Independent Whigs. In 1747 along with Dashwood, Talbot met with Frederick, Prince of Wales who authorised the two Independent politicians to engage in careful negotiations to form a unified parliamentary opposition of Leicester House, grumbletonian Whigs and the Tories. After months of negotiations an opposition programme was agreed with Dashwood and Talbot remaining among Frederick's steadiest adherents and supporters until his death in 1751. Talbot was among those who coalesced with Frederick's agent Bubb Dodington and was promised a place in a future administration as master of the jewel office. Talbot remained an opponent of subsequent Whig administrations including that of the Duke of Newcastle which he objected to on constitutional principles and not out of want for office. At the accession of George III in 1760, Talbot acted as Lord High Steward of the new monarch's coronation and was summarily appointed to the Privy Council in 1761. On 19 March 1761 Talbot was created Earl Talbot and was made by Lord Bute Lord Steward of the Household, a position he would hold until his death. That January he had taken command of the newly-embodied Glamorgan Militia.Talbot, much like his friend Dashwood, accepted office not out of a personal friendship or political alliance with Bute, but because they were of the opinion that the new monarch was different from his predecessor and that the new reign would reflect this shift. Thereafter Talbot's politics seem to have aligned with those of the Court with him maintaining his household position for the remainder of his life while largely remaining uninvolved with the political questions of the day. One exception to this was with the public hostility to Dashwood cider excise in 1763 when Lord Egremont begged Talbot to attend a Glamorgan county meeting 'to blast the intended opposition' to local opposition figures who pledged to repeal the excise. In autumn 1763 Talbot was among the political figures consulted by George Grenville on how best to court and appease the mainly ex-Tory Independent Country Gentlemen in the Commons, who occasionally held the parliamentary balance of power. Family Talbot had married Mary, daughter and heir of Adam de Cardonnel, secretary to the Duke of Marlborough, on 21 February 1733, at St George, Hanover Square. With his wife Talbot had two children, a daughter, Cecil, and a son, who predeceased him. He had an affair with Frances Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort (born 14 August 1711