Charles (Medows) Pierrepont, 1st Earl Manvers (4 November 1737 – 17 June 1816) was a British naval officer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1778 to 1796 when he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Newark. Early life Born Charles Medows, sometimes Meadows, he was the second son of Philip Meadows, deputy ranger of Richmond Park, by his marriage to Lady Frances Pierrepont, daughter of William, Earl of Kingston (1692–1713). Charles Medows – the son of Lady Frances Medows née Pierrepont (d.1795) – was the great-grandson and the heir apparent of Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull. William, Earl of Kingston, predeceased his father, Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-Upon-Hull; thus the Dukedom and estates devolved on William's son, Evelyn Pierrepont, 2nd Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull, who was Lady Frances's brother. The 2nd Duke, however, died childless, leaving Charles Medows, his nephew, as the eventual heir to the estates. Family's political connections Charles (Medows) Pierrepont, 1st Earl Manvers was the great-grandson of Sir Philip Meadows (d. 1718), the successful parliamentarian. In 1710, Sir Philip's fellow parliamentarian, Sir John Guise, 3rd Bart., was "informed by Queen Anne that Sir Philip had been promised the position as Envoy to Hanover, the role Guise had envisaged for himself. Sir Philip Meadows was knighted in 1658, made Knight Marshal by Oliver Cromwell and sent as an Ambassador to Sweden and Denmark. In 1717, Sir Philip's son, Sir Philip Meadowes (d. 1757), was one of the twelve members of the Board of General Officers, working with Sir Robert Walpole, the First Commissioner (Lord) of the Treasury. Earlier, on 2 July 1700 he was appointed, as his father had been, knight-marshal of the King's Household, and was formally knighted by King William on 23 December 1700 at Hampton Court. Sir Philip's daughter, Mary (d.1743), was a Maid of honour to Queen Caroline and his first cousin was Philip Meadows (d.1752), who had been Mayor of Norwich in 1734. On 29 May of that year, Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole presented Mayor Meadows with his personal gift: the city's new silver mace which bore Walpole's own coat-of-arms. Like Prime Minister Walpole, Mayor Meadows had accumulated vast wealth owing to their success with the South Sea Company. Another of Sir Philip's sons, Sir Sidney Meadows, was also knight-marshal of the Kings Palace. Sidney died in Andover in 1792. Like his brother Philip, Sidney was