The Death of the Earl of Chatham The Death of the Earl of Chatham The Death of the Earl of Chatham is the title of a 1781 oil-on-canvas painting by Boston-born American artist John Singleton Copley. It depicts the collapse of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham on 7 April 1778, during a debate in the House of Lords on the American War of Independence. Chatham is surrounded by peers of the realm, and the painting contains fifty-five portraits. Lord Chatham was the architect of the British victory in the Seven Years' War (1757–1763), in which Britain won supremacy in America. Although sympathetic to American grievances and
Wilmot Vaughan, 2nd Earl of Lisburne Wilmot Vaughan, 2nd Earl of Lisburne Wilmot Vaughan, 2nd Earl of Lisburne (9 May 1755 – 6 May 1820), styled Hon. Wilmot Vaughan from 1766 to 1776 and Viscount Vaughan from 1776 to 1800, was a Welsh landowner and Irish peer. He was the son of Wilmot Vaughan, 4th Viscount Lisburne, later Earl of Lisburne, and his first wife Elizabeth Nightingale, who died of complications from his birth. He was educated at Eton College, and on 4 January 1773, he matriculated at Magdalen College, Oxford. Unfortunately, he showed signs of insanity as early as 1778, and he was declared a