Lord Castlereagh Facts & Worksheets

Chief Secretary of Ireland

• William Pitt replaced William Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland with John Pratt, 2nd Earl Camden, who was Stewart’s uncle. Fitzwilliam had pushed for the end of Catholic oppression, which included letting Catholics into Parliament. When Camden got to Dublin, there was a lot of trouble in the streets. At this time, Stewart switched his support in the Irish House of Commons to the government administration based at Dublin Castle. After that, he became a key adviser to the Lord Lieutenant, who was only ten years older than him and not very popular.
• Stewart’s father became the Earl of Londonderry in August 1796, and Stewart took the title of Viscount Castlereagh. In September of that year, Castlereagh personally oversaw military operations in Belfast and the surrounding areas, which were known as the Siege of Belfast. This was done because of information that suggested communication with France.
• As a result, many prominent United Irishmen were arrested, including some who had supported Castlereagh’s earlier campaign for election. The United Irish movement started with Presbyterian reformers in Belfast who were inspired by the American and French Revolutions. It quickly spread across Ulster and, with the help of the Catholic Defenders, into the Irish midlands. It was hard to organise loyalist forces in County Down. Tenants refused to pay rent, which meant that the family estate at Mount Stewart had to be protected by armed guards.
• A major French expedition to Ireland in December 1796 could not land at Bantry Bay because of bad weather. As a militia officer, Castlereagh knew that Ireland’s defences weren’t strong enough to stop a coordinated French invasion and an internal rebellion at the same time. By February 1797, Castlereagh had gotten a job in the Dublin Castle administration as Keeper of the King’s Signet for Ireland. After martial law was declared, he was made both a Lord of the Treasury and a member of the Irish Privy Council.
• Camden encouraged him to take on many of the Chief Secretary's duties, which were often left to him. He effectively managed daily government and parliamentary affairs. In this role, especially as Acting Chief Secretary from March 1798, he was a key player in putting down the United Irish rebellion in May and June 1798. In November 1798, Lord Cornwallis officially made him Chief Secretary. Castlereagh's general policy was to be lenient with ordinary rebels, many of whom later joined loyalist forces, but to be tough on leaders. Still, he had already been called Bloody Castlereagh before the rebellion.
• William Orr was put to death in October 1797 for administering the United Irish oath, even though his stepmother, Lady Frances, begged for mercy. Castlereagh’s controversial reputation was partly due to the harshness of the sentence, which was supposedly meant to set a public example. In 1811, he successfully sued journalist Peter Finnerty for libel after Finnerty wrote about how he had done something wrong.
• After the rebellion, Castlereagh let some of the most important United Irishmen in the Presbyterian north leave for America. However, there were some exceptions, such as James Porter, who was executed after a court martial led by Castlereagh’s father, even though he begged for mercy again and again. Porter, who used to be friends with the Stewart family, became well-known for writing satirical pieces that criticised the local gentry. 
• In 1799, Castlereagh pushed hard for a legislative union between Ireland and Great Britain, which was in line with Pitt’s larger political goals. He saw union as a way to protect Ireland from French influence and as a way to solve the country’s long-standing political problems, especially the Catholic question. He said that joining a bigger political system would help ease sectarian tensions: Protestants would feel safer, and Catholics, who are a minority in the UK, would be less demanding.
• While the Act of Union was being passed, Castlereagh and Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, gave informal assurances from Pitt’s Cabinet that Catholic emancipation would come next. But there was opposition in Britain, even from King George III, which stopped this from happening. Because of this, the Union law—passed with a lot of political support—did not include any provisions for freeing Catholics. Ireland kept its own government in Dublin, but Westminster took over the power to make laws. There, only Protestants could represent the country.
• When Pitt tried to keep his promise to free Catholics, he had to resign because the royal family was against it. Castlereagh also had to resign. Afterwards, many Irish Catholics blamed Castlereagh for the perceived betrayal and the continued denial of full political rights.

