Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, KG, GCH, PC, PC (Ire), (18 June 1769 – 12 August 1822), better known by the name Lord Castlereagh, which was derived from a courtesy title he held before his father died, was an Anglo-Irish statesman during the Napoleonic Wars and the period directly afterwards. He served as Chief Secretary for Ireland under William Pitt The Younger from 1798 - 1801, President of the Board of Control under Henry Addington (later Lord Sidmouth) from 1802 – 1806, Secretary for War and the Colonies under Pitt again and then the Duke of Portland from 1807 – 1809, and finally held a dual position as Leader of the House of Commons and Foreign Secretary under Lord Liverpool from 1812 - 1822.
Born in Dublin in 1769, just six weeks after his lifelong friend The Duke of Wellington, he entered the Irish Parliament in 1790 and initially associated himself with other Dissenter Whigs in favour of reform. Upon the outbreak of The French Revolution in 1789, he read Edmund Burke's Reflections On The Revolution In France and went to the Continent to judge the revolution for himself, eventually concluding that while he disliked the Irish government and had a general dislike of the monarchy, he preferred it to revolution. Upon returning, he became a trusted lieutenant to his uncle, Lord Camden, who had been appointed Chief Secretary of Ireland, and led raids in Belfast to capture the leaders of the United Irishmen, including men who had voted for him in 1790.
Martial law was soon declared in Ireland, and Castlereagh was given the position of Chief Secretary for Ireland after essentially running the country for his uncle for several years. In this position, he violently put down the Irish Rebellion of 1798, essentially breaking the back of the United Irishmen and ordering the execution of, among others, Theobald Wolfe Tone, the father of Irish Republicanism. For this he earned the nickname "Bloody Castlereagh," and the ire of many of his countrymen. He also is credited with creating the Act of Union between Ireland and Great Britain in 1800.
He resigned when Pitt did in 1801, but was made Secretary for War in Pitt's second ministry, and then Secretary for War and the Colonies under Portland. During these years he entered a rivalry with George Canning, entering a duel with him in 1809, which left Canning mildly injured. After Spencer Perceval's assassination in 1812, Castlereagh was appointed to Leader of the House of Commons and Foreign Secretary, in which positions he was instrumental in creating the Congress of Vienna and negotiating the Treaty of Paris. He was also responsible for coming up with the policy that finally killed the slave trade, and for coming up with the policy of non-intervention in European affairs that governed British Foreign policy for much of the 19th century.
The years of being lampooned by writers such as Thomas Moore and Percy Bysshe Shelley, and multiple assassination attempts took their toll on Castlereagh's mental health, leading to bouts of depression throughout his life. This eventually culminated in him committing suicide by cutting his throat with a penknife in 1822, after a period of paranoia.
He was known in his time for being fond of music and his farm (sheep farming was one of his stranger hobbies), for being notably very handsome, and for being very close friends with the Duke of Wellington. Today Castlereagh is widely recognized as one of the first practitioners of Realpolitik, and is most widely known, perhaps unfairly, today for his repressive measures in home politics, some of which linked him to events such as the Corn Laws and Peterloo Massacre.
Castlereagh appears in the following works as a Historical Domain Character:
- In Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem The Mask of Anarchy he is portrayed as the embodiment of murder, and appears in the second and third stanzas throwing human hearts to his dogs. Shelley was a strong supporter of Irish independence, and had multiple other radical political beliefs that put him at odds with Castlereagh.
- Shelley wrote an epic poem condemning Castlereagh as a murderer; Byron was considerably more succinct.
Posterity will ne'er survey,
A nobler grave than this.
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh;
Stop, traveller, and piss! - Irish nationalist writer Thomas Moore wrote a good amount of poetry lampooning him, and three novels titled Tom Crib's Memorial to Congress (1818), Fables for the Holy Alliance (1823), and The Fudge Family in Paris (1818. Moore regarded Castlereagh as a traitor to his country, especially regarding Castlereagh's views on The Catholic Question.
- He is mentioned (but does not appear) in Prince Regent (1979)
