Robert Styward or Steward, last prior and first dean of Ely, fabricated a descent from Sir Alexander Stuart, a ferocious offshoot of the Scottish Royal House. However, it has been suggested that his real ancestry involved a promotion from the keeping of pigs to the holding of manorial courts. A minor gentry family in late medieval Norfolk, their fortune, as well as their pedigree, was made by the time-serving prior, who assigned generous tracts of dean and chapter lands within the Isle of Ely to numerous relatives. Steward himself has often been confused with his cousin and namesake (died 1630), a minor poet and son of Dr. Nicholas Steward*.
Steward’s father, a servant of the 3rd marquess of Winchester, was returned to the Commons in 1589 for St. Ives, Cornwall, but only gained the full income from his main manor of Stuntney, Cambridgeshire, worth £400 p.a., by excluding the claims of his niece, Lady Jermy to one-third of the estate. Sir Simeon, who later declared himself ‘equally dependent on both universities’, graduated at Oxford but then resided at Trinity Hall, Cambridge until his father’s death in 1604. He scarcely had time to prove the will before Lady Jermy introduced a private bill into the Commons designed to overturn the Chancery decree which had disallowed her claim to Stuntney. Sir Robert Wroth I reported it from the committee on 11 June 1604 as ‘unworthy to be proceeded in, and ... preferred for vexation’, and it was rejected by the House.
Steward was returned for the Dorset borough of Shaftesbury in 1614 to fill a vacancy created when another Cambridgeshire man, Sir Miles Sandys, 1st bt.*, chose to sit for Cambridge University. His election hints at an electoral bargain brokered by Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Suffolk, lord lieutenant of both Dorset and Cambridgeshire as well as chancellor of the university. It seems unlikely that Dr. Nicholas Steward, who represented the university in the previous Parliament, played some part in securing his nephew a seat as Sir Simeon was not on particularly good terms with his uncle, having just lost a Chancery suit protracted ‘by reason of Sir Simeon’s absence in Ireland’ and ‘his great business (as he pretended) as sheriff’.
Steward’s presence in the House doubtless helped to ensure that Lady Jermy ‘stirred not’. He left no trace on the records of the opening weeks of the session, which he may have missed, but played a significant part in the latter stages of the session. On 7 May he was among those ordered to consider a bill for highway repair, while in his maiden speech four days later, he opposed the issue of a writ for a fresh election at Stockbridge on the grounds that it was Sir Thomas Parry* rather than the returning officer who had been at fault; but the decision went against him.
Steward continued his attempts to play a conciliatory role in a divided House even after Members were affronted by Bishop Neile’s accusation that the Commons was being disloyal by reviving the earlier dispute over impositions. The House asked the Lords for an explanation of this speech, and ceased all other business pending a reply; the peers (predictably) stood by one of their own Members, and on 30 May Steward moved to go to the king for assistance, and for the Commons to resume its business agenda, ‘but with small comfort, even as a young man might go woo a modest widow while she has tears in her eyes for her lost husband’. It was ultimately decided to give the Upper House another chance to clarify the matter, but this merely allowed the peers to exonerate Neile from causing any offence, a clear rebuff to the Commons. This proved the last straw for Steward, who objected on 2 June that ‘by the Lords’ answer we were now taxed not only in our loyalties but in our discretions’. He moved to complain to both king and Lords, but clearly had little expectation of success from either quarter, as he urged the House ‘to right ourselves by our own power, as far as we had any precedents’. He was named to the committee to consider further action over their dispute (1 June), and was one of those who moved to sit on the following day, Ascension Day, to resolve this crisis, but the vote went against him.
Having reached an agreement with his own tenants over common rights, Steward seems to have taken the side of the commoners over fen drainage, which brought him into conflict with Sir Miles Sandys, one of the leading adventurers. In 1619 the Privy Council was informed that he, his cousin Sir Thomas Steward and another magistrate, ‘being moved out of particular ends and affecting popularity, have infused into the ears of the inhabitants of those parts that, if they had not interposed themselves of late for the good of their country, their commons had been taken away and their navigation overthrown’. However, the assize judges exonerated them, certifying that the charges were without foundation, and had been brought on personal grounds. In the following year both Steward and Sandys were ordered to attend the Council to answer further questions about drainage.
In around 1620 Steward married the sister of Sir Thomas Monson*, ‘a woman of wit, but of a masculine spirit, [and] a too great lover of sack as she grew in years’. She was also a Catholic convert and, as the marriage had been performed secretly by a popish priest, Steward was unable to prove that they were husband and wife when she changed her mind and disowned him. With recusancy high on the political agenda, Steward seems to have chosen not to stand for election to the 1621 Parliament. His absence from the Commons persuaded Lady Jermy to revive her estate bill, which was ‘by the committee found to be so frivolous that although the Parliament continued six months after it was never so much as reported’.
At the general election of 1624 Steward stood for Cambridgeshire with Sir Edward Peyton*. They were returned on the view, but their rivals, Sir John Cutts* and Tobie Palavicino, demanded a poll, which was refused.
Steward was reported to be standing for Cambridge University at the 1625 general election, but his candidature was opposed by the heads of the colleges, and the university returned two privy councillors instead.
During the recess Steward was fined £50 for ‘an error rather than any wilful misdemeanour’ in the impressment cause, while the other charges were dismissed, having been brought ‘rather out of malice and evil will than upon any just ground’. Lady Jermy’s bill received yet another first reading on 11 Feb. 1629, but got no further. Eight days later he spoke in the debate on the distraint of the goods of the MP John Rolle* by customs officials: ‘are we fit to determine and debate anything?’ he asked. ‘We cannot defend our liberties as all courts do in the like case. To make them [the customs officials] first to know they have offended our liberties, so shall they know better they have offended against the commonwealth’.
Steward died intestate on 10 Feb. 1632; his son died two years later, and the estate passed to his grandson, Thomas. He was the last of the Stuntney branch of the family to sit in Parliament.