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Edward Teach (alternatively spelled Edward Thatch,  – 22 November 1718), better known as <mask>, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. Little is known about his early life, but he may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne's War before he settled on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop that he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition to their fleet of two more ships, one of which was commanded by Stede Bonnet; but Hornigold retired from piracy toward the end of 1717, taking two vessels with him. Teach captured a French slave ship known as La Concorde, renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge, equipped her with 40 guns, and crewed her with over 300 men. He became a renowned pirate, his nickname derived from his thick black beard and fearsome appearance; he was reported to have tied lit fuses (slow matches) under his hat to frighten his enemies. He formed an alliance of pirates and blockaded the port of Charles Town, South Carolina, ransoming the port's inhabitants.He then ran Queen Anne's Revenge aground on a sandbar near Beaufort, North Carolina. He parted company with Bonnet and settled in Bath, North Carolina, also known as Bath Town, where he accepted a royal pardon. But he was soon back at sea, where he attracted the attention of Alexander Spotswood, the Governor of Virginia. Spotswood arranged for a party of soldiers and sailors to capture him; on 22 November 1718 following a ferocious battle Teach and several of his crew were killed by a small force of sailors led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard. Teach was a shrewd and calculating leader who spurned the use of violence, relying instead on his fearsome image to elicit the response that he desired from those whom he robbed. He was romanticized after his death and became the inspiration for an archetypal pirate in works of fiction across many genres. Early life
Little is known about Blackbeard's early life.It is commonly believed that at the time of his death he was between 35 and 40 years old and thus born in about 1680. In contemporary records his name is most often given as <mask>, Edward Thatch or Edward Teach; the latter is most often used. Several spellings of his surname exist—Thatch, Thach, Thache, Thack, Tack, Thatche and Theach. One early source claims that his surname was Drummond, but the lack of any supporting documentation makes this unlikely. Pirates habitually used fictitious surnames while engaged in piracy, so as not to tarnish the family name, and this makes it unlikely that Teach's real name will ever be known. The 17th-century rise of Britain's American colonies and the rapid 18th-century expansion of the Atlantic slave trade had made Bristol an important international sea port, and Teach was most likely raised in what was then the second-largest city in England. He could almost certainly read and write; he communicated with merchants and when killed had in his possession a letter addressed to him by the Chief Justice and Secretary of the Province of Carolina, Tobias Knight.The author Robert Lee speculated that Teach may therefore have been born into a respectable, wealthy family. He may have arrived in the Caribbean in the last years of the 17th century, on a merchant vessel (possibly a slave ship). The 18th-century author Charles Johnson claimed that Teach was for some time a sailor operating from Jamaica on privateer ships during the War of the Spanish Succession, and that "he had often distinguished himself for his uncommon boldness and personal courage". At what point during the war Teach joined the fighting is, in keeping with the record of most of his life before he became a pirate, unknown. New Providence

With its history of colonialism, trade and piracy, the West Indies was the setting for many 17th- and 18th-century maritime incidents. The privateer-turned-pirate Henry Jennings and his followers decided, early in the 18th century, to use the uninhabited island of New Providence as a base for their operations; it was within easy reach of the Florida Strait and its busy shipping lanes, which were filled with European vessels crossing the Atlantic. New Providence's harbour could easily accommodate hundreds of ships but was too shallow for the Royal Navy's larger vessels.The author George Woodbury described New Providence as "no city of homes; it was a place of temporary sojourn and refreshment for a literally floating population," continuing, "The only permanent residents were the piratical camp followers, the traders, and the hangers-on; all others were transient." In New Providence, pirates found a welcome respite from the law. Teach was one of those who came to enjoy the island's benefits. Probably shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, he moved there from Jamaica, and, along with most privateers once involved in the war, became involved in piracy. Possibly about 1716, he joined the crew of Captain Benjamin Hornigold, a renowned pirate who operated from New Providence's safe waters. In 1716 Hornigold placed Teach in charge of a sloop he had taken as a prize. In early 1717, Hornigold and Teach, each captaining a sloop, set out for the mainland.They captured a boat carrying 120 barrels of flour out of Havana, and shortly thereafter took 100 barrels of wine from a sloop out of Bermuda. A few days later they stopped a vessel sailing from Madeira to Charles Town, South Carolina. Teach and his quartermaster, William Howard, may at this time have struggled to control their crews. By then they had probably developed a taste for Madeira wine, and on 29 September near Cape Charles all they took from the Betty of Virginia was her cargo of Madeira, before they scuttled her with the remaining cargo. It was during this cruise with Hornigold that the earliest known report of Teach was made, in which he is recorded as a pirate in his own right, in command of a large crew. In a report made by a Captain Mathew Munthe on an anti-piracy patrol for North Carolina, "Thatch" was described as operating "a sloop 6 gunns  and about 70 men". In September Teach and Hornigold encountered Stede Bonnet, a landowner and military officer from a wealthy family who had turned to piracy earlier that year.Bonnet's crew of about 70 were reportedly dissatisfied with his command, so with Bonnet's permission, Teach took control of his ship Revenge. The pirates' flotilla now consisted of three ships; Teach on Revenge, Teach's old sloop and Hornigold's Ranger. By October, another vessel had been captured and added to the small fleet. The sloops Robert of Philadelphia and Good Intent of Dublin were stopped on 22 October 1717, and their cargo holds emptied. As a former British privateer, Hornigold attacked only his old enemies, but for his crew, the sight of British vessels filled with valuable cargo passing by unharmed became too much, and at some point toward the end of 1717 he was demoted. Whether Teach had any involvement in this decision is unknown, but Hornigold quickly retired from piracy. He took Ranger and one of the sloops, leaving Teach with Revenge and the remaining sloop.The two never met again and, as did many other occupants of New Providence, Hornigold accepted the King's pardon. Blackbeard

On 28 November 1717 Teach's two ships attacked a French merchant vessel off the coast of Saint Vincent. They each fired a broadside across its bulwarks, killing several of its crew, and forcing its captain to surrender. The ship was La Concorde, a large French Guineaman registered in Saint-Malo and carrying a cargo of slaves. This ship had originally been the English merchantman Concord, captured in 1711 by a French squadron, and then changed hands several times by 1717. Teach and his crews sailed the vessel south along Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to Bequia, where they disembarked her crew and cargo, and converted the ship for their own use. The crew of La Concorde were given the smaller of Teach's two sloops, which they renamed Mauvaise Rencontre (Bad Meeting), and sailed for Martinique.Teach may have recruited some of their slaves, but the remainder were left on the island and were later recaptured by the returning crew of Mauvaise Rencontre. Teach immediately renamed La Concorde as Queen Anne's Revenge and equipped her with 40 guns. By this time Teach had placed his lieutenant Richards in command of Bonnet's Revenge. In late November, near Saint Vincent, he attacked the Great Allen. After a lengthy engagement, he forced the large and well-armed merchant ship to surrender. He ordered her to move closer to the shore, disembarked her crew and emptied her cargo holds, and then burned and sank the vessel. The incident was chronicled in the Boston News-Letter, which called Teach the commander of a "French ship of 32 Guns, a Briganteen of 10 guns and a Sloop of 12 guns."It is not known when or where Teach collected the ten-gun briganteen, but by that time he may have been in command of at least 150 men split among three vessels. On 5 December 1717 Teach stopped the merchant sloop Margaret off the coast of Crab Island, near Anguilla. Her captain, Henry Bostock, and crew, remained Teach's prisoners for about eight hours, and were forced to watch as their sloop was ransacked. Bostock, who had been held aboard Queen Anne's Revenge, was returned unharmed to Margaret and was allowed to leave with his crew. He returned to his base of operations on Saint Christopher Island and reported the matter to Governor Walter Hamilton, who requested that he sign an affidavit about the encounter. Bostock's deposition details Teach's command of two vessels: a sloop and a large French guineaman, Dutch-built, with 36 cannons and a crew of 300 men. The captain believed that the larger ship carried valuable gold dust, silver plate, and "a very fine cup" supposedly taken from the commander of Great Allen.Teach's crew had apparently informed Bostock that they had destroyed several other vessels, and that they intended to sail to Hispaniola and lie in wait for an expected Spanish armada, supposedly laden with money to pay the garrisons. Bostock also claimed that Teach had questioned him about the movements of local ships, but also that he had seemed unsurprised when Bostock told him of an expected royal pardon from London for all pirates. Bostock's deposition describes Teach as a "tall spare man with a very black beard which he wore very long". It is the first recorded account of Teach's appearance and is the source of his cognomen, Blackbeard. Later descriptions mention that his thick black beard was braided into pigtails, sometimes tied in with small coloured ribbons. Johnson (1724) described him as "such a figure that imagination cannot form an idea of a fury from hell to look more frightful." Whether Johnson's description was entirely truthful or embellished is unclear, but it seems likely that Teach understood the value of appearances; better to strike fear into the heart of one's enemies, than rely on bluster alone.Teach was tall, with broad shoulders. He wore knee-length boots and dark clothing, topped with a wide hat and sometimes a long coat of brightly coloured silk or velvet. Johnson also described Teach in times of battle as wearing "a sling over his shoulders, with three brace of pistols, hanging in holsters like bandoliers; and stuck lighted slow matches under his hat", the latter apparently to emphasise the fearsome appearance he wished to present to his enemies. Despite his ferocious reputation though, there are no verified accounts of his ever having murdered or harmed those he held captive. Teach may have used other aliases; on 30 November, the Monserrat Merchant encountered two ships and a sloop, commanded by a Captain Kentish and Captain Edwards (the latter a known alias of Stede Bonnet). Enlargement of Teach's fleet
Teach's movements between late 1717 and early 1718 are not known. He and Bonnet were probably responsible for an attack off Sint Eustatius in December 1717.Henry Bostock claimed to have heard the pirates say they would head toward the Spanish-controlled Samaná Bay in Hispaniola, but a cursory search revealed no pirate activity. Captain Hume of  reported on 6 February that a "Pyrate Ship of 36 Guns and 250 men, and a Sloop of 10 Guns and 100 men were Said to be Cruizing amongst the Leeward Islands". Hume reinforced his crew with soldiers armed with muskets, and joined up with  to track the two ships, to no avail, though they discovered that the two ships had sunk a French vessel off St Christopher Island, and reported also that they had last been seen "gone down the North side of Hispaniola". Although no confirmation exists that these two ships were controlled by Teach and Bonnet, author Angus Konstam believes it very likely they were. In March 1718, while taking on water at Turneffe Island east of Belize, both ships spotted the Jamaican logwood cutting sloop Adventure making for the harbour. She was stopped and her captain, Harriot, invited to join the pirates. Harriot and his crew accepted the invitation, and Teach sent over a crew to sail Adventure making Israel Hands the captain.They sailed for the Bay of Honduras, where they added another ship and four sloops to their flotilla. On 9 April Teach's enlarged fleet of ships looted and burnt Protestant Caesar. His fleet then sailed to Grand Cayman where they captured a "small turtler". Teach probably sailed toward Havana, where he may have captured a small Spanish vessel that had left the Cuban port. They then sailed to the wrecks of the 1715 Spanish fleet, off the eastern coast of Florida. There Teach disembarked the crew of the captured Spanish sloop, before proceeding north to the port of Charles Town, South Carolina, attacking three vessels along the way. Blockade of Charles Town

