WIDDRINGTON, William (1656-95)

While the 2nd Baron Widdrington had been able to maintain an active public life in the 1660s and early 1670s despite his Catholicism, his son’s adherence to the old faith limited his opportunity to participate in politics. His first opportunity to take his seat came in the session beginning 15 Feb. 1677, but he did not do so immediately, instead registering his proxy on 6 Mar. with Henry Cavendish, 2nd duke of Newcastle. He attended for the first time on 21 May 1677 and sat in all but one of the meetings of that convening of Parliament before it was adjourned once again until January 1678. He attended less than half of the sitting days of the House when it reconvened in the first months of 1678, during which time he was named to three committees. He sat for the last time on 18 March, and in the next two sessions of 1678 his proxy was held by his fellow Catholic James, duke of York, registered on 13 June and 22 Oct. respectively. It is not surprising then that Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, condemned him as a ‘Papist’ and considered him ‘triply vile’. At the very end of 1678, after the passage of the Test Act which barred him from participation in the House, Widdrington received a pass to travel overseas with his wife and father-in-law. CSP Dom. 1678, p. 621. They were back in England by October 1681, as a correspondent of Newcastle recounted that he had gone to wait on the Lords Fairfax and Widdrington, and later that month Widdrington himself presented the loyal address from Northumberland to the king. CSP Dom. 1680–1, p. 487; HMC Buccleuch, i. 334.

Under James II Widdrington was favoured and protected; ecclesiastical court proceedings against him and his family were stopped and he was dispensed by order of the king from taking the oath of allegiance. In 1686 he was made a justice of the peace for both Lincolnshire and Northumbria – the two counties where his family had their principal landholdings – and was also given the important military command of governor of Berwick-on-Tweed, a post that members of his family had held since the Restoration. TNA, PC 2/71, pp. 369, 371; CSP Dom. 1686–7, pp. 66–68, 210, 393. Contemporaries considered him to be one of the Catholic lords who would support the repeal of the Test Act. He held Berwick for James II as long as he could during William of Orange’s invasion, but with most of the rest of the north declaring for William by mid-December, Widdrington acceded to the demand of Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds), to surrender, and handed the Berwick garrison over to his lieutenant colonel, Rupert Billingsley, on 16 December 1688. Eg. 3336, ff. 73, 77–78; HMC 11th Rep. VII, 28–29.

Widdrington’s movements after the Revolution are difficult to trace. A newsletter writer asserted that he had fled to France with his family as early as 16 Jan. 1689. He may have gone abroad to establish his children in the Catholic country, for his son and heir, William Widdrington, later 4th Baron Widdrington, and his brothers were educated at the Jesuit Collège de Louis-le-Grand in Paris during the 1690s. Beinecke Lib. Osborn mss, fb 210, ff. 333–4; CSP Dom. 1689–90, p. 375; L. Gooch, The Desperate Faction? The Jacobites of North-east England, 17. Widdrington himself appears to have returned to England shortly thereafter, for in April 1689 a royal agent told Charles Talbot, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, that a group of horsemen 70 to 80 strong had been seen congregating at Widdrington’s house in Northumbria and at the residence of his neighbour (and fellow Catholic) Francis Radclyffe, earl of Derwentwater. At one point Widdrington himself was seen leaving his house with 16 armed horsemen. CSP Dom. 1689–90, p. 71.

In September 1689 Widdrington responded to a request from the government for an assessment of his personal estate with the comment that ‘my personal estate will not by far pay my debts’. Chatsworth, Halifax Collection B.68. Ironically, the French themselves did more harm to Widdrington’s finances than the English government ever did. In July 1691 a French privateer employed in supporting the intended invasion of that summer landed on the Northumbrian coast and sacked the nearest available noble house – which happened to be Widdrington Castle. The castle was plundered and many of the outlying houses and cottages burnt; the damage cost about £6,000. The French captain later apologized to Widdrington, claiming that he only realized that he was sacking a Catholic household after he had examined the booty he had taken aboard. Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 269, 435, 627; Gooch, Desperate Faction, 32. Some suspected that this was an elaborate ploy to transfer money safely – up to £40,000 by one estimate – from Widdrington’s castle to the Jacobite cause in France for whom it was intended. Verney ms mic. M636/45, Sir R. to J. Verney, 3 Aug. 1691.

On 3 Dec. 1691 Widdrington, as executor of the will of Sir William Stanley, petitioned that Stanley’s second cousin William Richard George Stanley, 9th earl of Derby, be made to waive his privilege so that evidence and depositions concerning the will could be taken in chancery. Widdrington claimed that he was obliged by the terms of the will to secure several years’ worth of arrears of an annuity of £600 that was due to Stanley from Derby’s estate. The committee for privileges found in favour of Widdrington on 15 Dec. despite Derby’s claim that Widdrington and others in his Catholic coterie had obtained the will from Sir William by subterfuge in his last delirious moments. HMC Lords, iii. 346–7. Derby continued to find ways of avoiding payment and in his own will Widdrington entrusted his executors, his father-in-law Fairfax and his uncle Ralph Widdrington^‡, with the responsibility of obtaining the annuity and paying Stanley’s debts. HMC Lords, n.s. ii. 536, n.s. iii. 99.

Widdrington died on 10 Feb. 1695, apparently in France, for his death is noted in a list of ‘Englishmen in France with king James’. Add. 46527, f. 54; CSP Dom. 1689–90, pp. 375–6 (misdated in this volume). By his will his executors were also entrusted to provide for his six children out of the income from his estates in Northumberland and Lincolnshire with annuities worth £750 for his sons and marriage portions totalling £5,000 for his three daughters. All of his children followed their father in the Catholic faith: one daughter became a nun in Paris in 1701, while the other two married into solidly Catholic northern families (the Langdales and the Townleys), and all three of his sons were leaders of the northern Catholic troops in the Jacobite rising of 1715. At the 3rd Baron’s death the title passed to the eldest of these three sons, William, then about 16 years old. CSP Dom. 1689–90, pp. 375–6.