Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh

The Most Honourable The Marquess of Londonderry KG GCH PC PC (Ire)
Portrait by Thomas Lawrence, c. 1809–1810
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
In office 4 March 1812 – 12 August 1822
Prime Minister	Spencer Perceval The Earl of Liverpool
Preceded by	The Marquess Wellesley
Succeeded by	George Canning
Leader of the House of Commons
In office 8 June 1812 – 12 August 1822
Prime Minister	The Earl of Liverpool
Preceded by	Spencer Perceval
Succeeded by	George Canning
Secretary of State for War and the Colonies
In office 25 March 1807 – 1 November 1809
Prime Minister	The Duke of Portland
Preceded by	William Windham
Succeeded by	The Earl of Liverpool
In office 10 July 1805 – 5 February 1806
Prime Minister	William Pitt the Younger
Preceded by	The Earl Camden
Succeeded by	William Windham
President of the Board of Control
In office 2 July 1802 – 11 February 1806
Prime Minister	Henry Addington William Pitt the Younger
Preceded by	The Earl of Dartmouth
Succeeded by	The Lord Minto
Chief Secretary for Ireland
In office 14 June 1798 – 27 April 1801
Prime Minister	William Pitt the Younger
Lord Lieutenant	The Marquess Cornwallis
Preceded by	Thomas Pelham
Succeeded by	Charles Abbot
Personal details
Born	Robert Stewart (1769-06-18)18 June 1769 Dublin, Ireland
Died	12 August 1822(1822-08-12) (aged 53) Woollet Hall, Kent, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Cause of death	Suicide
Resting place	Westminster Abbey
Citizenship	Kingdom of Ireland  United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Political party	Whig (1790–1795) Tory (1795–1822)
Spouse	Lady Amelia Hobart
Parent(s)	Robert Stewart, 1st Marquess of Londonderry Lady Sarah Frances Seymour-Conway
Alma mater	St. John's College, Cambridge
Signature

Robert Stewart, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, KG, GCH, PC, PC (Ire) (18 June 1769 – 12 August 1822), usually known as Lord Castlereagh,^[1] derived from the courtesy title Viscount Castlereagh^[a] (UK: /ˈkɑːsəlreɪ/ KAH-səl-ray) by which he was styled from 1796 to 1821, was a British statesman and politician. As secretary to the Viceroy in Ireland, he worked to suppress the Rebellion of 1798 and to secure passage in 1800 of the Irish Act of Union. As the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom from 1812, he was central to the management of the coalition that defeated Napoleon, and was British plenipotentiary at the Congress of Vienna. In the post-war government of Lord Liverpool, Castlereagh was seen to support harsh measures against agitation for reform, and he ended his life an isolated and unpopular figure.

Early in his career in Ireland, and following a visit to revolutionary France, Castlereagh recoiled from the democratic politics of his Presbyterian constituents in Ulster. Crossing the floor of the Irish Commons in support of the government, he took a leading role in detaining members of the republican conspiracy, the United Irishmen, his former political associates among them. After the 1798 Rebellion, as Chief Secretary for Ireland he pushed the Act of Union through the Irish Parliament. But it was without the Catholic Emancipation that both he and British Prime Minister William Pitt believed should have accompanied the creation of a United Kingdom.

From 1805 Castlereagh served under Pitt and then the Duke of Portland as Secretary of State for War. In 1809 he was obliged to resign after fighting a duel with the Foreign Secretary, George Canning. In 1812 Castlereagh returned to government serving Lord Liverpool as Foreign Secretary and as Leader of the House of Commons.

Castlereagh organised and financed the alliance that defeated Napoleon, bringing the powers together at the Treaty of Chaumont in 1814. After Napoleon's second abdication in 1815, Castlereagh worked with the European courts represented at the Congress of Vienna to frame the territorial, and broadly conservative, continental order that was to hold until mid-century. He blocked harsh terms against France believing that a treaty based on vengeance and retaliation would upset a necessary balance of powers. France restored the Bourbons kings and her frontiers were restored to 1791 lines. Her British-occupied colonies were returned. In 1820 Castlereagh enunciated a policy of non-intervention, proposing that Britain hold herself aloof from continental affairs.

After 1815, at home, Castlereagh supported repressive measures that linked him in public opinion to the Peterloo Massacre of 1819. Widely reviled in both Ireland and Great Britain, overworked, and personally distressed, Castlereagh committed suicide in 1822.

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