By May 1718, Teach had awarded himself the rank of Commodore and was at the height of his power.Late that month his flotilla blockaded the port of Charles Town in the Province of South Carolina. All vessels entering or leaving the port were stopped, and as the town had no guard ship, its pilot boat was the first to be captured. Over the next five or six days about nine vessels were stopped and ransacked as they attempted to sail past Charles Town Bar, where Teach's fleet was anchored. One such ship, headed for

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 London with a group of prominent Charles Town citizens which included Samuel Wragg (a member of the Council of the Province of Carolina), was the Crowley. Her passengers were questioned about the vessels still in port and then locked below decks for about half a day. Teach informed the prisoners that his fleet required medical supplies from the colonial government of South Carolina, and that if none were forthcoming, all prisoners would be executed, their heads sent to the Governor and all captured ships burnt. Wragg agreed to Teach's demands, and a Mr. Marks and two pirates were given two days to collect the drugs.Teach moved his fleet, and the captured ships, to within about five or six leagues from land. Three days later a messenger, sent by Marks, returned to the fleet; Marks's boat had capsized and delayed their arrival in Charles Town. Teach granted a reprieve of two days, but still the party did not return. He then called a meeting of his fellow sailors and moved eight ships into the harbour, causing panic within the town. When Marks finally returned to the fleet, he explained what had happened. On his arrival he had presented the pirates' demands to the Governor and the drugs had been quickly gathered, but the two pirates sent to escort him had proved difficult to find; they had been busy drinking with friends and were finally discovered, drunk. Teach kept to his side of the bargain and released the captured ships and his prisoners—albeit relieved of their valuables, including the fine clothing some had worn.Beaufort Inlet
Whilst at Charles Town, Teach learned that Woodes Rogers had left England with several men-of-war, with orders to purge the West Indies of pirates. Teach's flotilla sailed northward along the Atlantic coast and into Topsail Inlet (commonly known as Beaufort Inlet), off the coast of North Carolina. There they intended to careen their ships to scrape their hulls, but on 10 June 1718 the Queen Anne's Revenge ran aground on a sandbar, cracking her main-mast and severely damaging many of her timbers. Teach ordered several sloops to throw ropes across the flagship in an attempt to free her. A sloop commanded by Israel Hands of Adventure also ran aground, and both vessels appeared to be damaged beyond repair, leaving only Revenge and the captured Spanish sloop. Pardon

Teach had at some stage learnt of the offer of a royal pardon and probably confided in Bonnet his willingness to accept it. The pardon was open to all pirates who surrendered on or before 5 September 1718, but contained a caveat stipulating that immunity was offered only against crimes committed before 5 January.Although in theory this left Bonnet and Teach at risk of being hanged for their actions at Charles Town Bar, most authorities could waive such conditions. Teach thought that Governor Charles Eden was a man he could trust, but to make sure, he waited to see what would happen to another captain. Bonnet left immediately on a small sailing boat for Bath Town, where he surrendered to Governor Eden, and received his pardon. He then travelled back to Beaufort Inlet to collect the Revenge and the remainder of his crew, intending to sail to Saint Thomas Island to receive a commission. Unfortunately for him, Teach had stripped the vessel of its valuables and provisions, and had marooned its crew; Bonnet set out for revenge, but was unable to find him. He and his crew returned to piracy and were captured on 27 September 1718 at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. All but four were tried and hanged in Charles Town.The author Robert Lee surmised that Teach and Hands intentionally ran the ships aground to reduce the fleet's crew complement, increasing their share of the spoils. During the trial of Bonnet's crew, Revenges boatswain Ignatius Pell testified that "the ship was run ashore and lost, which Thatch [Teach] caused to be done." Lee considers it plausible that Teach let Bonnet in on his plan to accept a pardon from Governor Eden. He suggested that Bonnet do the same, and as war between the Quadruple Alliance of 1718 and Spain was threatening, to consider taking a privateer's commission from England. Lee suggests that Teach also offered Bonnet the return of his ship Revenge. Konstam (2007) proposes a similar idea, explaining that Teach began to see Queen Anne's Revenge as something of a liability; while a pirate fleet was anchored, news of this was sent to neighbouring towns and colonies, and any vessels nearby would delay sailing. It was prudent therefore for Teach not to linger for too long, although wrecking the ship was a somewhat extreme measure.Before sailing northward on his remaining sloop to Ocracoke Inlet, Teach marooned about 25 men on a small sandy island about a league from the mainland. He may have done this to stifle any protest they made, if they guessed their captain's plans. Bonnet rescued them two days later. Teach continued on to Bath, where in June 1718—only days after Bonnet had departed with his pardon—he and his much-reduced crew received their pardon from Governor Eden. He settled in Bath, on the eastern side of Bath Creek at Plum Point, near Eden's home. During July and August he travelled between his base in the town and his sloop off Ocracoke. Johnson's account states that he married the daughter of a local plantation owner, although there is no supporting evidence for this.Eden gave Teach permission to sail to St Thomas to seek a commission as a privateer (a useful way of removing bored and troublesome pirates from the small settlement), and Teach was given official title to his remaining sloop, which he renamed Adventure. By the end of August he had returned to piracy, and in the same month the Governor of Pennsylvania issued a warrant for his arrest, but by then Teach was probably operating in Delaware Bay, some distance away. He took two French ships leaving the Caribbean, moved one crew across to the other, and sailed the remaining ship back to Ocracoke. In September he told Eden that he had found the French ship at sea, deserted. A Vice Admiralty Court was quickly convened, presided over by Tobias Knight and the Collector of Customs. The ship was judged as a derelict found at sea, and of its cargo twenty hogsheads of sugar were awarded to Knight and sixty to Eden; Teach and his crew were given what remained in the vessel's hold. Ocracoke Inlet was Teach's favourite anchorage.It was a perfect vantage point from which to view ships travelling between the various settlements of northeast Carolina, and it was from there that Teach first spotted the approaching ship of Charles Vane, another English pirate. Several months earlier Vane had rejected the pardon brought by Woodes Rogers and escaped the men-of-war the English captain brought with him to Nassau. He had also been pursued by Teach's old commander, Benjamin Hornigold, who was by then a pirate hunter. Teach and Vane spent several nights on the southern tip of Ocracoke Island, accompanied by such notorious figures as Israel Hands, Robert Deal and Calico Jack. Alexander Spotswood
As it spread throughout the neighbouring colonies, the news of Teach and Vane's impromptu party worried the Governor of Pennsylvania enough to send out two sloops to capture the pirates. They were unsuccessful, but Governor of Virginia Alexander Spotswood was also concerned that the supposedly retired freebooter and his crew were living in nearby North Carolina. Some of Teach's former crew had already moved into several Virginian seaport towns, prompting Spotswood to issue a proclamation on 10 July, requiring all former pirates to make themselves known to the authorities, to give up their arms and to not travel in groups larger than three.As head of a Crown colony, Spotswood viewed the proprietary colony of North Carolina with contempt; he had little faith in the ability of the Carolinians to control the pirates, who he suspected would be back to their old ways, disrupting Virginian commerce, as soon as their money ran out. Spotswood learnt that William Howard, the former quartermaster of Queen Anne's Revenge, was in the area, and believing that he might know of Teach's whereabouts had him and his two slaves arrested. Spotswood had no legal authority to have pirates tried, and as a result, Howard's attorney, John Holloway, brought charges against Captain Brand of , where Howard was imprisoned. He also sued on Howard's behalf for damages of £500, claiming wrongful arrest. Spotswood's council claimed that under a statute of William III the governor was entitled to try pirates without a jury in times of crisis and that Teach's presence was a crisis. The charges against Howard referred to several acts of piracy supposedly committed after the pardon's cut-off date, in "a sloop belonging to ye subjects of the King of Spain", but ignored the fact that they took place outside Spotswood's jurisdiction and in a vessel then legally owned. Another charge cited two attacks, one of which was the capture of a slave ship off Charles Town Bar, from which one of Howard's slaves was presumed to have come.Howard was sent to await trial before a Court of Vice-Admiralty, on the charge of piracy, but Brand and his colleague, Captain Gordon (of ) refused to serve with Holloway present. Incensed, Holloway had no option but to stand down, and was replaced by the Attorney General of Virginia, John Clayton, whom Spotswood described as "an honester man [than Holloway]". Howard was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, but was saved by a commission from London, which directed Spotswood to pardon all acts of piracy committed by surrendering pirates before 18 August 1718. Spotswood had obtained from Howard valuable information on Teach's whereabouts, and he planned to send his forces across the border into North Carolina to capture him. He gained the support of two men keen to discredit North Carolina's Governor—Edward Moseley and Colonel Maurice Moore. He also wrote to the Lords of Trade, suggesting that the Crown might benefit financially from Teach's capture. Spotswood personally financed the operation, possibly believing that Teach had fabulous treasures hidden away.He ordered Captains Gordon and Brand of HMS Pearl and HMS Lyme to travel overland to Bath. Lieutenant Robert Maynard of HMS Pearl was given command of two commandeered sloops, to approach the town from the sea. An extra incentive for Teach's capture was the offer of a reward from the Assembly of Virginia, over and above any that might be received from the Crown. Maynard took command of the two armed sloops on 17 November. He was given 57 men—33 from HMS Pearl and 24 from HMS Lyme. Maynard and the detachment from HMS Pearl took the larger of the two vessels and named her Jane; the rest took Ranger, commanded by one of Maynard's officers, a Mister Hyde. Some from the two ships' civilian crews remained aboard.They sailed from Kecoughtan, along the James River, on 17 November. The two sloops moved slowly, giving Brand's force time to reach Bath. Brand set out for North Carolina six days later, arriving within three miles of Bath on 23 November. Included in Brand's force were several North Carolinians, including Colonel Moore and Captain Jeremiah Vail, sent to counter any local objection to the presence of foreign soldiers. Moore went into the town to see if Teach was there, reporting back that he was not, but that he was expected at "every minute." Brand then went to Governor Eden's home and informed him of his purpose. The next day, Brand sent two canoes down Pamlico River to Ocracoke Inlet, to see if Teach could be seen.They returned two days later and reported on what eventually transpired. Last battle
Maynard found the pirates anchored on the inner side of Ocracoke Island, on the evening of 21 November. He had ascertained their position from ships he had stopped along his journey, but being unfamiliar with the local channels and shoals he decided to wait until the following morning to make his attack. He stopped all traffic from entering the inlet—preventing any warning of his presence—and posted a lookout on both sloops to ensure that Teach could not escape to sea. On the other side of the island, Teach was busy entertaining guests and had not set a lookout. With Israel Hands ashore in Bath with about 24 of Adventures sailors, he also had a much-reduced crew. Johnson (1724) reported Teach had "no more than twenty-five men on board" and that he "gave out to all the vessels that he spoke with that he had forty"."Thirteen white and six Negroes", was the number later reported by Brand to the Admiralty. At daybreak, preceded by a small boat taking soundings, Maynard's two sloops entered the channel. The small craft was quickly spotted by Adventure and fired at as soon as it was within range of her guns. While the boat made a quick retreat to the Jane, Teach cut the Adventures anchor cable. His crew hoisted the sails and the Adventure manoeuvred to point her starboard guns toward Maynard's sloops, which were slowly closing the gap. Hyde moved Ranger to the port side of Jane and the Union flag was unfurled on each ship. Adventure then turned toward the beach of Ocracoke Island, heading for a narrow channel.What happened next is uncertain. Johnson claimed that there was an exchange of small arms fire following which Adventure ran aground on a sandbar, and Maynard anchored and then lightened his ship to pass over the obstacle. Another version claimed that Jane and Ranger ran aground, although Maynard made no mention of this in his log. The Adventure eventually turned her guns on the two ships and fired. The broadside was devastating; in an instant, Maynard had lost as much as a third of his forces. About 20 on Jane were either wounded or killed and 9 on Ranger. Hyde was dead and his second and third officers either dead or seriously injured.His sloop was so badly damaged that it played no further role in the attack. Contemporary accounts of what happened next are confused, but small-arms fire from Jane may have cut Adventures jib sheet, causing her to lose control and run onto the sandbar. In the aftermath of Teach's overwhelming attack, Jane and Ranger may also have been grounded; the battle would have become a race to see who could float their ship first. Maynard had kept many of his men below deck, and in anticipation of being boarded told them to prepare for close fighting. Teach watched as the gap between the vessels closed,  and ordered his men to be ready. The two vessels contacted one another


