At court, though no trifler or flatterer, he was a favourite counsellor in three successive reigns, but he never meddled much in civil or temporal affairs.
He became lieutenant governor of Virginia in June 1710, when he was received with some enthusiasm, because he brought to the colony the privilege of habeas corpus; his term as governor closed in September 1722 - probably because he meddled in ecclesiastical matters; but he remained in Virginia, living near his ironworks in Germanna, a settlement of Germans, on the Rapidan in Spottsylvania county (named in his honour) and he was deputy postmaster-general of the colonies from 1730 to 1739.