Secretary of War

• Lord Castlereagh, was a key figure in shaping British wartime policy during the Napoleonic Wars. This was especially true because he was the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. He supported both military reform and an aggressive interventionist strategy against Napoleonic France after William Pitt became Prime Minister in 1804. His support for the 1805 Hanover expedition shows this way of thinking; however, the fact that it failed after the French won at Austerlitz showed how limited British operations on the continent were.
• As Pitt’s health got worse, Castlereagh’s political power grew a lot, making him an important part of the government. He was reappointed in 1807 by the Duke of Portland and helped give the go-ahead for the bombardment of Copenhagen, which was meant to stop the Danish fleet from falling under French control. Even though the action was done for strategic reasons, it had important diplomatic effects, making Denmark more aligned with France and making things worse with Russia.
• The failure of the Walcheren Expedition in 1809 was a big blow for Castlereagh, who faced a lot of political criticism and made the government even more divided. Disagreements with Foreign Secretary George Canning over who was to blame for the failed operation caused relations to break down, ending in a duel between the two ministers. The event drew a lot of public outrage and eventually led to the resignations of both men. 
• Castlereagh’s time in office during this time shows how hard it is to run a country during war, when aggressive military policies are pursued despite strategic uncertainty and political conflict within the country. His actions show that he cares about national security and the interests of the empire, but they also come with a lot of controversy and political risk.

Lord Castlereagh as Foreign Secretary

• In 1812, Lord Castlereagh became Foreign Secretary again, a job he held for ten years. After Spencer Perceval was killed, he became Leader of the House of Commons. In this role, he was very important in deciding how Britain would handle its diplomacy during the last part of the Napoleonic Wars. He played a big role in getting Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia to agree to the Quadruple Alliance at Chaumont in March 1814. 
• Napoleon didn’t like the treaty, but the Congress of Vienna later confirmed its terms and put them into action. Castlereagh was mostly in charge of writing the main points, which included making Germany a confederation, splitting Italy into independent states, bringing back the Bourbon monarchy in Spain, and making the Netherlands bigger to include the land that would later become Belgium. 
• He also suggested the Congress System at the Congress of Vienna. This was a way for the major powers to meet regularly to work together on European issues.
• The system was first used to deal with problems like the Polish-Saxon question and Greek independence, but it slowly stopped working and fell apart by 1822 because Britain, Austria, and Russia couldn’t agree on anything, and there wasn't much support for it in Britain. From 1812 to 1822, Castlereagh followed a policy of active continental engagement, which was not common for British foreign policy at the time. People thought his diplomatic style was reserved and hard to follow at times.
• He also played a key role in stopping the Atlantic slave trade. He was against unilateral abolition in 1806 and wanted coordinated action from other countries. However, as Foreign Secretary, he negotiated treaties with Portugal, Sweden, and Denmark from 1810 to 1814. These agreements, which were strengthened at the Congress of Vienna, set up ways to limit trade, which were backed up by the navy and the relocation of freed Africans to Sierra Leone. The United States, Spain, France, and Portugal all opposed his policies, but they eventually led to the successful end of the transatlantic trade.
• In 1820, Castlereagh stated a key principle of British foreign policy: not getting involved in continental issues. He said that the Quadruple Alliance was there to keep France in check and put down revolutions, but Britain would not get involved in wars that did not threaten European stability, knowing that international coordination was not always possible and that politics at home were also a factor.

Decline and Death of Lord Castlereagh

• Even though he played a key role in defeating Napoleon and bringing peace to Europe, Castlereagh was still very unpopular at home. The Opposition often attacked him in the House of Commons for supporting oppressive European governments, and the public criticised him for how he handled the divorce between George IV and Queen Caroline. People were even more angry with him because he worked with the Home Secretary, Henry Addington, First Viscount Sidmouth, and supported controversial laws like the Six Acts. 
• He became the 2nd Marquess of Londonderry after his father died in April 1821. He couldn’t run for office in Ireland anymore, but he did win a seat in the English borough of Orford, which had been held by his uncle, Lord Hertford. King George IV still liked him and thought about making him Prime Minister, but his relationships with his coworkers were getting worse, and he told his brother that his parliamentary duties had become “difficult to endure.”
• By 1822, Castlereagh was showing clear signs of mental distress, which could have been paranoia or a nervous breakdown. The stress of being a leader in parliament and having a lot of diplomatic duties made things worse. His public speaking got a lot worse, and he thought about quitting. He also made scary admissions about supposed criminal behaviour, saying that he was being blackmailed over a supposed homosexual offence.
• At a meeting with the King and later with Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, his strange behaviour made people worry about his health. His personal doctor, Charles Bankhead, told him to rest at his country estate, Woolley Hall. Even though his wife tried to calm him down, Castlereagh stayed upset and obsessed with conspiracies. 
• He cut his own throat with a small knife on the morning of 12 August 1822, and died almost right away. Different people have different ideas about what was wrong with him at the time and later. His brother said that he was upset because of court politics, while others said it was because he was disappointed with political setbacks, overworked, severely mentally stressed, or had a psychotic depressive illness. Some theories also think that syphilis could be a cause of his health problems getting worse.