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 as the Adventures grappling hooks hit their target and several grenades, made from powder and shot-filled bottles and ignited by fuses, broke across the sloop's deck. As the smoke cleared, Teach led his men aboard, buoyant at the sight of Maynard's apparently empty ship, his men firing at the small group of men with Maynard at the stern.The rest of Maynard's men then burst from the hold, shouting and firing. The plan to surprise Teach and his crew worked; the pirates were apparently taken aback at the assault. Teach rallied his men and the two groups fought across the deck, which was already slick with blood from those killed or injured by Teach's broadside. Maynard and Teach fired their flintlocks at each other, then threw them away. Teach drew his cutlass and managed to break Maynard's sword. Against superior training and a slight advantage in numbers, the pirates were pushed back toward the bow, allowing the Janes crew to surround Maynard and Teach, who was by then completely isolated. As Maynard drew back to fire once again, Teach moved in to attack him, but was slashed across the neck by one of Maynard's men.Badly wounded, he was then attacked and killed by several more of Maynard's crew. The remaining pirates quickly surrendered. Those left on the Adventure were captured by the Rangers crew, including one who planned to set fire to the powder room and blow up the ship. Varying accounts exist of the battle's list of casualties; Maynard reported that 8 of his men and 12 pirates were killed. Brand reported that 10 pirates and 11 of Maynard's men were killed. Spotswood claimed ten pirates and ten of the King's men dead. Maynard later examined Teach's body, noting that it had been shot five times and cut about twenty.He also found several items of correspondence, including a letter from Tobias Knight. Teach's corpse was thrown into the inlet and his head was suspended from the bowsprit of Maynard's sloop so that the reward could be collected. On their return to Virginia, Teach's head was placed on a pole at the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay as a warning to other pirates and a greeting to other ships, and it stood there for several years. Legacy
Lieutenant Maynard remained at Ocracoke for several more days, making repairs and burying the dead. Teach's loot—sugar, cocoa, indigo and cotton—found "in pirate sloops and ashore in a tent where the sloops lay", was sold at auction along with sugar and cotton found in Tobias Knight's barn, for £2,238. Governor Spotswood used a portion of this to pay for the entire operation. The prize money for capturing Teach was to have been about £400 (£ in ), but it was split between the crews of HMS Lyme and HMS Pearl.As Captain Brand and his troops had not been the ones fighting for their lives, Maynard thought this extremely unfair. He lost much of any support he may have had though when it was discovered that he and his crew had helped themselves to about £90 of Teach's booty. The two companies did not receive their prize money for another four years, and despite his bravery Maynard was not promoted, and faded into obscurity. The remainder of Teach's crew and former associates were found by Brand, in Bath, and were transported to Williamsburg, Virginia, where they were jailed on charges of piracy. Several were black, prompting Spotswood to ask his council what could be done about "the Circumstances of these Negroes to exempt them from undergoing the same Tryal as other pirates." Regardless, the men were tried with their comrades in Williamsburg's Capitol building, under admiralty law, on 12 March 1719. No records of the day's proceedings remain, but 14 of the 16 accused were found guilty.Of the remaining two, one proved that he had partaken of the fight out of necessity, having been on Teach's ship only as a guest at a drinking party the night before, and not as a pirate. The other, Israel Hands, was not present at the fight. He claimed that during a drinking session Teach had shot him in the knee, and that he was still covered by the royal pardon. The remaining pirates were hanged, then left to rot in gibbets along Williamsburg's Capitol Landing Road (known for some time after as "Gallows Road"). Governor Eden was certainly embarrassed by Spotswood's invasion of North Carolina, and Spotswood disavowed himself of any part of the seizure. He defended his actions, writing to Lord Carteret, a shareholder of the Province of Carolina, that he might benefit from the sale of the seized property and reminding the Earl of the number of Virginians who had died to protect his interests. He argued for the secrecy of the operation by suggesting that Eden "could contribute nothing to the Success of the Design", and told Eden that his authority to capture the pirates came from the king.Eden was heavily criticised for his involvement with Teach and was accused of being his accomplice. By criticising Eden, Spotswood intended to bolster the legitimacy of his invasion. Lee (1974) concludes that although Spotswood may have thought that the ends justified the means, he had no legal authority to invade North Carolina, to capture the pirates and to seize and auction their goods. Eden doubtless shared the same view. As Spotswood had also accused Tobias Knight of being in league with Teach, on 4 April 1719, Eden had Knight brought in for questioning. Israel Hands had, weeks earlier, testified that Knight had been on board the Adventure in August 1718, shortly after Teach had brought a French ship to North Carolina as a prize. Four pirates had testified that with Teach they had visited Knight's home to give him presents.This testimony and the letter found on Teach's body by Maynard appeared compelling, but Knight conducted his defence with competence. Despite being very sick and close to death, he questioned the reliability of Spotswood's witnesses. He claimed that Israel Hands had talked under duress, and that under North Carolinian law the other witness, an African, was unable to testify. The sugar, he argued, was stored at his house legally, and Teach had visited him only on business, in his official capacity. The board found Knight innocent of all charges. He died later that year. Eden was annoyed that the accusations against Knight arose during a trial in which he played no part.The goods which Brand seized were officially North Carolinian property and Eden considered him a thief. The argument raged back and forth between the colonies until Eden's death on 17 March 1722. His will named one of Spotswood's opponents, John Holloway, a beneficiary. In the same year, Spotswood, who for years had fought his enemies in the House of Burgesses and the Council, was replaced by Hugh Drysdale, once Robert Walpole was convinced to act. Modern view

