Robert Molesworth, 1st Viscount Molesworth
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Robert Molesworth, 1st Viscount Molesworth PC
Privy Council of Ireland
The Privy Council of Ireland was an institution of the Kingdom of Ireland until 31 December 1800 and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 1801-1922...

 (7 September 1656 – 22 May 1725) came of an old Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...

 family. He married Letitia Coote, daughter of Richard Coote, 1st Lord Coote of Coloony and Mary St. George.

His father Robert (d. 1656) was a Cromwellian
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

 who made a fortune in Dublin, largely by provisioning Cromwell's army; Robert Molesworth the younger supported William of Orange
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...

 and was made William's ambassador to Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

. In 1695 he became a prominent member of the Privy Council of Ireland
Privy Council of Ireland
The Privy Council of Ireland was an institution of the Kingdom of Ireland until 31 December 1800 and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 1801-1922...

. The same year he stood for Dublin County
Dublin County (Parliament of Ireland constituency)
Dublin County was a constituency represented in the Irish House of Commons to 1801.-History:In the Patriot Parliament of 1689 summoned by King James II, Dublin County was represented with two members.-1692–1801:...

 in the Irish House of Commons
Irish House of Commons
The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland, that existed from 1297 until 1800. The upper house was the House of Lords...

, a seat he held until 1703. Subsequently he represented Swords
Swords (Parliament of Ireland constituency)
Swords was a constituency represented in the Irish House of Commons to 1801.-1692–1801:...

 until 1715. In the following year, he was created Viscount Molesworth, of Swords, in the Peerage of Ireland
Peerage of Ireland
The Peerage of Ireland is the term used for those titles of nobility created by the English and later British monarchs of Ireland in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland. The creation of such titles came to an end in the 19th century. The ranks of the Irish peerage are Duke, Marquess, Earl,...

.

Molesworth's An Account of Denmark, as it was in the Year 1692 (published 1694) was somewhat influential the burgeoning field of political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

 in the period. He made a case for comparative political analysis, comparing the political situation of a country to the health of an individual; a disease, he reasoned, can only be diagnosed by comparing it to its instantiation in other people (Thompson, 495).

Life and career

Robert Molesworth, was born two days after his fathers' death on 9 September 1656. He was probably raised by his mothers' family at Brackenstown. His grandfather, John Bysse
John Bysse
John Bysse was a member of the Parliament of Ireland during the 1630s and 1640s, was excluded from office during the Interregnum and was one of the leading Irish judges after the restoration of the monarchy.-Biography:...

, rose to become Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer under Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

. In 1675, Robert graduated from Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

 with a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

. On 15 August 1676, shortly before his 20th birthday, he was married in Dublin to Letitia Coote, third daughter of Richard Coote (1620–1683), 1st Baron Colooney, and Mary St. George, daughter of George St. George, Deputy Admiral of Connaught
Connacht
Connacht , formerly anglicised as Connaught, is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the west of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for...

. Letitia's brother Richard was created Earl of Bellomont and served as Governor of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 and New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

 for William III
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...

 from 1697 until his sudden death in 1701. Robert and Letitia Molesworth subsequently settled at the Bysse
Bysse
The Bysse family were prominent in the Dublin legal world in the seventeenth century and were substantial landowners; their main seat was Brackenstown House near Swords and they had a town house at Preston's Inn, the site of the present City Hall. The most notable member of the family was John...

 seat, Brackenstown House, where according to a letter of 1721 Letitia bore seventeen children, nine of whom were still living at the time.

On 7 May 1689, young Molesworth, an active supporter of the Williamites, was attainted by King James II's
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...

 Catholic-dominated Irish Parliament. His estate, valued at £2825 per annum, was duly confiscated. James had succeeded his brother Charles II as king of England, Ireland and Scotland early in 1685. Although initially fearful of alienating English and Irish Protestant opinion, James came under the influence of the Catholic Earl of Tyrconnell and determined to make the island of Ireland a Catholic stronghold. Tyrconnell also secured the king's agreement to revise the 1662 Act of Settlement
Act of Settlement 1662
The Act of Settlement 1662 passed by the Irish Parliament in Dublin. It was a partial reversal of the Cromwellian Act of Settlement 1652, which punished Irish Catholics and Royalists for fighting against the English Parliament in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms by the wholesale confiscation of their...

