Robert Stewart, 1st Marquess of Londonderry
Robert Stewart, 1st Marquess of Londonderry PC (Ire) (1739–1821), was a County Down landowner, Irish Volunteer, and member of the parliament who, exceptionally for an Ulster Scot and Presbyterian, rose within the ranks of Ireland's "Anglican Ascendancy." His success was fuelled by wealth acquired through judicious marriages, and by the advancing political career of his son, Viscount Castlereagh (an architect of the Acts of Union, and British Foreign Secretary). In 1798 he gained notoriety for refusing to intercede on behalf of James Porter, his local Presbyterian minister, executed outside the Stewart demesne as a rebel.
The Marquess of Londonderry
1816–1821
27 September 1739
Mount Stewart
6 April 1821
Mount Stewart
Sarah Frances Seymour
Frances Pratt
Mary Cowan
Cowan inheritance[edit]
Within three months of his parents' marriage in 1737, Robert's mother inherited the fortune her half-brother, Robert Cowan, had acquired in service to the East India Company as Governor of Bombay.[13] The legacy allowed Alexander Stewart to retire from the linen trade and buy into the landed gentry. In 1743 he purchased sixty townlands and a large estate from the Colville family at Newtownards and Comber in County Down.[14][15]
Opposition member of parliament[edit]
The year following his wife's death Robert Stewart entered the Irish House of Commons as member for County Down filling a vacancy created by the elevation of Bernard Ward to the House of Lords as Baron Bangor.[21] He was returned by the "independent" or "county" interest backed by the local Whigs and by his fellow Presbyterians ("Dissenters" from the Established Church who were a majority among the county's exceptionally high number of freeholder voters). Their discomforted rivals were the "official" or "court" party of the Earl of Hillsborough, the county's Lord-Lieutenant and largest proprietor.[22]
This political triumph over the interests of an Ascendancy family which had hitherto returned both county members to the Irish House of Commons formed the prelude of a long period of rivalry. Robert Stewart's initial success was largely due to popular sympathy with John Wilkes and the discontented American colonists, and to the growing feelings in favour of constitutional and parliamentary reform which found expression in the Volunteer movement.[23]
He proved a consistent antagonist of the administration, invariably voting and sometimes speaking for the Opposition in the House. His early political conduct won the approval of his constituents. A dinner at which they entertained in Belfast was marked by toasts "liberal in quality as in quantity", including to "The memory of John Hampden" (who had led parliamentary opposition to Charles I), and to "All those who would rather die in jack-boots than live in wooden shoes".[23]
1798, the execution of James Porter[edit]
During their three-day "Republic" in Ards and north Down, 10–13 June 1798, the United Irish insurgents briefly occupied Mount Stewart.[62] In August, the wife of the local Presbyterian minister, James Porter, appeared at the house with her seven children where they overwhelmed Lady Londonderry and young sister, then dying of tuberculosis, with a plea for his life. One of the children was later to recount that when Londonderry discovered his wife composing a letter to General Nugent, he insisted she add a postscript: "L does not allow me to interfere in Mr Porter's case. I cannot, therefore, and beg not to be mentioned. I only send the letter to gratify the humour", i.e. to placate the distraught Mrs Porter to whom, with a smile that filed her with "much horror", Londonderry then handed the letter.[63]
Londonderry was himself present at the court martial[64] which had accepted dubious testimony to the minister's presence among the rebels,[65][66] and was to see the sentence executed. Porter was hanged in sight both of his own meeting house at Greyabbey and of his family home (with Stewart tenants reportedly defying their landlord's wish that they attend).[65][67] The Presbyterian minister Rev. Henry Montgomery of Killead, County Antrim, would later describe the circumstances of Porter's execution as being of "extreme cruelty towards both himself and his family, which were altogether unnecessary for any purpose of public example".[68]
Londonderry was content that other offenders should be allowed exile. David Bailie Warden who commanded north Down rebels in the field;[69] the Reverend Thomas Ledlie Birch, a United Irish firebrand who rallied with the rebels after the Battle of Saintfield; and William Sinclair who joined the tenantry in swearing loyalty before Londonderry yet served on the rebel Committee of Public Safety,[70] were all permitted passage to the United States.[71]
Porter's offence may have been his popular satire of the local landed interest, Billy Bluff, in which the master of Mount Stewart is clearly recognisable as the inarticulate tyrant "Lord Mountmumble".[72] Porter had been aware that Billy Bluff might not go unpunished, acknowledging in its preface: "I am in danger of being hanged or put in gaol, perhaps both".[68]
It may also be that Londonderry believed that Porter, who had been close to the family (their election agent and a frequent visitor to the Mount Stewart),[73] had been a source of his wife's wayward, and potentially compromising, political sympathies. Lady Frances is rumoured to have continued to send privately for Porter's offending paper, the Northern Star,[72] and in correspondence with Jane Greg (reputedly "head of the [United Irish] Female Societies" in Belfast)[74] made bold to identify herself as a "republican countess".[75]
Local tradition has it that Mrs. Porter waylaid his lordship's carriage, in a vain hope of prevailing by a further direct entreaty, but Londonderry bade the coachman "drive on." The sentence, however, was mitigated by remission of the order for quartering.[65]
Reputation as landlord[edit]
Despite political differences with his tenants, Londonderry did have a reputation as a comparatively generous landlord. He and his father rarely evicted tenants unless they were more than five years in arrears, and they abided by the Ulster custom of tenant right. They patronised the local town of Newtownards raising a subscription for a Catholic primary school as a gesture of ecumenical good will, and building a market house with a striking clock tower (a building which occupied by Scottish Fencibles was attacked by the rebels under Warden's command in 1798).[76] During food shortages in 1800 and 1801, Londonderry at his own expense imported provisions into the stricken districts.[77]