Official views on pirates were sometimes quite different from those held by contemporary authors, who often described their subjects as despicable rogues of the sea. Privateers who became pirates were generally considered by the English government to be reserve naval forces, and were sometimes given active encouragement; as far back as 1581 Francis Drake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth, when he returned to England from a round-the-world expedition with plunder worth an estimated £1,500,000. Royal pardons were regularly issued, usually when England was on the verge of war, and the public's opinion of pirates was often favourable, some considering them akin to patrons.Economist Peter Leeson believes that pirates were generally shrewd businessmen, far removed from the modern, romanticised view of them as barbarians. After Woodes Rogers' 1718 landing at New Providence and his ending of the pirate republic, piracy in the West Indies fell into terminal decline. With no easily accessible outlet to fence their stolen goods, pirates were reduced to a subsistence livelihood, and following almost a century of naval warfare between the British, French and Spanish—during which sailors could find easy employment—lone privateers found themselves outnumbered by the powerful ships employed by the British Empire to defend its merchant fleets. The popularity of the slave trade helped bring to an end the frontier condition of the West Indies, and in these circumstances, piracy was no longer able to flourish as it once did. Since the end of this so-called golden age of piracy, Teach and his exploits have become the stuff of lore, inspiring books, films and even amusement park rides. Much of what is known about him can be sourced to Charles Johnson's A General Historie of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, published in Britain in 1724. A recognised authority on the pirates of his time, Johnson's descriptions of such figures as Anne Bonny and Mary Read were for years required reading for those interested in the subject.Readers were titillated by his stories and a second edition was quickly published, though author Angus Konstam suspects that Johnson's entry on Blackbeard was "coloured a little to make a more sensational story." A General Historie, though, is generally considered to be a reliable source. Johnson may have been an assumed alias. As Johnson's accounts have been corroborated in personal and official dispatches, Lee (1974) considers that whoever he was, he had some access to official correspondence. Konstam speculates further, suggesting that Johnson may have been the English playwright Charles Johnson, the British publisher Charles Rivington, or the writer Daniel Defoe. In his 1951 work The Great Days of Piracy, author George Woodbury wrote that Johnson is "obviously a pseudonym", continuing "one cannot help suspecting that he may have been a pirate himself." Despite his infamy, Teach was not the most successful of pirates.Henry Every retired a rich man, and Bartholomew Roberts took an estimated five times the amount Teach stole. Treasure hunters have long busied themselves searching for any trace of his rumoured hoard of gold and silver, but nothing found in the numerous sites explored along the east coast of the US has ever been connected to him. Some tales suggest that pirates often killed a prisoner on the spot where they buried their loot, and Teach is no exception in these stories, but that no finds have come to light is not exceptional; buried pirate treasure is often considered a modern myth for which almost no supporting evidence exists. The available records include nothing to suggest that the burial of treasure was a common practice, except in the imaginations of the writers of fictional accounts such as Treasure Island. Such hoards would necessitate a wealthy owner, and their supposed existence ignores the command structure of a pirate vessel, in which the crew served for a share of the profit. The only pirate ever known to bury treasure was William Kidd; the only treasure so far recovered from Teach's exploits is that taken from the wreckage of what is presumed to be the Queen Anne's Revenge, which was found in 1996. As of 2009 more than 250,000 artefacts had been recovered.A selection is on public display at the North Carolina Maritime Museum. Various superstitious tales exist of Teach's ghost. Unexplained lights at sea are often referred to as "Teach's light", and some recitals claim that the notorious pirate now roams the afterlife searching for his head, for fear that his friends, and the Devil, will not recognise him. A North Carolinian tale holds that Teach's skull was used as the basis for a silver drinking chalice; a local judge even claimed to have drunk from it one night in the 1930s. The name of Blackbeard has been attached to many local attractions, such as Charleston's Blackbeard's Cove. His name and persona have also featured heavily in literature. He is the main subject of Matilda Douglas's fictional 1835 work Blackbeard: A page from the colonial history of Philadelphia.Film renditions of his life include <mask> the Pirate (1952), Blackbeard's Ghost (1968), Blackbeard: Terror at Sea (2005) and the 2006 Hallmark Channel miniseries Blackbeard. Parallels have also been drawn between Johnson's Blackbeard and the character of Captain Jack Sparrow in the 2003 adventure film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. <mask> is also portrayed as a central character in two recent TV series. In the short-lived Crossbones (2014), he is played by John Malkovich. The British actor Ray Stevenson plays him in seasons three and four of Black Sails (2016–2017). In 2015, the state government of North Carolina uploaded videos of the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge to its website without permission. As a result Nautilus Productions, the company documenting the recovery since 1998, filed suit in federal court over copyright violations and the passage of "Blackbeard's Law" by the North Carolina legislature.Before posting the videos the North Carolina Legislature passed "Blackbeard's Law", N.C. Gen Stat §121-25(b), which stated, "All photographs, video recordings, or other documentary materials of a derelict vessel or shipwreck or its contents, relics, artifacts, or historic materials in the custody of any agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions shall be a public record pursuant to Chapter 132 of the General Statutes." On 5 November 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Allen v. Cooper. The Supreme Court subsequently ruled in the state's favor, and struck down the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act, which Congress passed in 1989 to attempt to curb such infringements of copyright by states, in Allen v. Cooper. References
Notes

Citations

Bibliography

 2006 edition ()

 1974 edition ()

Further reading

External links

N.C Supreme Court revives lawsuit over Blackbeard’s ship and lost Spanish treasure ship, Fayetteville Observer
 BBC Video about the potential discovery of Teach's ship
 Images of artefacts recovered from the shipwreck thought to be the Queen Anne's Revenge
 Out to Sea Elite Magazine
 Blackbeard's Ship Confirmed off North Carolina National Geographic News
 Blackbeard's Shipwreck National Geographic
 Blackbeard's Lost Ship  Documentary produced by the PBS Series Secrets of the Dead
 Blackbeard: American Patriot? Military.com

1680s births
1718 deaths
18th-century English people
18th-century pirates
1716 crimes
1717 crimes
1718 crimes
People from Bristol
American folklore
English folklore
British pirates
British privateers
History of North Carolina
Pardoned pirates
Recipients of British royal pardons
Maritime folklore
People killed in


texts:
<mask><mask> (born October 25, 1969 in New York City), also known as <mask>, is an American-born Canadian young adult novelist, indie rocker, and director. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California. Biography
<mask> grew up in New York City where she attended the Laguardia High School of the Performing Arts. She later studied theatre in Paris at the École Florent. She attended Concordia University in Montreal and received a B.F.A. in Film Production. In Montreal, she embarked on her music career as part of Bite, which was then the only all-female indie band in Montreal.When she was kicked out of Bite, she formed Nerdy Girl with Gordon Hashimoto. When Hashimoto left, she joined with Ron Woo, Gabe Levine, and Kim Temple to continue the band. After recording their only album Twist Her, Levine and Temple left the group, and Jessica Moss and Eric Craven took their places. She later moved to Los Angeles after Nerdy Girl broke up for good, and she recorded solo under her performing name, <mask>ll. In 2001 she co-founded the experimental *Alpha 60 Film Collective with Neil Matsumoto and Nicholas McCarthy. <mask>'s first novel, Boy Proof, was published in 2005. <mask>'s 2013 short story—"We Have Always Lived on Mars" is being adapted into John Krasinski’s upcoming film, Life on Mars.<mask> is a Star Trek fan, with her favorite series being Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Her favourite character is Dax. Novels
<mask>'s first novels were published by Candlewick Press. She has also been published by Scholastic Press, DC Comics and Roaring Brook Press

Boy Proof is a 2005 novel about a girl in Los Angeles named Victoria Jurgen, who insists on being called "Egg" after a character in her favorite movie, a (fictional) post-apocalyptic, science fiction film called Terminal Earth. Her mother is a washed-up actress and her father is special-effects designer. She is a card-carrying geek and considers herself "boy proof", and proud of it. However, her outlook on life is challenged when a boy named Max Carter comes to her school and she finds herself reluctantly drawn to him.It was named to the 2006 Best Books for Young Adults list by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) of the American Library Association (ALA) as well as to the Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers list (also by YALSA). <mask>'s 2006 novel The Queen of Cool centers on Libby Brin, one of the most popular girls in her school, whose life revolves around parties and boys. Deciding one day that she is bored with her glamorous lifestyle, she signs up for an internship at the local zoo, where she meets up with Tina, a dwarf with a huge personality, and a boy named Sheldon, which give her cause to question her priorities. As she spends more time with unpopular people, she realizes that they are actually good friends and that she has more fun with them than with her regular friends. The 2007 novel Beige, focuses on Katy, a French-Canadian girl who is forced to spend a summer with her estranged father, Beau "The Rat" Ratner, member of Los Angeles's most infamous punk band-that-never-made-it, Suck. Suck is about to come off its hiatus, and the Rat hopes he can use the band as an opportunity to bond with his daughter, a decision made difficult by her dislike of music. The 2010 novel Rose Sees Red is set in New York in the 1980s, and centers on two ballet dancers (one American, one Russian), recounting the unforgettable night they spend in the city, and celebrating the friendship they form despite their cultural and political differences.In the 2011 picture book Grandma's Gloves, a young girl and her grandmother bond over gardening. A story about a child who loses a beloved grandparent and finds comfort in carrying on the activities they shared. It won the California Book Award Gold Medal for Juvenile category. In the 2011 novel First Day on Earth, a man named Mal thinks he has been abducted by aliens and starts going to an alien abduction support group where he meets Hooper, who may or may not be a traveler from another world. The Year of the Beasts (2012), a hybrid prose / graphic novel illustrated by Nate Powell, is the story of two sisters and the summer they have together juxtaposed with a comics story of a girl who wakes up as a Medusa. Odd Duck (2013) illustrated by Sara Varon is about two ducks who form a friendship despite both being odd. The young adult novel Tin Star, about a girl abandoned on an alien space station, was published in February 2014.Stone in the Sky, sequel to Tin Star, was published by Roaring Brook Press in 2015. Moving Target: A Princess Leia Adventure, part of the Star Wars: Journey to Star Wars - The Force Awakens series, was published September 2015. The graphic novel Soupy Leaves Home, about a train-hopping runaway in 1932, was published by Dark Horse Comics in April 2017. Comics

