Henry Belasyse (died 1717)
Sir Henry Belasyse | |
---|---|
Galway, Ireland | |
In office 1693–1695 | |
Personal details | |
Born | Henry Belasyse 1648 Governor of Berwick 1713–1715 |
Battles/wars | Franco-Dutch War Cassel; Saint-Denis Williamite War in Ireland The Boyne; Aughrim Nine Years' War Landen Namur 1695 War of the Spanish Succession Battle of Cádiz (1702) |
Sir Henry Belasyse (1648 – 14 December 1717), also spelt Bellasis, was an English military officer from
Beginning his military career in 1674 under
During the
First returned to Parliament for Morpeth in 1693, he began his political life as a Whig, but was elected for Durham in 1701 with Tory support. He was MP for Durham from 1701 to 1708, and from 1710 to 1712, then for Mitchell, in Cornwall from 1713 to 1715; he did not stand in the 1715 election. He died in London on 14 December 1717 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Personal details
Henry Belasyse was born in 1648, at Biddick House in County Durham, son of Sir Richard Belasyse (1612–1651) of Potto, North Yorkshire, and his second wife, Margaret (d. after 1670). He had an elder half brother William, who died in 1681 and a sister, Catherine.[1]
The Belasyse were a prolific family, long-established in Durham and Yorkshire; his paternal grandfather, Sir William, was High Sheriff of Durham from 1625 to 1640. Unlike many of his relatives, his father favoured Parliament in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and emerged with his estates largely intact. The majority backed Charles I of England, including Viscount Fauconberg (1577–1653) and Lord John Belasyse (1614–1689). His maternal grandfather, Sir William Lambton, was also a Royalist, killed at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644.[2]
In 1680, Belasyse married Dorothy Benson (1636–1696), a widow and mother of the politician Robert Benson, Baron Bingley; they had three children, Mary, Thomas and Elizabeth, all of whom predeceased their father. In 1707, he married Fleetwood Shuttleworth (1676–1732); they had two children, Margaret, who died young and William (1697–1769).[3]
Military career
Belasyse graduated from Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1667, before a period spent at legal school in the Middle Temple, then considered part of a gentleman's education. In 1674, he raised a company of men for the Scots Brigade, a mercenary unit in the Dutch States Army, whose origins went back to the 1580s, which normally contained three Scots and three English regiments. The latter were withdrawn in 1672 when England allied with France in the 1672–1678 Franco-Dutch War but restored after the 1674 Treaty of Westminster ended their involvement. Henry's company was recruited for one of the restored English regiments, which eventually became the 6th Foot.[4]
He fought at Cassel in 1677 and shortly afterwards replaced Thomas Ashley as Colonel of the regiment.[5] Wounded at Saint-Denis in 1678, the final battle in the Franco-Dutch War, he was knighted at some point between 1678 and 1681.[3] He accompanied the Brigade when William of Orange sent it to England in 1685 to help James II suppress the Monmouth Rebellion, although it returned in August without seeing action. In early 1688, James demanded the repatriation of the entire Brigade; William refused to comply but used the opportunity to remove officers of doubtful loyalty.[6]
For reasons that are unclear, Belasyse fell out of favour with William; he returned to England in April 1688 and his unit taken over by Philip Babington.[5] He returned to Yorkshire, where he became a close associate of Lord Danby, a moderate Tory and one of the signatories of the 1688 Invitation to William, asking him to assume the English throne.[7] After William landed at Torbay on 5 November 1688, Belasyse was part of a force under Danby that secured first York, the most important city in Northern England, then Hull, its largest port.[8]
He was rewarded with promotion to
While in London in early 1691, he was badly injured in a duel with Colonel
With the war in Ireland at an end, Henry transferred to
The 1697
Just before the
Aware of the damage done to his cause, Archduke Charles demanded the commanders be punished, and in December, Queen Anne issued an order requiring the return of any plunder taken from Fort St Mary.[18] O'Hara, a long-time client of the Ormonde family, was charged with failing to prevent the looting, and although censured, he retained his position and later became Lieutenant-General. Belasyse was accused of active participation; he claimed parliamentary immunity, but was dismissed from the army, ending his active military career.[7]
Political career and later life
In 1693, Belasyse purchased the estate of Owton in County Durham from his nephew Richard.
