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LONDONDERRY, MAHQUIS OF. 



LONDONDERRY, MARQUIS OF. 



Ireland. Robert KM bin only child that survived by his Brat wife, 

 Sarah Franco, daughter of Francis Seymour, first murquis of Ilcrt 

 ford, whom bo marrieJ in 1706, aud who died in 1770. He received 

 the firet part of hi* education at the grammar school of Armagh, 

 whence he was removed in 1780 to St. Juhu's College, Cambridge, lie 

 was nut yet of age when, on his father being raised to the peerage iu 

 1789, he offered himself for the vacant seat iu the representation of 

 tit* county of Down, and was returned, though not without a severe 

 Contest, which lasted for three month;, and is said to huve cost the 

 family 25,0001. or 80,000?, Nor did he come in without pledging 

 himself, in contradiction to what bod hitherto beeu the family politics, 

 to the cause of parliamentary reform, which had for some time been 

 a popular watchword in Ireland. For three or four years accordingly 

 he was considered as belonging to the party of the opposition, thmi. ii 

 to the aristocratic and more moderate section of it. lie very early 

 began to take part in the debates. His conversion from liberalism 

 seems to have taken place about 1793 or 1791 ; and it may be fairly 

 consider* d to have been the natural result of his family position 

 co-operating with the more alarming aspect which popular politics iu 

 Ireland were every day assuming; but he in consequence became 

 excessively unpopular. 



In the summer of 1794 he was returned to the British parliament 

 for the borough of Tregony ; aud after remaining silent for & set-sion 

 he made his maiden speech in the House of Commons in seconding 

 the address on the 29th of October 1795. It is said to have greatly 

 disappointed the expectations excited by the reputation he had 

 brought over with him. He was to tho last a remarkably unequal 

 speaker, at one time rising above, at another time sometimes on the 

 same night falling below his ordinary or average style of execution 

 iu a degree scarcely credible, and the more wonderful iu a person Of 

 so much nerve and self-possession. 



He does not appear to have ever spoken again during this parliament, 

 which was dissolved after the close of that its sixth session, in May 

 1796. That year he became Viscount Castlereagh ; and he was again 

 returned to the next British parliament, which met in September, for 

 tbe borough of Orford. But he vacated his seat in July 1797; upon 

 which he was re-elected to the Irish parliament for the county of 

 Down, and was made Keeper of the Privy Seal for Ireland. In the 

 beginning of 1793 he was appointed Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant 

 and an Irish privy councillor; and from this date he may be regarded 

 as having been distinctly tbe ministerial leader in the Commons. The 

 credit or discredit of the measures adopted for the suppression of tho 

 rebellion, which broke out and was put down in this year, has also 

 been commonly assigned to him, although it does not appear that he 

 really did more than carry out the system which he found already in 

 action when he came into office. He was no doubt one of the 

 principal managers of the project of the Union, which followed two 

 years after. 



He was returned for the county of Down to the first Imperial Par- 

 liament, which met iu February 1801 ; and also to tho second, which 

 met hi November 1S02; though, upon the latter occasion, not till 

 after a severe struggle with the interest of the Dowushire family, 

 whose hostility had been provoked by the dismissal of the late marquis 

 from the command of his militia regiment and the lord-lieutenancy of 

 the county for his opposition to tho Union. 



In the beginning of 1802 he had been made a privy-councillor of 

 Great Britain, and President of the Board of Control; and he retained 

 that office after Mr. Pitt retired and throughout the Addiugtou admin- 

 istration. Alter Mr. Pitt returned to power, Viscount Castlereagh was, 

 in July 1805, promoted to be one of his majesty's principal secretaries 

 of state (taking the department of War and the Colonies). He was now 

 however thrown out of the representation of Down, but obtained 

 a seat for the borough of Boroughbridge, for which he was returned 

 in January 1806, on a vacancy made by the death of the Hon. John 

 Scott, son of Lord Eldou. He resigned with the rest of the cabinet 

 on the death of Mr. Pitt shortly after this ; and to the next parlia- 

 ment, which met in December, with a new ministry, he was returned 

 for the borough of Plympton Karle. 



Upon the formation of the Portland administration, in April 1807, 

 Lord Castlereagh was reappointed to his former office of secretary of 

 state ; and he was again returned for Plympton to the parliament 

 which met in May of this year. He was now considered the indi- 

 vidual principally answerable for the conduct of the war; aud tbe 

 failure of the disastrous expedition to Walchcren in the summer of 

 1809 not only drew upon him much general unpopularity, but involved 

 him iu a personal quarrel w ith bis colleague Mr. Canning, the secretary 

 for foreign affairs, which led first to the resignation of both, and then 

 to a duel between them, in which Canning, on the second fire, was 

 severely wounded. In tho earlier part of this same year also, some 

 sensation had been made by two reports of select committees of tbe 

 Commons, which charged Lord Castl ri agh, along with other persons, 

 the one with corrupt practices in obtaining the returns of members 

 for Irish boroughs, the other with irregularities iu the disposal of 

 Indian patronage. 



Lord Castlenagh remained out of office till February 1812, when, 

 on the resignation of the Marquis Wellesley, he was appointed secre- 

 tary of state for the foreign department. After the death of Mr. 

 Percetal, which followed in May, he was regarded as ministerial leader 



In the Commons. To the new parliament which met in November 

 IS 12 he was once more returned as representative for the county of 



H-.n-ii; and he also retained that seat iu the next two parliament*, 

 which met in August 1818 and in April 1820. The return to office of 

 Mr. Canning however, iu 1810, had relieved him from a considerable 

 part of his labours iu the conduct of public business in the House, 

 till that gentleman again retired in 1S20. 