The P.L.A.I.N. Janes (2007)
<mask> wrote the inaugural graphic novel for DC Comics's Minx imprint, which targets the YA audience. A long time comic book fan (she invited Batman to her fourth birthday party), <mask> jumped at the opportunity when contacted by Group Editor Shelly Bond. The story follows a girl named Jane who moves to suburbia after a terrorist attack in her hometown of Metro City.In the chaos after the attack, she finds a "John Doe" and his sketchbook. He serves as an inspiration for her to spread art to others. Jane's family decides to move away from Metro City in favor of a more sheltered, quiet community, where Jane spends a lot of time drawing in the sketchbook. This book becomes her inspiration to form P.L.A.I.N. (People Loving Art In Neighborhoods). At school, she rejects the popular girls, and instead finds her "tribe" with three other girls named Jayne (aka Brain Jane), Jane (Theater Jane), and Polly Jane (Sporty Jane). Even though each girl embodies a high school stereotype, as the story progresses, readers see how each girl grows out of her mold and presents her other interests and abilities.They band together to form P.L.A.I.N. and commit "art attacks" to fight against their individual hardships and emotions but end up fighting against the social hierarchy. They eventually inspire other teens to use art as their weapons as well. At the end of the story, when Main Jane tries to admit that she was behind the P.L.A.I.N. attacks, the police dismiss her confession because they believe the attacks were too labor-intensive to be done by a girl. This part of the story challenges the notion that anything involving physical labor is exclusively for men. Jane refuses to be defined as a victim of her terrorist attack experience, unlike her parents who are shackled by their fear; instead, she transforms her trauma into art through P.L.A.I.N.The Plain Janes' message of "art saves" embodies the idea of giving people permission, even inspiration to face their fears and to move forward, while in addition aims to challenge conformity and to bring back life and spirit into the town of Kent Waters. The story shows how Jane (Main Jane) is comfortable with her own identity as an individual and refuses to conform to what society defines as "cool." An example of this would be the first P.L.A.I.N "attack" which protest the building of the new shopping mall, challenging what the students defined as "cool." By participating in these "attacks," the Janes are able to empower both themselves and their community by pushing the boundaries of normalcy and bringing a sense of imagination and spontaneity to the otherwise monotonous suburbia. A Canadian citizen, <mask> won the Joe Shuster Award in the category of "Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Writer" for Janes. A sequel, called Janes in Love, was released in 2008. The sequel follows P.L.A.I.N as they play Cupid, become entangled in affairs of the heart (both their own and others), and procure a spot in Metro City Museum of Modern Art Contest.Shade, The Changing Girl
In October 2016, DC debuted a new imprint: Young Animal. One of the initial titles was Shade, The Changing Girl, written by <mask>, in which Shade is a female high school student. The creative team behind this new version also includes artist Marley Zarcone. After 12 issues and the Milk Wars tie-in Shade The Changing Girl/Wonder Woman Special (written with Mirka Andolfo), the series was relaunched as the six-issue Shade, the Changing Woman. Music

Nerdy Girl

Nerdy Girl 10" EP (1994)
Released by No Life Records

 Do You Like Me? Glad To Know
 Roof of Wilson
 Hate Me
 Nerdy Girl
 Song 7

New Jersey 7" single (1995)
Released by RightWide Records

3 songs, including a cover of The Beatles' She Said She Said, and "After Having Cried". Dime Store Hussy 7" single (1996)
Released by No Life Records.Scream
 18 Foot Yacht
 Perhaps

Twist Her (1997)
Released by No Life Records. Available on iTunes store. Casa Nova
 Hate Me
 Georgiana
 Iceman (Murder on the Rue Morgue)
 Anne Elliot
 Cast Off
 Single Bed
 Weed
 Do You Like Me
 Wicked
 3 Wishes
 Judy
 Aranova

Cecil Seaskull

Whoever (1998)
Released by Teenage USA Recordings. Available on iTunes store. True Love
 2E
 La Song (feat. Rufus Wainwright)
 Toutes ces filles
 Beautiful Everything
 Fairfax & Melrose
 Cheap
 The Bruise
 Dim
 Ridiculous
 What's Wrong? Sweet Girl

For Lovers and Rats (unreleased)
Contains tracks "Ode to a Boy with a Girlfriend," "Liquor and Cigarettes," and "Whisper This to Me", (the latter two are available streaming from her MySpace page)

Other songs
"My Chores" for Canadian Music Week 1997, on the compilation album Northern Exposure.It is also available streaming on her MySpace page
"Take Me" on indie compilation album Try for Summer, Plan for Fall, released in 1999. Also available on her MySpace page is a live cover version of The Muppets' "Movin' Right Along"

Les Aventures de Madame Merveille
In 2010 <mask> was commissioned by ECM+ in Montreal along with composer André Ristic to write a libretto for an opera called Les Aventures de Madame Merveille. The live comic book opera featured art by Michael Cho, Pascal Girard, Scott K Hepburn and Cameron Stewart. It premiered May 6, 2010 and was remounted in Fall 2011. Films
Starwoids is a 2001 documentary about the Star Wars fans who camped out in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre for six weeks in order to buy tickets for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. <mask> was one of these fans. She also appears in the special features on the Special Edition DVD, released in 2005.Through Alpha 60, <mask> made this ensemble film based on the actors' responses to a questionnaire. It premiered at the Alternative Screen series at the Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. Bibliography

Novels

 Boyproof. 2005, Penguin Random House
 Star Wars: Moving Target
Don't Cosplay with My Heart, 2018, Scholastic Press

Short fiction

"Always the Same. Till it is Not". Apex Magazine
"Brother. Prince.Snake". Tor.com
 "The Marker". After, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. "Best Friends Forever". Teeth, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. "Wet Teeth". The Eternal Kiss: 13 Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire, edited by Trisha Telep."The Sound of Useless Wings". Tor.com
"Once You're a Jedi, You're a Jedi All the Way". Geektastic. With Holly Black. Other works

 Geektastic. Co-edited with author Holly Black. "My Fairy Godfathers".Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys. "Bad Reputation". First Kiss (Then Tell): A Collection of True Lip-Locked Moments, edited by Cylin Busby. Awards
 2018 Eisner Award nomination for Best Short Story: "Ethel Byrne"
 2018 Harvey Award nomination for Book of the Year: Shade the Changing Girl
 2018 EGL (Excellence in Graphic Literature) Award nominations in three categories — Book of the Year, Best Middle Grade, Mosaic Award: Soupy Leaves Home
 2018 Best Feminist Reads Amelia Bloomer Award: Soupy Leaves Home

References

External links

LiveJournal
MySpace page
I Heart YA
Alpha 60 Film Collective
Interview With <mask> at pinkraygun.com
Interview at BookReviewsAndMore.ca
Visual Bibliography at BookReviewsAndMore.ca

1969 births
Living people
American women film directors
American indie rock musicians
Female comics writers
American writers of young adult literature
Musicians from New York City
Canadian indie rock musicians
Joe Shuster Award winners for Outstanding Writer
Concordia University alumni
Canadian writers of young adult literature
Canadian women film directors
Women writers of young adult literature
Film directors from New York City
American female comics artists
Canadian female comics artists
21st-century American women

masks:
Cecil C
. Castellucci
Cecil Seaskull
Castellucci
Cecil Seasku
Castellucci
Castellucci
Castellucci
Castellucci
Castellucci
Castellucci
Cecil
Castellucci
Castellucci
Castellucci
Cecil
Castellucci
Cecil Castellucci


texts:
<mask>, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry,  (18 June 1769 – 12 August 1822), usually known as Lord Castlereagh, derived from the courtesy title Viscount Castlereagh ( ) by which he was styled from 1796 to 1821, was an Anglo-Irish politician and statesman. As secretary to the Viceroy of Ireland, he worked to suppress the Rebellion of 1798 and to secure passage in 1800 of the Irish Act of Union. As the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom from 1812, he was central to the management of the coalition that defeated Napoleon, and was British plenipotentiary at the Congress of Vienna. In the post-war government of Lord Liverpool, Castlereagh was seen to support harsh measures against agitation for reform. Taking his own life, he died in office in 1822. Early in his career in Ireland, and following a visit to revolutionary France, Castlereagh recoiled from the democratic politics of his Presbyterian constituents in Ulster. Crossing the floor of the Irish Commons in support of the government, he took a leading role in detaining members of the republican conspiracy, the United Irishmen, his former political associates among them.After the 1798 Rebellion, as Chief Secretary for Ireland he pushed the Act of Union through the Irish Parliament. But it was without the Catholic Emancipation that both he and British Prime Minister William Pitt believed should have accompanied the creation of a United Kingdom. From 1804 Castlereagh served under Pitt and then the Duke of Portland as Secretary of State for War. In 1809 he was obliged to resign after fighting a duel with the Foreign Secretary, George Canning, in a dispute over the Walcheren Expedition. In 1812 Castlereagh returned to government serving Lord Liverpool as Foreign Secretary and as Leader of the House of Commons. Castlereagh organised and financed the alliance that defeated Napoleon, bringing the powers together at the Treaty of Chaumont in 1814. After Napoleon's second abdication in 1815, Castlereagh worked with the European courts represented at the Congress of Vienna to frame the territorial, and broadly conservative, continental order that was to hold until mid century.He blocked harsh terms against France believing that a treaty based on vengeance and retaliation would upset a necessary balance of powers. France was restored to the frontiers of 1791, and her British-occupied colonies were returned. In 1820 Castlereagh enunciated a policy of non-intervention, proposing that Britain hold herself aloof from continental affairs. After 1815, at home Castlereagh supported repressive measures that linked him in public opinion to the Peterloo Massacre of 1819. Widely reviled in both Ireland and Great Britain, overworked, and personally distressed, Castlereagh committed suicide in 1822. His biographer John Bew writes:
No British statesman of the 19th century reached the same level of international influence....But very few have been so maligned by their own countrymen and so abused in history. This shy and handsome Ulsterman is perhaps the most hated domestic political figure in both modern British and Irish political history.Early life and career in Ireland
<mask> was born on 18 June 1769 in 28 Henry Street, in Dublin's Northside. He was the second and only surviving child of <mask> (the elder) and his wife Sarah Frances Seymour-Conway. His parents married in 1766. The Stewarts
The Stewarts had been a Scottish family settled in Donegal whose fortunes had been transformed by the marriage of Castlereagh's grandfather Alexander Stewart to an East India Company heiress. The legacy from <mask>, the former Governor of Bombay, allowed for the purchase of extensive properties in north Down including the future family demesne, Mount Stewart, on the shores of Strangford Lough. As a Presbyterian (a "Dissenter"), rather than a member of the established Anglican Communion (the Church of Ireland), Castlereagh's father, <mask>, had an easy reputation as a friend of reform. In 1771, and again in 1776, he was elected from County Down to the Irish House of Commons.In 1778 he joined the Irish Volunteer movement, raising and armed and drilled company from his estates. In parliament and among the Volunteers, he was a friend and supporter of Lord Charlemont and his policy. This favoured Volunteer agitation for the independence of Ireland's Acendancy parliament, but not for its reform and not for Catholic emancipation. In 1798, the elder <mask> was created Baron Londonderry in 1789, Viscount Castlereagh in 1795, and Earl of Londonderry in 1796 by King George III, enabling him from the Act of Union of 1800 onwards to sit at Westminster in the House of Lords as an Irish representative peer. In 1816 he was elevated to Marquess of Londonderry