Although he did not stand in the
References
- ^ "Descendants of John de Belasis; Twenty-Third Generation". Bellasis.net. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
- ^ Sir William Lambton's Regiment of Foot.
- ^ a b c d Childs 2008.
- ^ Unknown 1795, p. 49.
- ^ a b Columbine's regiment of foot.
- ^ Childs 1984, p. 61.
- ^ a b c d e Cruickshanks & Hayden 2002.
- ^ Harris 2007, p. 285.
- ^ Cannon 1849, pp. 2–4.
- ^ Childs 1991, p. 64.
- ^ Childs 1991, pp. 276–277.
- ^ Childs 1991, p. 288.
- ^ Meerts 2014, p. 168.
- ^ Gregg 1980, p. 126.
- ^ McGrath 2012, pp. 123–125.
- ^ Cannon 1838, p. 24.
- ^ Francis 1975, p. 48.
- ^ Dalton 1904, p. xiv.
- ^ Cruickshanks & Harrison 2002.
Sources
- Cannon, Richard (1849). Historical Record of the Twenty-Second, or the Cheshire Regiment of Foot (2015 ed.). Andesite Press. ISBN 1296561828.
- Cannon, Richard (1838). Historical Record of the Second, or the Queen's Royal Regiment of Foot (2017 ed.). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 1977804209.
- Childs, John (1984). "The Scottish brigade in the service of the Dutch Republic, 1689 to 1782". Documentatieblad Werkgroep Achttiende Eeuw. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
- Childs, John (2008). "Belasyse, Sir Henry; 1648–1717". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/66560. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- Childs, John (1991). The Nine Years' War and the British Army, 1688–1697: The Operations in the Low Countries (2013 ed.). Manchester University Press. ISBN 0719089964.
- Childs, John (1994). Chandler, David; Beckett, Ian (eds.). The Restoration Army 1660–1702 in The Oxford History of the British Army (1996 ed.). OUP. ISBN 0192803115.
- "Columbine's regiment of foot". The Spanish Succession. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
- Cruickshanks, Evelyn; Hayden, D (2002). "Belasyse, Sir Henry (c.1648–1717), of Potto, Yorks. and Brancepeth Castle, Co. Durham". The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690–1715. Boydell & Brewer. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
- Cruickshanks, Evelyn; Harrison, Richard (2002). "Belasyse, Richard (c.1670–1729), of Lincoln's Inn and Hampstead, Mdx". The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690–1715. Boydell & Brewer. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
- Dalton, Charles (1904). English army lists and commission registers, 1661–1714, Volume V. Eyre & Spottiswoode.
- Francis, Alan David (1975). First Peninsular War, 1702–13. Ernest Benn Ltd. ISBN 0510002056.
- Gregg, Edward (1980). Queen Anne (Revised) (The English Monarchs Series) (2001 ed.). Yale University Press. ISBN 0300090242.
- Harris, Tim (2007). Revolution; the Great Crisis of the British Monarchy 1685–1720. Penguin. ISBN 978-0141016528.
- McGrath, Charles Ivar (2012). Ireland and Empire, 1692–1770 (Empires in Perspective). Routledge. ISBN 978-1851968961.
- Meerts, Paul Willem (2014). Diplomatic negotiation: Essence and Evolution (PHD). Leiden University.
- Plant, David. "Sir William Lambton's Regiment of Foot". BCW Project. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
- Unknown (1795). An Historical Account of the British Regiments Employed Since the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and King James I in the Formation and Defence of the Dutch Republic Particularly of the Scotch Brigade. T. Kay.