STOURTON, Edward (c. 1644-1720)

Edward, 13th Baron Stourton, succeeded to an unenviable inheritance. The income to be derived from his family estates was small, possibly lower even than that of William and George Knype or Knipe, the Catholic lawyers who had served his father and grandfather as stewards. Wilts Arch. and Nat. Hist. Mag., lix. 170-80. In June 1686 he borrowed £4,000 from John Belasyse, Baron Belasyse, secured against the Stourton property. Within six months he had borrowed another £2,000 from Belasyse. Despite the sale of some of the outlying properties in 1688, his need for cash drove him to borrow still more: £4,000 in 1690 and £3,500 in 1695.

An interesting sidelight on his financial difficulties in this period is shown in a chancery case brought against him by John Bromley in 1695. TNA, E133/27/27. Bromley openly kept an illegal boarding school for young Catholic gentlemen, which he gave up in 1693 to become steward to Stourton. Bromley had hoped for social and economic advancement but soon discovered that Stourton was determined to avoid settling his accounts. Nor was he the first to be treated in such a fashion: one of his witnesses, Stourton’s former steward, George Knype, declared that ‘the defendant since he came to his estate … hath had eight or nine several new stewards and as many if not more bailiffs which his lordship severally turned out or parted with very abruptly and without settling any accounts.’ Thomas Morgan, another former steward, thought Stourton had had ‘about four several stewards at least.’ The problem was simple: expenditure exceeded income and by refusing to pass the accounts Stourton was effectively transferring the deficit from himself to his steward. Those who were determined to pursue him for payment found that he could be a determined opponent, able and willing to use the law to harass his creditors by commencing malicious suits against them. Stourton also refused to pay wages due to his ordinary servants. John Bromley’s brief association with the Stourtons led to financial ruin: no other Catholic family would employ him until the disputed accounts were settled.

Given his inability to draw sufficient income from his estates to maintain an appropriate aristocratic lifestyle, the courses of action open to Stourton were necessarily limited. His chances of preferment or of being able to take on any public role were intrinsically bound up with the future of Catholicism, and hence with the success of the regime of James II. Predictably, therefore, Stourton, unlike the majority of his Protestant neighbours in Wiltshire, responded positively to the three questions. He and other members of leading Catholic families were also mentioned as possible deputy lieutenants and justices of the peace for the county. Duckett, Penal Laws, i. 220-1.

The revolution of 1688 and subsequent exile of James II stripped Stourton of any hope of preferment. Just how far he was prepared to translate his sympathy for the exiled monarch into either political or military action is difficult to assess, but he was clearly believed to pose a risk to the new regime. He was arrested, together with other suspected Jacobite leaders, during the invasion scare of May 1692 and committed to the Tower of London on suspicion of high treason. According to the account of the arrest by Narcissus Luttrell^‡, he was seized in Vine Street, Westminster with his brother Captain Henry Stourton, but this must be an error, since he does not appear to have had a brother called Henry and there is no record of a warrant or commitment of another Stourton. The warrant for Stourton’s arrest was issued on 8 May and executed the same day, which suggests that he was indeed in London. TNA, WO 94/8, 107; PC 2/74, 8 May 1692. Luttrell’s later and entirely accurate list of those imprisoned for the plot, shows that Stourton was still in the Tower on 21 May 1692. Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 458; TNA, WO 94/8, 104-19. Early in June, Luttrell expected Stourton, along with John Churchill, earl (later duke) of Marlborough, Sir John Fenwick^‡, and Robert Ferguson to be indicted for high treason in the king’s bench, but no such action was actually taken and Stourton was probably bailed in the late summer or early autumn. Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 471.

A tantalising reference in the Treasury records of 1698 to a payment of £30 a year ‘for breeding Lord Stourton's young kinsman, a protestant.’ opens up the possibility that his allegiance may have been open to offer, but his marriage to the daughter of Robert Buckenham, equerry to James II and the titular James III, and his eventual departure from England suggests that his ties to the exiled court were indeed strong. CTB, xiii. 75.

Despite Stourton’s desperate attempts to maintain a façade of solvency, he was increasingly unable to service the interest on his debts, let alone pay off the capital. In 1707, the mortgage on the Stourton estate was purchased by Sir Thomas Meres^‡, who also advanced over £2,500 as an additional loan. An Act of Parliament ensuring that title could pass in fee simple was obtained in 1713. In October 1714, Meres bought the estate for £19,400. Almost all of the purchase money was applied to the discharge of the mortgage; Stourton received only £775 19s. 9d. from the sale. Noble Family of Stourton, i. 514. His whereabouts after 1714 are uncertain, but it seems likely that he left the country for France, where he died without issue. Evening Post, 22-5 Oct. 1710. He was succeeded by his brother, Thomas Stourton, 14^th Baron Stourton.