Carteret's quondam lover) has stolen a great fortune, a Miss Bateman; but this match was not affected, and on 19 December 1745 Dashwood married at St. George's, Hanover Square, Sarah, daughter of George Gould of Iver, Buckinghamshire, and widow of Sir Richard Ellis, third baronet of Wyndham, Lincolnshire, who died on 14 January 1742. Horace Walpole described her as "a poor forlorn Presbyterian prude"; His marriage had no effect upon Dashwood's profligacy; according to Wraxall he "far exceeded in licentiousness of conduct any model exhibited since Charles II". Dashwood left no legitimate issue, and the Barony of Le Despencer again fell into abeyance. One pretender to his title was his illegitimate daughter Rachel Fanny Antonina Dashwood, another was his sister Rachel, widow of Sir Robert Austen, 4th Baronet of Bexley, Kent, illegally assumed the title Baroness Le Despencer, but on her death the abeyance was once more terminated in favour of her cousin, Thomas Stapleton, 12th Baron. His granddaughter, Mary Frances Elizabeth, succeeded in 1848 as 13th Baroness, and her son, Evelyn Edward Thomas Boscawen, 17th Viscount Falmouth, succeeded as 14th Baron Le Despencer on 25 November 1891; see Baron le Despencer. Dashwood's baronetcy passed, on his death, to his half-brother, Sir John