Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton (21 December 1698 – 31 May 1731) was a powerful Jacobite politician, was one of the few people in English history, and the first since the 15th century, to have been raised to a dukedom whilst still a minor and not closely related to the monarch. Youth Wharton was the son of "Honest Tom" Wharton, 1st Marquess of Wharton, the Whig partisan, and his second wife Lucy Loftus, and had a good education. Well prepared for a life as a public speaker, the young Wharton was both eloquent and witty. When his father died in 1715, Philip, then sixteen years old, succeeded him as 2nd Marquess of Wharton and 2nd Marquess of Malmesbury in the Peerage of Great Britain and as 2nd Marquess of Catherlough in the Peerage of Ireland. One month after inheriting these peerages, he eloped with Martha Holmes, the daughter of Major-General Richard Holmes. Wharton did not get control of his father's extensive estate, as it had been put in the care of his mother and his father’s Whig friends. Thereafter, young Wharton began to travel. He travelled to France and Switzerland with a severe Calvinist tutor whose authority he resented. He met James Francis Edward Stuart, the "Old Pretender" and son of King James II, sometimes known in Europe as the rightful James III, or as James, Prince of Wales, who in 1716 created him Duke of Northumberland in the Jacobite peerage. Wharton then went to Ireland where, at the age of 18, he entered the Irish House of Lords as Marquess of Catherlough. When he was 19 years old, in 1718, he was created Duke of Wharton by King George I, part of an effort to solidify his support. In 1719, Wharton's wife gave birth to a son named Thomas, but the child died in a smallpox epidemic the next year. From that point on, Wharton had little to do with his wife. Political life Wharton turned Jacobite when travelling in 1716, or at least nominally Jacobite. He began signing his name "Philip James Wharton" to indicate his allegiance. Because he was a powerful speaker, an elegant writer, a wealthy (initially) peer, and a man with a seat in the House of Lords, the new Hanoverians always sought to gain him as an ally, while the old Jacobites were, at least initially, zealous to keep him on their side.