Lord Sunderland also served as Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire during the minority of Lord Shrewsbury until 1681. That year, he was dismissed by Charles II, due to his opposition of the Duke of York's succession; Charles was outraged by Sunderland's vote for the Exclusion Bill, which he described as "the Kiss of Judas". Presently Sunderland regained the King's confidence (through the principal royal mistress, the Duchess of Portsmouth). Intermittently, between 1682 and 1688, he served as Secretary of State for the Southern Department, Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire, and Lord President of the Council; in 1687, he signed the King's grant of religious freedom for the Brenttown (Brenton) tract in Prince William County, Virginia, to encourage settlement of French Protestants. The same year he openly embraced the Roman Catholic faith, insincerely, it would seem, and merely to please the King. Later that year he was made a Knight of the Garter.