George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax

The Most Honourable The Marquess of Halifax PC DL FRS
George Savile, Marquess of Halifax, by Mary Beale, circa 1674-1676
Lord President of the Council
In office 18 February – 4 December 1685
Monarch	James II
Preceded by	The Earl of Rochester
Succeeded by	The Earl of Sunderland

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax PC, DL, FRS (11 November 1633 – 5 April 1695) was an English statesman, writer, and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1660, and in the House of Lords after he was raised to the peerage in 1668.

Savile was born in Thornhill, West Yorkshire the eldest son of Sir William Savile, 3rd Baronet and his wife Anne Coventry, eldest daughter of Lord Keeper Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry. His father distinguished himself in the civil war in the royalist cause and died in 1644. Savile was also the nephew of Sir William Coventry, who is said to have influenced his political opinions, and of Lord Shaftesbury, afterwards his most bitter opponent, and great-nephew of the Earl of Strafford. He was the great-grandson of Sir George Savile of Lupset and Thornhill (created baronet in 1611). He was educated at Shrewsbury School in 1643 while his mother was staying with a sister in Shropshire. He later travelled in France, where he attended a Huguenot academy in Paris, stayed in Angers and Orleans, in Italy and in the Netherlands, and was also believed to have been educated in Geneva. He returned to England by 1652.