, which had confirmed many of the leading Cromwellian
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

 planters in their estates. Over the course of the next two years, war raged across Ireland between the rival armies of James II and the Dutch Protestant, William of Orange, who had usurped the throne of England in 1688. The decisive victory of the Williamite forces at the battle of the Boyne
Battle of the Boyne
The Battle of the Boyne was fought in 1690 between two rival claimants of the English, Scottish and Irish thronesthe Catholic King James and the Protestant King William across the River Boyne near Drogheda on the east coast of Ireland...

 in 1690, and the battle of Aughrim
Battle of Aughrim
The Battle of Aughrim was the decisive battle of the Williamite War in Ireland. It was fought between the Jacobites and the forces of William III on 12 July 1691 , near the village of Aughrim in County Galway....

 in 1691, confirmed the new Protestant monarchy and finally secured New English interests in Ireland. The age of the Protestant Ascendancy had begun.

Robert Molesworth, an ardent Whig, became a prominent figure in the new Williamite administration. Contemporaries acknowledged his opinions on politics and economy with considerable respect. From July 1689 to December 1692 he served as British Ambassador to the Court of Denmark
Denmark–Norway
Denmark–Norway is the historiographical name for a former political entity consisting of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, including the originally Norwegian dependencies of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands...

, during which time he wrote a spirited attack on Danish absolutism in a treatise entitled An Account of Denmark as it was in the Year 1692. From 1695 to 1698 he stood as Whig MP in both the English and Irish Parliaments, representing Camelford
Camelford
Camelford is a town and civil parish in north Cornwall, United Kingdom, situated in the River Camel valley northwest of Bodmin Moor. The town is approximately ten miles north of Bodmin and is governed by Camelford Town Council....

 and Dublin City
Dublin City (Parliament of Ireland constituency)
Dublin City was a constituency represented in the Irish House of Commons to 1801.-History:In the Patriot Parliament of 1689 summoned by King James II, Dublin City was represented with two members. In the 1760s the radical politician Charles Lucas used the seat as his political base.-1689–1801:...

 respectively. In August 1697, he was appointed to the Irish Privy Council, an effective cabinet charged with the governance of Ireland and the introduction of the "Penal Laws". From 1703 to 1715 he represented Swords as MP in the Irish Parliament. Between November 1714 and December 1715 he served in the fruitful post of Commissioner of Trade and Plantations.

On 16 July 1716, Robert was advanced to the Irish peerage as Baron of Phillipstown and Viscount Molesworth of Swords "in reward for his steadfast adherence to the House of Hanover". He took his seat as such on 1 July 1719. In his later years he established the "Molesworth Circle", a group of eminent scientists, philosophers and thinkers who met at Brackenstown and are said to have introduced the spread of "politeness" in 18th century Ireland. Molesworth himself earned the respect of Sir Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...

 when he invented a chronometer for calculating longitude. Other members of this Whig-minded intellectual circle included Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson
Francis Hutcheson
Francis Hutcheson may refer to:*Francis Hutcheson *Francis Hutcheson -See also:*Frank Hutchison, blues musician*Francis Hutchinson, British clergyman...

, James Arbuckle
James Arbuckle
James Arbuckle was an Irish poet and critic, associated politically with Presbyterianism and Whiggism.His birthplace was possibly Belfast, but he was the son of a Presbyterian minister in Dublin, and educated at Glasgow University, where his studies were disrupted by his struggles against...

, John Toland
John Toland
John Toland was a rationalist philosopher and freethinker, and occasional satirist, who wrote numerous books and pamphlets on political philosophy and philosophy of religion, which are early expressions of the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment...

 and Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...

. Molesworth's pamphlet Considerations on the Agriculture and Employment of the Poor of Ireland prompted Swift to address the last of his celebrated Drapier's Letters to Molesworth in 1724.

When the so-called South Sea Bubble burst in 1720, the 1st Viscount was perhaps the most vehement of those seeking vengeance against the company directors. He and his grandson, Robert Molesworth, had invested heavily in the company. He advised that, as no law existed for punishing such companies, the government "ought upon this occasion follow the example of the ancient Romans, who, having no law against parricide, because their legislators supposed no son could be so unnaturally wicked as to embrue his hands in his father's blood, made a law to punish this heinous crime as soon as it was committed. They adjudged the guilty wretch to be sewn into a sack and thrown alive into the Tiber". The Whig statesman declared that he would be quite "satisfied to see [the South-Sea Company directors] tied in like manner in sacks, and thrown into the Thames."

The Molesworths had eight sons and five daughters. The 1st Viscount died in Dublin on 22 May 1725 at the age of sixty-nine and was buried in Swords. His widow, Letitia, died "of a great cold" on St Patrick's Day 1729 and was buried privately in St. Audoen's Church
St. Audoen's Church
St. Audoen's Church is the church of the parish of St. Audoen in the Church of Ireland, located south of the River Liffey at Cornmarket in Dublin, Ireland. This was close to the centre of the medieval city. The parish is in the Diocese of Dublin and Glendalough. St. Audoen's is the oldest parish...

Dublin. Their eldest son, John, succeeded as 2nd Viscount Molesworth in 1725.
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