Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stewart, Robert (d.1670?)
STEWART, Sir ROBERT (d. 1670?), governor of Londonderry, reputed to have been the younger brother of Sir William Stewart (d. 1662) [see under Stewart, Sir William, first Viscount Mountjoy], in which case he was the third son of Archibald Stewart of Bardye, and other places in the parish of Whithorn, Wigtonshire (cf. Lodge, Peerage, vi. 243; M'Kerlie, Lands and Owners in Galloway, i. 481–4); but the grounds of identification are insufficient, and there is reason to connect him with Patrick Stewart, second earl of Orkney [q. v.] He apparently accompanied James I, to whom, if this latter conjecture is correct, he was not very distantly related, to England in 1603, and was granted letters of denization on 3 July 1604 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1603–10, p. 127). In 1609 he was appointed to conduct eight hundred swordsmen, followers of the fugitive Hugh O'Neill, second earl of Tyrone [q. v.]—whose presence in Ulster was deemed by the government likely to interfere with the success of the plantation of that province—out of Ireland into Sweden. He sailed from Lough Swilly with three vessels in October; but whether he reached his destination is doubtful, for towards the end of November he was arrested in London for debt, at the instance of one Lesly, executor of Lord Lindores. Salisbury, in notifying the fact to Sir Thomas Lake, adds that three vessels, with Irishmen on board, had arrived at Newcastle (ib. p. 564). The debt amounted to the considerable sum of 2,500l., and notwithstanding the personal exertions of the king, who was himself involved in the matter, and a grant to Stewart of ‘tops and lops’ in the royal parks, the matter was still unsettled in July 1611, when James, acting on the advice of Sir Alexander Hay, allowed Stewart to enter the service of Gustavus Adolphus. He left England early in August, and, proceeding through Denmark, endeavoured, though unsuccessfully, to enlist James's intervention in the settlement of the differences existing between that kingdom and Sweden (ib. 1611–13, pp. 51, 66, 98).
Stewart remained abroad apparently till about 1617, in which year, on 24 July, he received, as a recompense for his faithful and acceptable services, a grant of lands in the counties of Leitrim, Cavan, and Fermanagh, to the value of 100l. a year. After a time, however, being of an adventurous spirit, he again repaired abroad, serving this time apparently under Sigismund III, king of Poland, in whose interest he undertook in 1623 to raise eight thousand volunteers in Scotland (Register of the Privy Council Scotland, xiii. 364). That his promise did not remain altogether a dead letter appears from some correspondence between Secretary Conway and Viscount Annandale in March 1624 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1623–5, pp. 183, 192); but of his career abroad information is restricted to incidental reference (Monro his Expedition, pt. ii. p. 13) to the effect that a certain Captain Robert Stewart came over to Germany as lieutenant-colonel in a regiment of Scots volunteers commanded by Colonel James Lumsden [q. v.], ‘having served at first as ensign and lieutenant to Captain Mackenzie under this regiment, and then after came again unto Spruce, captain under Sir John Hamilton's regiment, in May 1629. And was preferred after the intaking of Virtzberg, having been before at the battle of Leipsigh’ (cf. also Grant, Memoirs of Sir John Hepburn, p. 154). On 26 April 1636 Chancellor Oxenstjerna applied to Charles I for permission for Stewart to enlist troops in England for service in Germany (Clarendon State Papers, i. 516), and on 15 May 1637 Charles granted him a warrant to take up in Ireland and transport four hundred volunteers for the service of the crown of Sweden (Lodge, Peerage).
On 11 April 1638 Stewart was appointed governor of Culmore Castle on Lough Foyle, commanding the approach by sea to Londonderry, of which city he was on 25 Feb. returned a member to the Irish parliament which met in 1639. After the outbreak of the rebellion of 1641 he received a commission, dated 16 Nov., from Charles I to raise and command a thousand foot and a troop of horse for his majesty's service. But before the commission arrived he and Sir William Stewart had got together a thousand men, with which they managed to relieve Captain Audley Mervyn at Augher, and, though they were unable to prevent Strabane falling into the hands of Sir Phelim O'Neill [q. v.], their efforts were entirely successful in securing the barony of Raphoe, ‘in which the safety of the city of Londonderry was highly concerned’ (Mervyn, Relation). Not, however, receiving any support either from England or the government at Dublin, Stewart was forced to exhaust his own resources, and in the following spring his men were reduced to great extremities. Nevertheless he and Sir William Stewart on 16 June inflicted a severe defeat, ‘after the sharpest action that had been fought in the north,’ on Sir Phelim O'Neill at Glenmaquin, near Raphoe, though want of provisions disabled them from profiting by their victory. The merit of the action seems to have rested mainly with Stewart.
