Viscount Castlereagh

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The British statesman Robert Stewart Viscount Castlereagh and 2d Marquess of Londonderry (1769-1822), as foreign secretary did much to consolidate a firm final international alliance against Napoleon and to establish the framework for a remarkably durable European peace settlement.

Robert Stewart was born in Ulster on June 18, 1769, son of Robert Stewart and Lady Sarah Seymour. His father, a substantial landowner and member of the Irish Parliament, was raised to the Irish peerage in 1789. As the eldest son, Robert held the courtesy title of Viscount Castlereagh from 1796 until he succeeded as Marquess of Londonderry in 1821. His schooling in Ireland was followed by a year at Cambridge and by a good deal of contact with the influential English families of his mother and stepmother, the Hertfords and the Camdens. In 1794 he married Lady Emily Hobart, daughter of the Earl of Buckinghamshire. Entering the Irish Parliament in 1790, he at first advocated radical reform of that body. But increasing fear of French influence and finally the Wolfe Tone rebellion convinced him, and the British government, that the only way to cure political corruption in Ireland and Catholic grievances on representation and tithes was parliamentary union with Britain. Castlereagh became chief secretary for Ireland in 1798, and to him fell the distasteful task of "persuading" a majority in the Irish Parliament to accept the Act of Union (1800). He resigned with William Pitt in 1801, when George III opposed legislation to permit Catholic representation.

For the next 11 years Castlereagh was in and out of office. He served as president of the Board of Control for India (1802-1805) and briefly as secretary for war under Pitt. In 1807 he returned to the War Office. In September 1809, believing that the foreign secretary, George Canning, had been secretly intriguing against him, Castlereagh insisted on a duel in which Canning was slightly wounded. Both had resigned from the Cabinet a few days earlier, and both remained out of office for several years.

In March 1812 Castlereagh began his long tenure as secretary of state for foreign affairs, and in June he also became government leader in the House of Commons. He carried this double burden until his death, but it was in foreign affairs that he found his greatest success.

Peace Settlement

Napoleon's disastrous losses in Russia in 1812 broke his spell, and Britain could again weld an alliance with Russia, Prussia, and Austria against his restless domination. By the end of 1813 the Allies had reached the Rhine and the Duke of Wellington had crossed the Pyrenees, but differences in aims and tactics were bubbling to the surface.

The great problem now was to unite the Allies for an agreed settlement that would ensure a durable peace. Castlereagh proposed that France be allowed the boundaries of 1792 but be contained by independent buffer states and by balanced Great Powers. If these objectives were reached, Britain would return the colonies captured during the Napoleonic Wars. When Napoleon spurned these terms, Castlereagh succeeded in 1814 in pledging the Allies at Chaumont to a continuing Quadruple Alliance. Napoleon could not rally the weary French against invasion, and the First Treaty of Paris (May 30, 1814), made with the restored Bourbon government, embodied Castlereagh's moderate terms without occupation or indemnity except private claims. France was also pledged a voice at the Congress of Vienna except on matters affecting the balance of power.

Castlereagh played an important part at the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), which negotiated a peace settlement emphasizing security and respect for law and treaties. To Castlereagh these objectives could best be ensured by a "just equilibrium" of the Great Powers, which would leave neither serious grievances nor prospect of easy gains to tempt resort to war, and in which the independence of the small states would be preserved. Ethnic factors got little attention from the peacemakers except for France, where Castlereagh and Wellington threw all their influence on the side of a settlement that would not arouse lasting national feeling. Even after Napoleon's Hundred Days in 1815, punitive measures of the Second Treaty of Paris were kept short term and symbolic. A new treaty of Quadruple Alliance publicly pledged immediate action if France crossed its frontiers in aggression or again accepted a Bonaparte and provided for periodic consultation by the four at top level (congresses).

Britain adhered to the Quadruple Alliance, and at the first Congress (Aix-la-Chapelle), in 1818, Castlereagh and Wellington were able to secure agreement to bring France into the congress system, to end the occupation, and to reduce the French debt for private claims by 80 percent while reaffirming the alliance against French aggression. This timely Congress put the capstone on the strategy of containing France within a settlement tolerable to the French nation.

Later Career

The next 4 years put Castlereagh under enormous strain. Severe economic depression and widespread agitation roused European governments to almost panic fear of revolution. In Britain the archconservatives in the Cabinet insisted on the repressive "Six Acts," for which Castlereagh bore the major responsibility in the Commons. The bill of divorce for Queen Caroline, on which George IV insisted, was also highly unpopular. And Castlereagh was attacked for consorting with the autocrats of the Alliance, who now repressed their own people and intervened in other states to suppress constitutionalist movements. Moreover, he was damaged by his icy reserve (attributed to shyness, for with friends and colleagues he had tact and charm), his disdain for criticism, and his stilted language. Actually, he was bending every diplomatic effort to dissuade the Austrian foreign minister, Metternich, from turning the congress system into an organization for suppressing constitutionalist movements.

In 1820-1821 Castlereagh withheld British representation from the Congress of Troppau-Laibach, making known to the governments of Europe that Britain denied any right of intervention. When another congress was called for September 1822 to deal with the Greek revolution and Spain and the Spanish colonies, he decided to try personally to dissuade the powers or, if need be, to break with them more openly. But it remained for his successor, George Canning, to carry out this policy, which he did with popular acclaim. Following a grueling term in the House of Commons, Castlereagh suffered a nervous breakdown, and on Aug. 12, 1822, he committed suicide.