Young <mask>'s mother died in childbirth when he was a year old. Lady Sarah Frances Seymour-Conway had been the daughter of Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford and Isabella Fitzroy. Lord Hertford was a former British Ambassador to France (1764–65) and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1765–66).Isabella Fitzroy was a daughter of Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton. Five years later his father married Lady Frances Pratt, the independent-minded daughter of Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden (1714–94), a leading English jurist and prominent political supporter of both William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, and his son, William Pitt the Younger. The marriages of the elder <mask> linked his family with the upper ranks of English nobility and political elites. The Camden connection was to be especially important for the political careers of the older and the younger <mask>. By Frances Pratt, his father's second wife, young <mask> had eleven half-siblings, including his half-brother Charles William Stewart (later Vane), Baron Stewart of Stewart's Court and Ballylawn in County Donegal (1814) and 3rd Marquess of Londonderry (1822). Education
The younger <mask> suffered from recurring health problems throughout his childhood, and was sent to The Royal School, Armagh, rather than to England for his secondary education. At the encouragement of Charles Pratt, first Earl of Camden, who took a great interest in him and treated him as if he had been a grandson by blood, he later attended St. John's College, Cambridge (1786–87), where he applied himself with greater diligence than expected from an aristocrat and excelled in his first-year examinations.But he then withdrew, pleading an illness that he admitted to Camden was something "which cannot be directly acknowledged before women", i.e. something sexually transmitted. Independent MP
In the summer of 1790, Stewart was elected as a Member of the Irish Parliament for his family's Down constituency. In county with an exceptionally large number of enfranchised freeholders, his campaign pitted him in a popular contest against the nominees of the county's established Ascendancy families, and on that basis alone he won the sympathy and support of Belfast's Northern Whig Club. But it was his conscious strategy to capitalise on strong Volunteer and reform sentiments. In a letter to the Belfast Newsletter he declared for parliamentary reform (reform that would have abolished the pocket boroughs that allowed Ascendancy families, in addition to their presence in the House of Lords, to control seats in the Commons). In doing so, he won the support of many who, later despairing of parliamentary "patriots", were to enter the ranks of the United Irishmen.In the House of Commons Stewart spurned an offer of a place in government and sat as an independent. But otherwise he made little impression and was judged a poor speaker. Reflections on the Revolution in France

In July 1791, having both read Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (a family friend) and learned that in Belfast Irish Volunteers were preparing to celebrate Bastille Day, Stewart decided to judge events in France for himself. In Spa in the Austrian Netherlands he had difficulty in empathising with the wholly reactionary outlook of the French emigres. But after passing into France in November, he conceded that while he did not "like" the government of Ireland, "I prefer it to a revolution". Stewart was not convinced of Burke's contention that the revolution would produce a French Cromwell, although he recognised that outside Paris the principles of liberty were not as entrenched. As the revolutionary factions, the Jacobins and Girondins, struggled to supremacy in the capital, it was "the nation at large" that would "ultimately decide between them".In "an early example of [his] scepticism about foreign intervention", Stewart argued it was beyond her neighbours to give government to France. The Austrian Emperor might march his troops to Paris, but unless he was prepared to keep them there the Ancien Régime restored would again collapse. Stewart returned to the Austrian Netherlands in the autumn of 1792, but was unable to cross the now military frontlines into France. However news of the Jacobin triumph in Paris, and, following her victory at Valmy, the prospect of France carrying defence of the revolution beyond her frontiers, convinced him that "it would not be long before he had to face his own 'Jacobins' in Ireland". When in 1793 he returned to the parliament in Dublin, Stewart spoke in favour of the Catholic Relief Bill. In doing so he was supporting the policy of British Prime Minister William Pitt.who determined that Catholic opinion be concilated in preparation for the impending war with the new, anti-clericalist, French Republic. Stewart, while calling for the removal of their remaining civil disabilities, did stop short of endorsing the bill's extension to Catholics of the (limited) franchise.However, his loyalty to Pitt now seemed unconditional. In 1794, partly as a result of the promotion of Stewart's interests by his Camden connections, Stewart was offered the Government-controlled seat of Tregony in Cornwall. In 1796, he transferred to a seat for the Suffolk constituency of Orford, which was in the interest of his mother's family, the Seymour-Conways (Marquess of Hertford). He held these seats simultaneously with his county seat in Ireland. Marriage
In 1794, Stewart married Amelia (Emily) Hobart, a daughter of John Hobart, 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire, a former British Ambassador to Russia (1762–65) and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1776–80). Her mother, Caroline Conolly, was the granddaughter of William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons in the early 18th century and one of the wealthiest landowners in Ireland. Caroline's brother, Thomas Conolly, was married to Louisa Lennox, sister of Emily FitzGerald, Duchess of Leinster, whose son and Emily's cousin-by-marriage, Lord Edward FitzGerald was a leader of the United Irishmen and one of their martyrs in the early stages of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.Emily Stewart was well known as a hostess for her husband in both Ireland and London and during some of his most important diplomatic missions. In later years she was a leader of Regency London high society as one of the Lady Patronesses of Almack's. She is noted in contemporary accounts for her attractiveness, volubility and eccentricities. By all accounts, the two remained devoted to each other to the end, but they had no children. The couple did, however, care for the young Frederick Stewart, while his father, Stewart's half-brother, Charles, was serving in the army. Chief Secretary for Ireland

Suppression of the United Irishmen

In 1795, Pitt replaced as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, William Fitzwilliam, who had urged that the emancipation of Catholic be completed with their admission to parliament, with Stewart's uncle, the 2nd Earl Camden. Camden's arrival in Dublin was greeted with riots, and that year Stewart crossed the floor of the Irish House of Commons to join the supporters of the government, the Dublin Castle executive.Stewart became an essential adviser to the inexperienced and unpopular Lord Lieutenant, who was Stewart's senior by only ten years. In August 1796 Stewart's father was elevated to the title Earl of Londonderry. As his son, Stewart was henceforth styled Viscount Castlereagh. In September, acting upon evidence of communication with the French, Castlereagh personally led troops in a series of raids in Belfast and its environs (the "Siege of Belfast") that netted leading members of the United Irishmen. Among them were men who had supported him in the election of 1790. Originating in Belfast among Presbyterian celebrants of the American and French revolutions, the republican conspiracy had spread rapidly in Ulster and, in league with the Catholic Defenders across the Irish midlands. In County Down, Castlereagh's father had difficulty in raising a loyalist yoemanry among his tenants and eventually, with all rent withheld, Mount Stewart was placed under armed guard.In December 1796, a large French expedition to Ireland  failed to effect a landing at Bantry Bay, but due only to contrary winds. As an officer in the militia, Castlereagh was well apprised of lack of preparedness to meet a combination of professional French soldiery and the countrywide insurgency it would likely trigger. In February 1797, Castlereagh was at last appointed to the Dublin Castle administration as Keeper of the King's Signet for Ireland. Following a declaration of martial law he was made both a Lord of the Treasury and a Member of the Privy Council of Ireland (1797–1800). At the urging of Camden, Castlereagh assumed many of the onerous duties of the often-absent Chief Secretary for Ireland who was responsible for day-to-day administration and asserting the influence of Dublin Castle in the House of Commons. In this capacity, and after March 1798 as Acting Chief Secretary, Castlereagh played a key role in crushing the United Irish rising when it came in May and June 1798. In

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 November 1798, Castlereagh was formally appointed to the office of Chief Secretary by Camden's successor, Lord Cornwallis.Executions of William Orr and James Porter
<mask>'s general policy was to offer immediate clemency to the rebel rank-and-file (many of whom were then inducted into the yeomanry) while focusing on the politically committed leadership. But already before the rebellion he had begun to earn the sobriquet "Bloody Castlereagh". In October 1797 his step mother, Lady Frances, had petitioned Camden for the life of William Orr. On a charge of administering the United Irish test to two soldiers, Orr had been named on the same warrant that Castlereagh had used in the roundup of the previous September. The judge reportedly broke down in tears as he read the death sentence which the popular journalist Peter Finnerty credited to Castlereagh's insistence on making an example in the face of the growing French fever. (In 1811, Castlereagh successfully had Finnerty convicted for libel). After the rebellion (during which Mount Stewart was briefly occupied),  Castlrereagh was content that leading United Irishmen in the Presbyterian north be allowed American exile.Exception was made in the case of the James Porter, executed  (again despite the entreaties of Lady Frances) following a court martial before Castlereagh's father, Lord Londonderry. Porter, who had been his family's Presbyterian minister and, in 1790, his election agent, had become a household name in Ulster as the author of a satire of the county gentry, Billy Bluff, in which Londonderry was serially lampooned as an inarticulate tyrant. The Act of Union and the promise of Emancipation
In 1799, in furtherance of both his own political vision and Pitt's policies, Castlereagh began lobbying in the Irish and British Parliaments for a union that would incorporate Ireland with Great Britain in a United Kingdom. In addition to security against the French, Castlereagh saw the principal merit of a bringing Ireland directly under the Crown in the Westminster Parliament as a resolution of what ultimately was the key issue for the governance of the country, the Catholic question. "Linked with England", he reasoned that "the Protestants, feeling less exposed, would be more confident and liberal", while Catholics, reduced to a minority within the larger kingdom, would lower their expectations and moderate their demands. During the campaign for the Act of Union, both Castlereagh and Cornwallis had, in good faith, forwarded informal assurances they had received from Pitt's Cabinet to the Irish Catholics that they would be allowed to sit in the new United Kingdom Parliament. However, opposition in England, and not least from the King, George III, obliged Castlereagh to defy what he saw as "the very logic of the Union."The Union bill that, with a generous distribution of titles and favours, he helped put through the Irish Parliament omitted the provision for Catholic emancipation. A separate Irish executive in Dublin was retained, but representation, still wholly Protestant, was transferred to Westminster constituted as the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Pitt had tried to follow through on his commitment, but when it came to light that the King had approached Henry Addington, an opponent of Catholic emancipation, about becoming Prime Minister to replace him, both Castlereagh and Pitt resigned. Castlereagh would long be held personally responsible by many Catholics in Ireland for the breach of promise and the British Government's failure to remove their remaining political disabilities. Loss of his home constituency

