John Belasyse, 1st Baron Belasyse (or Bellasis) (24 June 1614 – 10 September 1689) was an English nobleman, Royalist officer and Member of Parliament, notable for his role during and after the Civil War. He suffered a long spell of imprisonment during the Popish Plot, although he was never brought to trial. From 1671 until his death he lived in Whitton, near Twickenham in Middlesex. Samuel Pepys was impressed by his collection of paintings, which has long since disappeared.

Origins

He was born at Newburgh Grange, Yorkshire and was baptised on 24 July 1614 at Coxwold, Yorkshire. He was the second son of Thomas Belasyse, 1st Viscount Fauconberg (1577–1652), a Member of Parliament for Thirsk in the Short and Long Parliaments, by his wife Barbara Cholmondeley, a daughter of Sir Henry Cholmondeley of Roxby in Yorkshire.

Career

Civil War

Shortly after the start of the Civil War, he was "disabled" from sitting in the Long Parliament as he had joined the Royalist cause. He raised six regiments of horse and foot soldiers at his own expense and took part in the Battle of Edgehill and the Battle of Brentford, both in 1642, the First Battle of Newbury (1643), the Battle of Selby (1644), the Battle of Naseby (1645), as well as the sieges of Reading (1643), Bristol and Newark and was wounded several times. He later became Lieutenant-General of the King's forces in the North of England, and Governor of York and of Newark. At Oxford on 27 January 1645 he was raised to the peerage by King Charles I under the title of Baron Belasyse of Worlaby, Lincolnshire. On 4 February 1665 Samuel Pepys recorded an anecdote about Belasyse's civil war activities in a diary entry: "To my office, and there all the morning. At noon, being invited, I to the Sun behind the Change to dinner to my Lord Bellasses – where a great deal of discourse with him – and some good. Among other at table, he told us a very handsome passage of the King's sending him his message about holding out the town of Newarke, of which he was then governor for the King. This message he sent in a Slugg-bullet, being writ in Cypher and wrapped up in lead and swallowed. So the messenger came to my Lord and told him he had a message from the King, but it was yet in his belly; so they did give him some physic, and out it came. This was a month before the King's flying to the Scotts; and therein he told him that at such a day, being 3 or 6 May, he should hear of his being come to the Scotts, being assured by the King of France that in coming to them, he should be used with all the Liberty, Honour and safety that could be desired. And at the just day he did come to the Scotts. He told us another odd passage: how the King, having newly put out Prince Rupert of his Generallshipp upon some miscarriage at Bristol, and Sir Rd. Willis of his governorshipp of Newarke at the entreaty of the gentry of the County, and put in my Lord Bellasses – the great officers of the King’s Army mutinyed, and came in that manner, with swords drawn, into the market-place of the town where the King was – which the King hearing, says, 'I must to horse'. And there himself personally, when everybody expected they would have been opposed, the King came and cried to the head of the Mutineers, which was Prince Rupert, 'Nephew, I command you to be gone!' So the Prince, in all his fury and discontent, withdrew, and his company scattered – which they say was the greatest piece of mutiny in the world."

Interregnum

Belasyse is considered to have been one of the first members of the Sealed Knot, a Royalist underground organisation, as was Sir Richard Willis, his predecessor as Governor of Newark. During the Interregnum Belasyse was in frequent communication with King Charles II and his supporters in Holland.

Charles II

After the Restoration of the Monarchy, Belasyse was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire (1660–1673) and Governor of Kingston upon Hull (1661-1673), while from 1665 to 1666 he held the posts of Governor of Tangier and Captain-General of the forces in Africa. According to Samuel Pepys, he accepted the post only for the profit it brought. In 1666/67, Belasyse was in England; his appointment as Governor of Tangier was withdrawn and he was appointed Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms. In 1672, he resigned this appointment as he was unwilling to take the Oath of Conformity introduced under the Test Act.

Popish Plot

At the time of the plot of Titus Oates, Belasyse, along with four other Catholic peers, Henry Arundell, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, William Howard, 1st Viscount Stafford, William Herbert, 1st Marquis of Powis and William Petre, 4th Baron Petre, was denounced as a conspirator and formally impeached in Parliament. Belasyse was said to have been designated Commander-in-Chief of a supposed "Popish army" by the Jesuit Superior-General, Giovanni Paolo Oliva, but Charles II, according to Von Ranke, burst out laughing at the idea that this infirm old man, who could hardly stand on his feet due to gout, would be able even to hold a pistol. He was a friend of the senior civil servant Edward Colman, an ardent and politically active Catholic, who was executed for his supposed part in the Plot in December 1678, and Colman visited Belasyse the night before he gave himself up to the authorities. However, Colman in fact seems to have been guilty of nothing more than indiscreet correspondence with the French Court in which he outlined his wildly impractical schemes for the advancement of the Catholic faith in England. On the other hand Coleman plainly advocated foreign bribery of the King to ensure a dissolution of Parliament. Despite his frequent references to his old age and infirmity, Lord Belasyse lived on for another ten years. The impeached Catholic peers, though they endured a long imprisonment in the Tower, where Lord Petre died in 1683, were never brought to trial, apart from Stafford, who was executed in December 1680.

James II

Following the accession of king James II, Belasyse returned to favour and in July 1686 was appointed a Privy Counsellor and in 1687 was appointed as First Lord Commissioner of the Treasury which, on account of his Catholicism, caused political problems for the king, although in a Court dominated by extremists, he was regarded as moderate. He and the king had always been on friendly terms: after the death of his first wife Anne Hyde, James had informally promised to marry Susan Belasyse, Belasyse's widowed daughter-in-law, "a lady of much life and vivacity", despite the fact that she was a staunch Protestant while he was a Catholic convert. The marriage was forbidden by Charles II, who told his younger brother that "it was too much that he had played the fool once (i.e. by marrying Anne Hyde, another commoner) and that it was not to be done a second time and at such an age". Susan was forced to surrender the written proofs of the engagement although she kept a secret copy.

Marriage and children

Belasyse married three times and by his first and third wives had at least sixteen children, many of whom died in infancy. His wives were as follows:

Daughters

He had seven surviving daughters, by his first and third wives:

Death and burial

He died on 10 September 1689 and was buried on 14 September 1689 at the church of St Giles in the Fields, London. A monument erected to his memory in the old Church was moved to the churchyard when the present Georgian church was built and subsequently decayed, but the inscribed tablet survives now in the south porch, reading as follows: