Mountjoy Blount, 1st Earl of Newport

Mountjoy Blount, 1st Earl of Newport (c. 1597–1666), created Baron Mountjoy in the Irish peerage (1617), Baron Mountjoy of Thurveston in the English peerage (1627) and Earl of Newport (1628) was appointed master of ordnance to Charles I of England (1634) and played an ambiguous part in the early years of the English Civil War.

Early career

Born around 1597, he was the natural son of Charles Blount, Earl of Devonshire and hislover and future wife, Penelope Devereux, andwas born while his parents were living together without benefit of marriage. After his mother obtained a divorce from her first husband Robert Rich, 1st Earl of Warwick, in1605, his parents married andalthough they were unable to legitimise him,his father,who died shortly after the marriage, left him a large estate.His mother died the following year.

He became a member of James I's court,where he was something of aroyal favourite, who played in a masque before the king mounted by James Hay, 1st Viscount Doncaster (later Earl of Carlisle) at Essex House on 8 January 1620/1621.He was among the entourage of the Earl of Carlisle,who were employed to offer excuses at the court of Louis XIII, for the passage of Prince Charles through Paris incognito on his way to Spain at the time of negotiations towards the ill-starred "Spanish Match".

Earl of Newport

In July 1627 he was created Earl of Newport in the Isle of Wight; Newport, as he now was, took part in the Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré in 1627 but was captured at the battle of the pont du Feneau on 8 November. He was however released soon after. He held a rear-admiral's command in the ineffective expedition to relieve La Rochelle in August 1628, for which he was petitioning for payment in the following years. His appointment as Master of Ordnance for his lifetime was granted 31 August 1634; as was expected in the seventeenth century, he derived a tidy fortune from the position. From his sale of gunpowder atexorbitant prices, through the Spanish ambassador, to supply the Spanish fleet attacking Dutch forces in September 1639, he pocketed £1000, and the King, £5000.

By his own account he bargained with the ambassador to land soldiers from the Spanish fleet at Dunkirk, atthirty shillings a head, though public neutrality had been enjoined by Charles.His relatives, the Rich-Devereux clan, were identified with theParliamentary opposition on the 1630s.Although at Christmas 1639, Newport participated with the King in the extravagant masque on the theme of Philogenes, royal "lover of the People", with the return of the Long Parliament the next year, Newport by degrees joined the forces of opposition in the House of Lords.

The turning point came during the trial of Strafford in 1641, when Col. Lord Goring had revealed to Newport an amateurish plot of Royalist officers at Portsmouth to take London by surprise, seize the Tower and somehow rescue the king. Goring betrayed the plot to Newport, who passed on the information to John Pym, who brought it forward at the most dramatic and opportune moment, sealing Strafford's fate in the bill of attainder.

When the Civil War broke out, however, Newport served in the royalist army, and took part in the second battle of Newbury in 1644. In January 1646 he was taken prisoner and confined in London on parole. He played little part inpublic affairs thereafter. At the Restoration of Charles II heregained some of his old influence, but age and ill health were taking their toll.

Family

He had on 7 February 1626 married Anne Boteler, daughter of John Boteler, 1st Baron Boteler of Bramfield and Elizabeth Villiers, half-sister ofGeorge Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, by whom he had eight children:

• Charles Blount (bur. 23 April 1631)
• Lady Henrietta Maria Blount (bapt. 16 September 1632 – bur. 1 April 1634)
• Charles Blount, Lord Blount (bapt. 10 January 1634), died young
• Lady Isabella Blount, married Nicholas Knollys and had issue
• Lady Anne Blount (1637–?), married Maj. Thomas Porter and had issue
• Mountjoy Blount, 2nd Earl of Newport (bur. 20 March 1675), called by some sources George
• Thomas Blount, 3rd Earl of Newport (bur. 4 May 1675)
• Henry Blount, 4th Earl of Newport (bur. 25 September 1679)

He died at Oxford, where he had gone to avoid the plague, leaving three surviving sons, all said to be "idiots" (i.e. mentally disabled). They each inherited the title in turn, but earldom became extinct upon the death of the youngest, Henry, in 1679. Mountjoy Blount was interred in Christ Church.