Early in the following year, 1643, Stewart was, on the death of Sir John Vaughan, appointed governor of Londonderry, in addition to his charge at Culmore. He was superseded next year by Colonel Audley Mervyn; but in the meanwhile the appointment did not prevent him acting, so far as circumstances allowed, on the offensive. In May he made an excursion as far as the borders of co. Monaghan, capturing a number of prisoners, and burning the enemy's quarters. Returning in June, he surprised Owen Roe O'Neill [q. v.], at the head of about sixteen hundred men, in the neighbourhood of Clones. His force greatly outnumbered that of O'Neill, but the conflict was a desperate one. The Irish were defeated with serious loss, ‘most of their arms being taken, and the greatest part of the foreign officers which came with Owen O'Neill killed or taken prisoners.’ Want of provisions and ammunition, however, again prevented Stewart improving his victory, and, after capturing the castle of Denge and ravaging the country round about Dungannon, Charlemont, and Kinard, he returned to his headquarters. His position, always one of great difficulty, became extremely uncomfortable after the arrival of orders for the Scots Army under Robert Monro (d. 1680?) [q. v.]—called the New Scots, in order to distinguish them from the army of the Scottish planters—to take the covenant and the proclamation of the lords justices of 18 Dec. condemning it. Unwilling at first to cut themselves off from all assistance from Scotland, Stewart and the other royalist commanders refrained from publishing the proclamation; but, after meeting at Belfast on 2 Jan. 1644 to consider the situation, they agreed not to accept the covenant. Matters after this remained in an uncertain state till the beginning of April, when a number of kirk ministers arrived with instructions to enforce the taking of the covenant. Stewart continued obdurately opposed to it, and, though most of his officers were seduced by Sir Frederick Hamilton, he bravely read the lords justices' proclamation against it at the head of his regiment. But after the appointment of Monro with a commission from the parliament of England on 27 April to the chief command of all the English as well as Scottish forces in Ulster, he gave way, and at a meeting of ministers at Coleraine publicly took the covenant, saying, ‘Now I will be as arrant a covenanter as any of you’ (Adair, True Narrative, pp. 113–17).
After this step his difficulties perceptibly diminished. On 7 Feb. 1645 the committee of both kingdoms ordered provisions to be at once despatched to Lough Swilly for him and Sir William Stewart, and on 8 Oct., in consequence of his capture of Sligo Castle, of which he was in June appointed governor, passed him a vote of thanks for his good services. As a result of Monro's precipitancy in fighting Owen O'Neill, Stewart arrived too late on the scene of action to take part in the battle of Benburb on 5 June 1646. He had reached Augher when he heard of O'Neill's advance after the victory, and, immediately decamping in the night, made good his retreat to Derry, leaving ‘Mac Art but an old drum and two or three muskets.’ When Sir Charles Coote (afterwards Earl of Mountrath) [q. v.] in 1648 succeeded to the government of Londonderry, Stewart, who loyally adhered to Charles, refused to obey him, and from his position at Culmore seriously obstructed the approaches to the city. On 28 Feb. Warwick, writing to Michael Jones [q. v.] in the name of the committee, warned him to observe him narrowly, as his behaviour ‘looked with a face of danger,’ and on 4 Nov. Coote and Monck were instructed to take measures to secure him and certain others ‘who, we are informed, will certainly serve the king's interest.’ Coote laid his plan well, and immediately on receiving his instructions inveigled him to Londonderry, arrested him, and sent him prisoner to London. He was committed on parole to the custody of Mr. Morgan at the ‘Wheatsheaf,’ and on 8 Jan. 1649 it was resolved to try him by a council of war; but a week or two later he managed to escape. On 14 May he received a royal commission appointing him, in the event of Viscount Montgomery of the Ardes declining the charge, to the command of the five regiments in the north of Ireland, and twelve days later he joined the besieging army before Londonderry. In obedience to his instructions Sligo Castle surrendered on 7 July to the Marquis of Clanricarde, and on 23 Aug. he gave his vote at a council of war for defending Drogheda.
After the collapse of the royalist cause in Ireland Stewart seems to have retired to Scotland. He was excepted from pardon for life and estate by the act of 12 Aug. 1652 for the settlement of Ireland. At the Restoration he was on 6 Feb. 1660 given a company of foot, and six days later reappointed governor of Londonderry, city and county, ‘in consideration of his many services performed to King Charles I, and the good affection expressed by him in the late troubles in Ireland, in his arming and maintaining a regiment of foot and a troop of horse at his own charge in the service of the said king.’ He resigned or was superseded on 17 Sept. 1661 by Colonel John Gorges. On 22 May 1662 he was appointed a trustee for the '49 officers, and seems to have retained his position as governor of the fort of Culmore till the close of 1670, in which year he is conjectured to have died.
There seems reason to believe that he never married; but if Lodge is correct in making him the brother of Sir William Stewart, he married Helen m'Kie, daughter of John M'Kie of Palgown, by whom he had issue George, who succeeded him, and married Elizabeth, daughter of James Blair of Dunskey; and Agnes, who married William Houston of Cutreoch.
[Lodge's Peerage, ed. Archdall, vi. 243–5; McKerlie's Hist. of Lands and their Owners in Galloway, i. 481–4; Cal. State Papers, Dom. (in addition to references already given), 1645 p. 183, 1647–8 pp. 22, 318, 327, 1649–50 p. 526; Cal. State Papers, Ireland, James I, iii. 272, 292, 296; Carte's Life of Ormonde, i. 188, 309–10, 350, 366–7, 433–4, 487, 491, 493, 530, 535, ii. 59–60; Gilbert's Contemporary Hist. of Affairs, i. 111, 471, 565, 672, 686, 763–4, ii. 230, iii. 157, 199, 342; Hill's Montgomery MSS. pp. 157, 182; Cal. Clarendon State Papers, ii. 11; Gilbert's Hist. of the Confederation, iv. 353, vii. 120, 224; Manuscripts of Marquis of Ormonde, i. 89, 92–5; Hempton's Siege and Hist. of Londonderry, p. 342; Larcom's Survey of the County of Londonderry, pp. 44, 45, 79, 81, 240; Official Return of Members of Parliament, Ireland.]