While in Dublin, Castlereagh had been a member of the Kildare Street Club, which was at the heart of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy. The Ascendancy, however, was not quick to forgive Castlereagh for the loss of their parliament. In 1805 the Dowager Marchioness of Downshire, broke her family's electoral truce with the Stewarts in County Down and forced Castlereagh to defend his (now Westminster) parliamentary seat.Despite the prestige of a new cabinet position in London, <mask> was defeated in a campaign marked by repeated aspersions on his failure to father a child, and by the taunts of those who, otherwise no friends of the Downshires, reminded him of the principles on which he had stood in 1790. On his return to London, the Treasury found him an alternative English seat, Boroughbridge, a government controlled rotten borough. Having conciliated the Downshires and able to ride the victories of Arthur Wellesley (future Duke of Wellington), the reputed Ulsterman he had appointed to command in the Peninsular War, in 1812 Castlereagh avenged his humiliation, and recovered the family seat. Secretary for War
In the new Parliament of the United Kingdom the tensions within the ruling Tories over Catholic emancipation abated, and after obtaining his desired cessation of hostilities with France (the Peace of Amiens), Henry Addington brought <mask> into the Cabinet as President of the Board of Control. He chief task was to mediate the bitter disputes between the Governor-General of India, Richard Wellesley (the brother of Arthur Wellesley) and the Directors of the East India Company, smoothing quarrels while generally supporting Lord Wellesley's policies. After the renewal of the war against Napoleon, at the urging of Castlereagh and other long-time supporters, in 1804 Pitt returned as Prime Minister, and <mask> was promoted to Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. As the only other member of Pitt's cabinet in the House of Commons, Castlereagh became Pitt's political deputy, taking on ever more burdens as Pitt's health continued to decline.After Pitt's death in 1806, Castlereagh resigned amid the chaos of the Ministry of All the Talents. When that Government collapsed, Castlereagh again became Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in 1807, this time in the ministry of the Duke of Portland. The bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807 and in 1809 (with the Dowager Marchioness of Downshire again manoeuvring against him) the debacle of the Walcheren Expedition, subjected Castlereagh to hostile scrutiny. Duel with Canning
Foreign Secretary George Canning claimed to have opposed the Walcheren Expedition, to have dismissed the landing on the Dutch coast as an ill-advised, ill-prepared diversion of troops from the Peninsular War. Castlereagh had the support of General Wellesley, and evidence later surfaced that Canning himself had interfered with the plan, selecting the Earl of Chatham to command the expedition. The Portland government became increasingly paralysed by disputes between the two men. Portland was in deteriorating health and gave no lead, until Canning threatened resignation unless Castlereagh was removed.When Castlereagh discovered Canning's terms had been accepted, he challenged the Foreign Secretary to a duel. The duel was fought on 21 September 1809 on Putney Heath. Canning missed but Castlereagh wounded his opponent in the thigh. There was much outrage that two cabinet ministers had sought to settle their differences in such a manner, and they both felt compelled to resign. Six months later, Canning published a full account of his actions in the affair, but many who had initially rallied to him  became convinced Castlereagh had been betrayed by his cabinet colleague. Foreign Secretary

Three years later, in 1812, Castlereagh returned to the government, this time as Foreign Secretary, a role in which he served for the next ten years. He also became leader of the House of Commons in the wake of Spencer Perceval's assassination in 1812.Treaty of Chaumont
In his role of Foreign Secretary he was instrumental in negotiating what has become known as the quadruple alliance between Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia at Chaumont in March 1814, in the negotiation of the Treaty of Paris that brought peace with France, and at the Congress of Vienna. The Treaty of Chaumont was part of the final deal offered to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814. Napoleon rejected it and it never took effect. However, the key terms reaffirmed decisions that had been made already. These decisions were again ratified and put into effect by the Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815. The terms were largely written by Lord <mask>, who offered cash subsidies to keep the other armies in the field against Napoleon. Key terms included the establishment of a confederated Germany, the division of Italy into independent states, the restoration of the Bourbon kings of Spain, and the enlargement of the Netherlands to include what in 1830 would become modern Belgium.The treaty of Chaumont became the cornerstone of the European Alliance which formed the balance of power for decades. Historian G. M. Trevelyan argues:
In 1813 and 1814 Castlereagh played the part that William III and Marlborough had played more than a hundred years before, in holding together an alliance of jealous, selfish, weak-kneed states and princes, by a vigour of character and singleness of purpose that held Metternich, the Czar, and the King of Prussia on the common track until the goal was reached. It is quite possible that, but for the lead taken by Castlereagh in the allied counsels, France would never have been reduced to her ancient limits, nor Napoleon dethroned. Congress of Vienna
At the Congress of Vienna, Castlereagh designed and proposed a form of collective and collaborative security for Europe, then called a Congress system. In the Congress system, the main signatory powers met periodically (every two years or so) and collectively managed European affairs. This system was used in an attempt to address the Polish-Saxon crisis at Vienna and the question of Greek independence at Laibach. The following ten years saw five European Congresses where disputes were resolved with a diminishing degree of effectiveness.Finally, by 1822, the whole system had collapsed because of the irreconcilable differences of opinion among Britain, Austria, and Russia, and because of the lack of support for the Congress system in British public opinion. The Holy Alliance, which Castlereagh opposed, lingered a little longer. The order created by the Congress of Vienna was a mood that lasted much longer and worked to prevent major European wars until the First World War in 1914. Some scholars and historians have seen the Congress system as a forerunner of the modern collective security, international unity, and cooperative agreements of NATO, the EU, the League of Nations, and the United Nations. In the years 1812 to 1822, Castlereagh continued to manage Britain's foreign policy, generally pursuing a policy of continental engagement uncharacteristic of British foreign policy in the nineteenth century. Castlereagh was not an effective public speaker and his diplomatic presentation style was at times abstruse. Henry Kissinger says he developed a reputation for integrity, consistency, and goodwill, which was perhaps unmatched by any diplomat of that era.Abolition of the slave trade

Abolitionist opinion in Britain was  strong enough in 1807 to abolish the slave trade in all British possessions—although slavery itself persisted in the colonies until 1833. Abolitionists after 1807 focused on international agreements to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. Castlereagh switched his position and became a strong supporter of the movement. Britain arranged treaties with Portugal, Sweden and Denmark, 1810–1814, whereby they agreed to restrict their trading. These were preliminary to the Congress of Vienna negotiations that Castlereagh dominated and which resulted in a general declaration condemning the slave trade. The problem was that the treaties and declarations were hard to enforce, given the very high profits available to private interests. As Foreign Minister, Castlereagh cooperated with senior officials to use the Royal Navy to detect and capture slave ships; the freed slaves were sent to freedom in a new British colony of Sierra Leone.He used diplomacy to conclude search-and-seize agreements with all the countries whose ships were trading. There was serious friction with the United States, where the southern slave interest was politically powerful. Washington recoiled at British policing of the high seas. Spain, France and Portugal also relied on the international slave trade to supply their colonial plantations. As more and more diplomatic arrangements were made by Castlereagh, the owners of slave ships started flying false flags of nations that had not agreed, especially the United States. It was illegal under American law for American ships to engage in the slave trade, but the idea of Britain enforcing American laws was unacceptable to Washington. Lord Palmerston continued the Castlereagh policies.Eventually, in 1842 in 1845, an arrangement was reached between London and Washington. With the arrival of a staunchly anti-slavery government in Washington in 1861, the Atlantic slave trade was doomed. In the long run, Castlereagh's strategy on how to stifle the trade proved successful. Nonintervention in European affairs
In May 1820 Castlereagh circulated to high officials a major state paper that set the main British policy for the rest of the century. Temperley and Penson call it, "the most famous State Paper in British history and the one of the widest ultimate consequences." Castlereagh called for no British intervention in continental affairs. He argued that the purpose of the Quadruple Alliance was to contain France and put down revolutions.But the Spanish revolt did not threaten European peace nor any of the great powers. Castlereagh said that in actual practice the powers would seldom be able to agree on concerted action, and he pointed out that British public opinion would not support interventions. He admitted that individual states could

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 indeed intervene in affairs in their recognized sphere of interest, such as Austria's intervention in Italy. Lampooning by Thomas Moore
As a press, or squib, writer for the Whigs, Thomas Moore, better remembered as Ireland's national bard, mercilessly lampooned Castlereagh. In what were the "verbal equivalents of the political cartoons of the day",Tom Crib's Memorial to Congress (1818) and  "Fables for the Holy Alliance" (1823), Moore savages Castlereagh's pirouetting with Britain's reactionary continental allies. Widely read, so that Moore eventually produced a sequel, was his verse novel The Fudge Family in Paris (1818). The family of an Irishman working as a propagandist for Castlereagh in Paris, the Fudges are accompanied by an accomplished tutor and classicist, Phelim Connor.An upright but disillusioned Irish Catholic, his letters to a friend reflect Moore's own views. Connor's regular epistolary denunciations of Castlereagh had two recurrent themes. First is Castlereagh as "the embodiment of the sickness with which Ireland had infected British politics as a consequence of the union": "We sent thee Castlereagh--as heaps of dead Have slain their slayers by the pest they spread". The second is that at the time of the Acts of Union Castlereagh's support for Catholic emancipation had been disingenuous. Castlereagh had been master of "that faithless craft" which can "cart the slave, can swear he shall be freed", but then "basely spurns him" when his "point is gain'd." This imputation that he had betrayed his country, bloodied his hands in 1798 and deliberately deceived Catholics at the time of the Union, reportedly wounded Castlereagh. Moore learned from a mutual connection that Castlereagh had said that "the humorous and laughing things he did not at all mind, but the verses of the Tutor in the Fudge Family were quite another sort of thing, and were in very bad taste indeed".For openly casting the same aspersions against the former Chief Secretary, in 1811 the London-based Irish publisher, and former United Irishman, Peter Finnerty was sentenced to eighteen months for libel. Decline and death