Meanwhile in the end of the year 1813 Lord Castlereagh had gone as 

 British plenipotentiary to take part in tbo uegociatious opened with the 

 French government at Ch.Uillon, which however broke oft" after a few 

 weeks without any result ; and he had also appeared as represfntative of 

 the king of England at tho Peace of Paris in May 1814 ; at the Congress 

 of Vicuna in October of the eaiuo year; at that of Paris after thu 

 battle of Waterloo in the following year ; aud at that of Aix-la-Ch 

 in 1818. On such occasions as these his fine figure aud grace of 

 manner showed to great advantage. He likewise attended George IV. 

 to I iv kind iu 1820, where ho had for the moment the gratification of 

 being extremely popular among his countrymen. He had been made 

 a Knight of the darter in 1818, and he became Marquis of London- 

 derry by the death of his father on the 8th of April 1821. 



Lord Londonderry, who bad for eotne time shown symptoms of 

 mental disease, died by his own hand at his seat of North-Cray-Place, 

 in the county of Kent, on tbe 12th of August 1822. The coroner's 

 jury which sat upon the body brought in a verdict of lunacy. He had 

 married in 1794 Lady Kmily-Anno Hobart, youngest daughter of 

 John, second Karl of Buckinghamshire, but he died without issue, and 

 tho title went to his half brother, the subject of the following notice. 



There was no brilliancy of intellect iu Lord Londonderry, scarcely 

 cveu the ordinary amount of literary cultivation and taste. His 

 speaking, though fluent, and sometimes spirited, was always inelegant 

 and slovenly, and occasionally so to a ludicrous el".:r-e. To any 

 acquaintance with the philosophy of politics he made no pretension ; 

 nor did even his practical views commonly evince any superior sagacity. 

 But he had great business talents; and that qualification, with his 

 charm of manner, fitted him admirably for managing men, and was 

 the mam secret of his success in life. Something too however is to 

 be attributed to certain moral qualities which he possessed. Whatever 

 difference of opinion might be entertained about some of his political 

 proceedings or acts done iu his political capacity, his personal charac- 

 ter was admitted by all who knew him to be that of an honourable 

 and high-minded man, upon both whose firmness and fearlessness 

 reliance could in all circumstances be placed. His integrity iu Una 

 sense had even something of a roughness or sternness that might 

 almost be said to contrast with the amenity of his manner. 



' The Correspondence of Kobert, Second Marquis of Londonderry,' 

 was edited by his brother, the third marquis, in 1850. 



LONDONDERRY, CHARLES WILLIAM VANE, THIRD MAB- 

 QUIS OF, K.G., G.C.B., only son of Kobert, first Marquis, by his eecoud 

 wife, Frances, daughter of Lord Chancellor Conuleu, and half-brother 

 of the second Marquis above noticed, was born iu Dublin May 18, 1778. 

 He was in his fifteenth year when he received his first commission as 

 ensign iu a foot regiment, and embarked under the Earl of Moira 

 (afterwards Marquis of Hastings), to relieve H.K.H. the Duke of York 

 from the perilous position in which he found himself after the reduc- 

 tion of Ypres and the capture of Charleroy. Having held for a few 

 months the post of assistant quartermaster-general to a division of 

 the forces under General Doyle, ho was attached iu tho following year 

 to Colonel Crawfurd's mission to the court of Vienna; and while thus 

 occupied, he received a severe wound at the battle of Donauwvi tb. 

 Returning home, he became aide-de-camp to his uncle, Karl Camdcu, 

 during bis Lord Lieutenancy in Ireland; having gained his majority in 

 1796, he was made in the following year lieutenant-colonel of the 5th 

 Dragoon Guards, and while encamped ou the Curragh of Kildaro 

 succeeded iu bringing into partial discipline aud order " the worst of 

 bad regiments," which he commanded through the trying period of 

 the Rebellion of 1798. The regiment having been subsequently 

 disbanded for insubordination, Charles Stewart was appointed to the 

 command of the 18th Light Dragoons, which he accompauii <! t> 

 under Sir Ralph Abercrombie ; and in this expedition he was again 

 severely wounded. In 1803 he became full colond, and aide-de-camp 

 to his Majesty, and for a short time occupied the post of under 

 secretary of state for the war department. This post he quitted in 

 order to accept the command of a hussar brigade under Sir John Muoic 

 in 1'ot tugal, as brigadier-general, and he did good service by covering the 

 march of Sir John Hope's division into Spain, aud the retreat of Sir 

 John Moore, during which he successfully repulsed an attack of the 

 French Imperial Guard. On reaching Corunna ho was labouring under 

 severe ophthalmia, aud Sir John Moore, who had the highest opinion 

 of his abilities, sent him home to report progress. In a few months 

 however he returned to the seat of war as adjutant-general under Sir 

 Arthur Wellesley, which post he held until May 1813. During tho 

 pursuit of Marshal houit's army across the Douro, and again at 

 Talavera, he rendered important services, for which he received tho 

 thanks of the House of Commons. During all this time, since the 

 meeting of the first parliament of the United Kingdom iu 1801, he 

 had represented the county of Londonderry, and continued to do so 

 until 1814, when he was raised to the Peerage as Lord Stewart, and 

 sworn a member of the Privy Council. In the meantime he had risen 



