This accomplished nobleman was created Earl of Halifax in 1700, and after the death of his first wife he conceived a strong attachment for Mrs. Catharine Barton, the widow of Colonel Barton, and the niece of Newton. This lady was young, gay, and beautiful, and though she did not escape the censures of her contemporaries, she was regarded by those who knew her as a woman of strict honour and virtue. We are not acquainted with the causes which prevented her union with the Earl of Halifax, but so great was the esteem and affection which he bore her, that in the will in which he left 100_l._ to Mr. Newton, he bequeathed to his niece a very large portion of his fortune. This distinguished statesman died in 1715, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. Himself a poet and an elegant writer, he was the liberal patron of genius, and he numbered among his intimate friends Congreve, Halley, Prior, Tickell, Steele, and Pope. His conduct to Newton will be for ever remembered in the annals of science. The sages of every nation and of every age will pronounce with affection the name of Charles Montague, and the persecuted science of England will continue to deplore that he was the first and the last English minister who honoured genius by his friendship and rewarded it by his patronage. The elevation of Mr. Newton to the highest offices in the mint was followed by other marks of honour. The Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris having been empowered by a new charter granted in 1699, to admit a very small number of foreign associates, Newton was elected a member of that distinguished body. In the year 1701, on the assembling of a new parliament, he was re-elected one of the members for the University of Cambridge.[88] In 1703 he was chosen President of the Royal Society of London, and he was annually re-elected to this office during the remaining twenty-five years of his life. On the 16th of April, 1705, when Queen Anne was living at the royal residence of Newmarket, she went with Prince George of Denmark and the rest of the court to visit the University of Cambridge. After the meeting of the Regia Consilia, her majesty held a court at Trinity Lodge, the residence of Dr. Bentley, then master of Trinity; where the honour of knighthood was conferred upon Mr. Newton, Mr. John Ellis, the vice-chancellor, and Mr. James Montague, the university counsel.[89] On the dissolution of the parliament, which took place in 1705, Sir Isaac was again a candidate for the representation of the University, but notwithstanding the recent expression of the royal favour, he lost his election by a very great majority.[90] This singular result was perhaps owing to the loss of that personal influence which his residence in the university could not fail to command, though it is more probable that the ministry preferred the candidates of a more obsequious character, and that the electors looked for advantages which Sir Isaac Newton was not able to obtain for them.