Despite his contributions to the defeat of Napoleon and restoration of peace, Castlereagh became extremely unpopular at home. He was attacked in the House of Commons by the Opposition for his support of repressive European governments, while the public resented his role in handling the Commons side of the divorce of George IV and Queen Caroline. He was also condemned for his association with repressive measures of the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth (the former Prime Minister Addington). As Leader of the House of Commons for the Liverpool Government, he was often called upon to defend government policy in the House. He had to support the widely reviled measures taken by Sidmouth and the others, including the infamous Six Acts, to remain in cabinet and continue his diplomatic work. For these reasons, Castlereagh appears with other members of Lord Liverpool's Cabinet in Shelley's poem The Masque of Anarchy, which was inspired by, and heavily critical of, the Peterloo Massacre:

I met Murder on the way –
He had a mask like Castlereagh –
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven bloodhounds followed him.All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew. After the death of his father in April 1821, which "greatly afflicted him", Castlereagh became the 2nd Marquess of Londonderry. Although ineligible to continue sitting for an Irish constituency, as a non-representative Irish peer he was eligible to sit in the House of Commons for an English seat. Preparations had already been made, and he was able to vacate Down and swiftly win a by-election for his uncle Lord Hertford's borough of Orford (of which he had been an MP between 1796 and 1797). He also stood in good favour with the new King, George IV, who openly proposed to dismiss Lord Liverpool and appoint Castlereagh in his stead. Castlereagh's relations with his colleagues, however, were beginning to break down, possibly under the influence of paranoia. In March 1821, he told his brother he lacked able support on the government benches, and that his parliamentary labours were 'difficult to endure'.By 1822, he was showing clear signs of a form of paranoia or a nervous breakdown. He was severely overworked with both his responsibilities in leading the government in the House and the never-ending diplomacy required to manage conflicts among the other major powers. His oratory in the House had never been of the highest calibre, but now he was considered to be practically incoherent. He spoke of resigning his office if matters did not improve. Castlereagh began confessing to what was at the time criminal activity. He had already told his friend Mrs Arbuthnot that he was being blackmailed for an alleged homosexual offence; and at a 9 August meeting with the King, Castlereagh was distracted, said he was being mysteriously watched by a servant, that he had committed all manner of crimes, and remarked, "I am accused of the same crime as the Bishop of Clogher." Percy Jocelyn, who had been the Bishop of Clogher until the previous month, was prosecuted for homosexuality.The King concluded he was unwell, and urged him to rest. The King then sent a message to Lord Liverpool warning him of Castlereagh's illness; Liverpool initially failed to take the matter seriously and dismissed the message. Later that day, however, Castlereagh met with the Duke of Wellington, his cabinet colleague. Castlereagh behaved much as he had done with the King; Wellington bluntly told Castlereagh he was not in his right mind, advised him to see a doctor, and alerted Castlereagh's personal physician Dr. Charles Bankhead, as well as Castlereagh's friends the Arbuthnots. On the advice of Dr Bankhead, Castlereagh went to his country seat at Woollet Hall in Water Lane, North Cray, Kent, for a weekend stay. He continued to be distressed, ranting wildly about conspiracies and threats to his life, to the concern of his friends and family. No special watch was kept on him, however, his wife saw to it that his pistols and razors were locked away.Lady Castlereagh wrote to the King informing him that her husband would be unable to continue with official business. The King responded with a note to Castlereagh that his minister did not live to read: "Remember of what importance Your Health is to the Country but above all things to Me". At about 7:30am on the morning of 12 August 1822 he sent for Bankhead, who found him in a dressing room seconds after he had cut his own throat, using a small knife which had been overlooked. He collapsed when Bankhead entered, and died almost instantly. Retrospective speculative diagnoses vary. At the time, his brother blamed "the intrigues that were carried on by the women surrounding the king" (the King's mistress, Lady Conyngham, was not on good terms with Castlereagh's wife). George Agar Ellis, on the other hand,  concluded Castlereagh was disillusioned by "the nothingness of human grandeurs... the sad effects which disappointment and chagrin may have on a mind in which religion is not uppermost, for I have no doubt that the sad and apparently irretrievable state of affairs in England was the real cause of ... [his] unfortunate state of mind."Later verdicts attribute the problem to overwork and mental stress, or to "a psychotic depressive illness". Other theories link various instances of (at the time) little explained illness to syphilis, possibly contracted at Cambridge. Reaction to his death
An inquest concluded that the act had been committed while insane, avoiding the harsh strictures of a felo de se verdict. The verdict allowed Lady Londonderry to see her husband buried with honour in Westminster Abbey near his mentor, William Pitt. The pallbearers included the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool, the former Prime Minister Lord Sidmouth and two future Prime Ministers, the Duke of Wellington and Frederick Robinson. Some radicals, notably William Cobbett, claimed a "cover-up" within the government and viewed the verdict and Castlereagh's public funeral as a damning indictment of the elitism and privilege of the unreformed electoral system. At his funeral on 20 August, the crowds which lined the funeral route were generally respectful and decorous, but some jeering and insults were heard (although not to the level of unanimity projected in the radical press); and there was cheering when the coffin was taken out of the hearse at the Abbey door.A funeral monument was not erected until 1850 when his half-brother and successor, Charles Stewart Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry did so. Some time after <mask>'s death, Lord Byron wrote a savage quip about his grave:

Posterity will ne'er survey
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop, traveller, and piss. Some of his opponents were damning in their verdicts. Thomas Creevy defied "any human being to discover a single feature of his character that can stand a moment’s criticism. By experience, good manners and great courage, he managed a corrupt House of Commons pretty well, with some address. This is the whole of his intellectual merit. He had a limited understanding and no knowledge, and his whole life was spent in an avowed, cold-blooded contempt of every honest public principle."Sir <mask> believed that there had never been "a greater enemy to civil liberty or a baser slave." Others of Castlereagh's political opponents were more gracious in their epigrams. Henry Brougham, a Whig politician and later the Lord Chancellor, who had battled frequently with Castlereagh, once almost to the point of calling him out, and had denigrated his skills as Leader, wrote in the week following <mask>'s death:

Put all their other men together in one scale, and poor Castlereagh in the other – single he plainly weighed them down ... One can't help feeling a little for him, after being pitted against him for several years, pretty regularly. It is like losing a connection suddenly. Also he was a gentleman, and the only one amongst them. Modern historians stress the success of Castlereagh's career in spite of the hatred and ignominy he suffered. Trevelyan contrasts his positive achievements and his pitiful failures.His diplomacy was applauded by historians. For example, in 1919 diplomatic historians recommended his wise policies of 1814–1815 to the British delegation to the Paris peace conferences that ended the First World War. Historian R. J. White underscores the paradox:

Styles
<mask> acquired the courtesy title <mask> Castlereagh in 1796 when his father was created Earl of Londonderry in the Irish peerage. Upon his father's death in 1821, he succeeded as 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, a title to which his father had been raised in 1816. His younger half-brother, the soldier, politician and diplomat Charles Stewart (later Vane) succeeded him as 3rd Marquess of Londonderry in 1822. He was styled through his life as follows:
<mask>, Esquire (1769–1789)
The Honourable <mask> (1789–1796)
Viscount Castlereagh (1796–1797)
The Right Honourable <mask> Castlereagh (1797–1814)
The Right Honourable <mask>, KG (1814–1821)
The Most Honourable Marquess of Londonderry, KG, GCH, PC, PC (Ire) (1821–1822)

Memorials and tributes
Castlereagh Street in Sydney was named after him in 1810 by Governor Macquarie.The Sydney suburb locality of Castlereagh was also named after him by Macquarie in 1810. The Castlereagh River in north-western New South Wales was dedicated to him in 1818 by George Evans and explored by John Oxley. The New South Wales electoral seat of Castlereagh also carried his name from 1904 until 1991. See also
, two ships named for Lord Castlereagh

Notes, citations, and sources

Notes

Citations

Sources
 – A to C (for hamlet of Castlereagh)

 – L to M (for Londonderry)
 – Scotland and Ireland

 (for timeline)

 – (especially for early years, access to family papers)

Further reading
Bew, John. Castlereagh: Enlightenment, War and Tyranny, London: Quercus (2011)
 review essay by Jack Gumpert Wasserman, in The Byron Journal (2013)  Vol. 41, No. 1 online
Cecil, Algernon.British Foreign Secretaries 1807-1916 (1927) pp 1–52.online
Charmley,  John, "Castlereagh and France." Diplomacy and Statecraft 17.4 (2006): 665–673. Coburn, Helen. A Gentleman Among Them: The Public and Private Life of Viscount Castlereagh (Cestus 2016). Available as e-book at amazon.com. Derry, John W. Castlereagh, London: A. Lane (1976)
Goodlad, Graham."From Castlereagh to Canning: Continuity and Change in British Foreign Policy," History Review (2008) Issue: 62. pp10+ online
Hayes, Paul. Modern British Foreign Policy: The nineteenth century, 1814–80 (1975). Lawrence, Thomas, and C. J. Bartlett. The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 1812–1815, Britain and the European Alliance (1925) online
King, David. Vienna 1814; How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna, (Random House, 2008)
Muir, Rory. Britain and the defeat of Napoleon, 1807–1815, New Haven: Yale University Press (1966)
Harold Nicolson, The Congress of Vienna, Constable & Co Ltd, UK/Harcourt Brace and Company (1946)online
Perkins, Bradford. Castlereagh and Adams: England and the United States, 1812–1823, Berkeley: University of California Press (1964)
Schroeder, Paul W. The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (1996), European diplomatic history online

Zamoyski, Adam.Rites of Peace; the Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna, HarperCollins Publishers (2007)

Primary sources
Memoirs and Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh, 2nd Marquess of Londonderry, edited by his brother, Charles William (Stewart) Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, London: John Murray (1848–53) in 12 volumes
Sir

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