Further Reading

C. K. Webster has influenced all subsequent biographies with the two most thorough studies of Castlereagh's major work: The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 1812-1815 (1931) and The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 1815-1822 (1925; 2d ed. 1934). Also valuable are Sir J. A. R. Marriott, Castlereagh (1936); lone Leigh, Castlereagh (1951), particularly for the earlier years; C. J. Bartlett, Castlereagh (1967), a readable and balanced analysis of Castlereagh's career; and Bradford Perkin's important study, Castlereagh and Adams: Britain and the United States, 1812-1823 (1964).

Additional Sources

Derry, John W. (John Wesley), Castlereagh, London: A. Lane, 1976.

Hinde, Wendy, Castlereagh, London: Collins, 1981.

Castlereagh, Robert Stewart, Viscount, 2nd marquess of Londonderry (1769-1822). Castlereagh outgrew his background in Ulster politics and became an advocate of the union between Britain and Ireland, a capable war secretary, and finally a distinguished foreign secretary. He entered the Irish House of Commons in 1790, soon felt drawn to the policies of the younger Pitt, and was elected to the Westminster Parliament in 1794. Castlereagh sympathized with reform in France but was unhappy about the decline of the French Revolution into violence, and was anxious about the impact of Jacobin ideas in Ireland through the secret society the United Irishmen. He supported the war against France, became prominent in the suppression of the Irish rebellion of 1798, and bore the main burden in carrying the Irish Act of Union in Dublin. He supported catholic emancipation, and resigned with Pitt when George III thwarted it. He served however in Addington's administration from 1802 and in Pitt's second ministry in 1804. On the death of Pitt he left office but became war secretary in the Portland ministry. The Peninsular War was supported by Castlereagh from the start and he took the initiative in bringing Wellesley (Wellington) forward. The failure of the Walcheren expedition meant that Castlereagh left the war department as the scapegoat. The decision to withdraw was a bitter one, the more so because Canning was eager to ensure that Castlereagh carried the responsibility for failure. The result was the collapse of the Portland ministry and the duel with Canning, which relegated both men to the back benches for several years.

Castlereagh's great opportunity came when he was appointed foreign secretary and leader of the House of Commons on the formation of Liverpool's ministry in 1812. He built up the final coalition against Napoleon, and at Vienna did much to frame the peace settlement. He was committed to regular meetings of the powers in congress not in order to perpetuate the status quo, but to enable peace to be preserved by adjustment to inevitable change. Castlereagh became alienated from Metternich and by 1820 had dissociated Britain from the Holy Alliance, which he had condemned as ‘a piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense’. Although his distrust of Russian expansion in the Near East drew Castlereagh closer to Metternich over the Greek revolt, he seriously contemplated the recognition of the independence of the Spanish American colonies. In 1822, worn out by overwork, he suffered a nervous breakdown and committed suicide.

Castlereagh, Viscount (Robert Stewart) (1769-1822), politician and statesman. Born in Co. Down, he was educated at Armagh and Cambridge and became MP for Co. Down from 1790. In 1797 he became chief secretary of Ireland. His role in securing the votes of MPs through unparalleled use of the patronage system led to his reputation as the chief architect of the Union.

Castlereagh, Robert Stewart, 2d Viscount (kă'səlrā), 1769-1822, British statesman, b. Ireland. Entering the Irish Parliament in 1790 and the British Parliament in 1794, he was acting chief secretary for Ireland at the time of the Irish rebellion of 1798. Having worked for the Act of Union of England and Ireland (1800), he resigned with William Pitt in 1801 when George III refused to allow Catholic Emancipation. President of the India board of control from 1802 to 1806, he also served (1805-6, 1807-9) as secretary of war. In the latter office, he planned the reorganization and expansion of the army and the effective coordination of British land and sea power. He dispatched a British expedition to Portugal, and after the early disasters in the Peninsular War he succeeded in putting Arthur Wellesley (later duke of Wellington) in command. The opposition of his colleague George Canning to Castlereagh's policies flared into a serious quarrel. Castlereagh accused Canning of political betrayal, and they fought (1809) a duel. Canning was wounded, and both resigned. As foreign secretary (1812-22), Castlereagh helped to organize the successful final coalition against Napoleon I, partly by secret treaties promising territorial changes. In the Treaty of Chaumont (1814) he obtained that "concert of Europe" later confirmed by the Quadruple Alliance. He advocated a moderate peace settlement for France, including restoration of the Bourbon monarchy and the limitation of France to her prewar boundaries. A dominant figure at the Congress of Vienna (1814-15; see Vienna, Congress of), Castlereagh worked for the establishment of the United Netherlands and the German Confederation. He favored an independent Poland but was compelled to accept a repartitioning of that country. Castlereagh placed great hope in the "congress system" agreed on at Vienna, by which the great powers would consult regularly for the maintenance of peace. However, he did not approve of outright intervention in the domestic affairs of other countries and protested, in increasingly explicit terms, the assumption of this right by the powers of the Holy Alliance. By the time of his death it is almost certain that he had decided to break with the wartime allies. In England, however, he was much criticized for his apparent cooperation with those same autocratic governments, and he was also blamed for repressive actions to curb unrest in England, though he was not directly responsible for them. He became (1821) the 2d marquess of Londonderry on his father's death. He committed suicide the next year. One of the foremost statesmen of his time, Castlereagh was cold in personality and lacked ability as an orator; he never gained an easy popularity and was hated by radicals like Shelley.

Bibliography

See biography by C. J. Bartlett (1966); H. A. Kissinger, A World Restored (1957, repr. 1964).