Mountjoy Blount, 1st Earl of Newport
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Peerage of England
The Peerage of England comprises all peerages created in the Kingdom of England before the Act of Union in 1707. In that year, the Peerages of England and Scotland were replaced by one Peerage of Great Britain....
(1627) and Earl of Newport
Earl of Newport
Earl of Newport, in the Isle of Wight, was a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1628 for Mountjoy Blount, 1st Baron Mountjoy, an illegitimate son of Charles Blount, 1st Earl of Devonshire...
(1628) was appointed master of ordnance to Charles I of England
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
(1634) and played an ambiguous part in the early years of the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
.
He was the natural son of Charles Blount, Earl of Devonshire and Penelope, Lady Rich
Penelope Blount, Countess of Devonshire
Penelope Rich, Lady Rich, later styled Penelope Blount, Countess of Devonshire was an English noblewoman...
; his father left him a plentiful estate, and he was a member of James I
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
's court, who played in a masque
Masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...
before the king mounted by Viscount Doncaster at Essex House
Essex House (London)
Essex House was a house in London, built around 1575 for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and originally called Leicester House.The property occupied the site where the Outer Temple, part of the London headquarters of the Knights Templar, had previously stood , and was immediately adjacent to the...
, 8 January 1620/21, was among the entourage of the Earl of Carlisle, employed to offer excuses at the court of Louis XIII, for the passage of Prince Charles
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
through Paris incognito on his way to Spain at the time of negotiations towards the ill-starred "Spanish Match
Spanish Match
The Spanish Match was a proposed marriage between Prince Charles, the son of King James I of England, and Infanta Maria Anna of Spain, the daughter of Philip III of Spain...
". In July 1627 he was created Earl of Newport in the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
; Newport, as he now was, held a rear-admiral's command in the ineffective expedition to relieve La Rochelle
Siege of La Rochelle
The Siege of La Rochelle was a result of a war between the French royal forces of Louis XIII of France and the Huguenots of La Rochelle in 1627-1628...
in August 1628, for which he was petitioning for payment in the following years.
His appointment as Master of Ordnance for his lifetime was granted 31 August 1634; as was expected in the seventeenth century, he derived a tidy fortune from the position. From his sale of gunpowder at exorbitant prices, through the Spanish ambassador, to supply the Spanish fleet attacking Dutch forces in September 1639, he pocketed £1000, and the King, £5000. On his own account he bargained with the ambassador to land soldiers from the Spanish fleet at Dunkirk, at thirty shillings a head, though public neutrality had been enjoined by Charles.
Though at Christmas 1639, Newport participated with the King in the extravagant masque
Masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...
on the theme of Philogenes, royal "lover of the People", with the return of the Long Parliament
Long Parliament
The Long Parliament was made on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its dissolution until after the English Civil War and...
the next year, Newport by degrees joined the forces of opposition in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
.
The turning point came during the trial of Strafford
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford was an English statesman and a major figure in the period leading up to the English Civil War. He served in Parliament and was a supporter of King Charles I. From 1632 to 1639 he instituted a harsh rule as Lord Deputy of Ireland...
in 1641, when Col. Lord Goring
George Goring, Lord Goring
George Goring, Lord Goring was an English Royalist soldier. He was known by the courtesy title Lord Goring as the eldest son of the 1st Earl of Norwich.- The Goring family :...
had revealed to Newport an amateurish plot of Royalist officers at Portsmouth to take London by surprise, seize the Tower and somehow rescue the king. Goring betrayed the plot to Newport, who passed on the information to John Pym
John Pym
John Pym was an English parliamentarian, leader of the Long Parliament and a prominent critic of James I and then Charles I.- Early life and education :...
, who brought it forward at the most dramatic and opportune moment, sealing Strafford's fate in the bill of attainder
Bill of attainder
A bill of attainder is an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a judicial trial.-English law:...
.
When the Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
broke out, however, Newport served in the royalist army, and took part in the second battle of Newbury in 1644. In January 1646 he was taken prisoner and confined in London on parole. He had on 7 February 1626 married Ann Boteler, daughter of John Boteler, 1st Baron Boteler of Bramfield, by whom he had eight children:
- Charles Blount (bur. 23 April 1631)
- Lady Henrietta Maria Blount (bapt. 16 September 1632 – bur. 1 April 1634)
- Charles Blount, Lord Blount (bapt. 10 January 1634), died young
- Lady Isabella Blount, married Nicholas Knollys and had issue
- Lady Anne Blount (1637–?), married Maj. Thomas Porter and had issue
- Mountjoy Blount, 2nd Earl of Newport (bur. 20 March 1675), called by some sources George
- Thomas Blount, 3rd Earl of Newport (bur. 4 May 1675)
- Henry Blount, 4th Earl of Newport (bur. 25 September 1679)
He died at Oxford, where he had gone to avoid the plague, leaving three surviving sons, all "idiots". The earldom became extinct upon the death of the youngest, Henry, in 1679.