Tempest family
The Tyneside branch of the family at Stella combined agricultural and mercantile interests with large-scale involvement in the coal trade via Newcastle upon Tyne in the late 16th and 17th centuries, with many members being noted recusants, adherents to the old Catholic faith after the Reformation.
He was created a baronet on 23 December 1622 by James I,[4] then being described as of Stella Hall, Blaydon, County Durham, a former monastic property granted to the family by Elizabeth I c1600.
Bishop Toby Matthew of Durham described Tempest as "as much a church papist as any in England",[6] although this may have been due to the influence of his wife, Isabel Lambton (1552–1623).
Arrested and committed to Durham gaol as a recusant in 1599 the Bishop's attempts at prosecution were thwarted by the intervention of Lord Eure, her uncle, and a member of the Council of the North prompting him to write that "nothing in Newcastle can prevail against him (Tempest), he being in affinity and consanguinity with both factions there".
The hostility of the bishops persisted until Tempest's death in 1625 preventing him from taking post as Sheriff of Newcastle and as a JP on the Durham bench.
He and his brother Henry were confirmed non-recusants by the ecclesiastical commissioners in 1630 when compounding on behalf of Dionysia Bulmer upon her conviction.
As Colonel of a Regiment of Horse under Marmaduke Langdale in 1648, he was captured by Robert Lilburne in the action at Cartington Castle, Northumberland but contrived to escape after breakfast.
He acted as Attorney General of the Bishopric of Durham (c. 1634–1640) and in October 1640 as Attorney-General for Ireland in succession to Sir Richard Osbaldeston when he described is as a Recorder, of Lincoln's Inn.
[15] In County Durham he purchased the manors of The Isle, south west of Bradbury (1635) and Swainston, north of Wynyard and Embleton, from his Calverley and Bulmer relatives (1628).
Colonel Gerard Salvin was killed and in July at Marston Moor where the royalist cause in the north was irretrievably lost.
Retreating into Lancashire with the remnants of Prince Rupert's forces he joined the small band of volunteers defending Lathom House, home of the Earl of Derby.
[nb 3] Labeled an "obstinate delinquent" by the Parliamentary Commissioners alongside his father and father-in-law who compounded for their estates in 1647.
[nb 4] During the Commonwealth, in 1656 he is mentioned by Marmaduke Langdale as among those Cavaliers of the Bishopric whom he deems "eminently reliable" and conversely by Cromwell's agents as the "leader of a cabal whose members include Col. Ralph Millot and William Davison".
After the restoration of Charles II he was nominated a Knight of the Royal Oak in 1661, the order being "set aside for fear of inciting the heats and jealousies of the late times".
In October 1662 he was appointed by John Cosin, Bishop of Durham, as a Deputy Lord Lieutenant and Receiver for County Durham, he seems already to have been Colonel of the Train Bands as on 17 September 1662 he is ordered by the Bishop to "search houses and arrest George Lilburne and Thomas Brown of Sunderland".
The former was Mayor of Sunderland and brother of the Parliamentarian, General Robert Lilburne of Thickley, the most powerful man in Durham in the 1650s.
An anonymous libel on the Earl of Danby's organisation published in 1677 observes that "John Tempest a papist, a pensioner and a court dinner man hath secured a customers place at Hull for his son".
On 17 January 1678 he is appointed as Newcastle Commissioner for sea coals and on 21 March the same year receives a grant of searcher of the port.
[19] He was buried at Forcett, North Yorkshire, on 26 July 1697, his daughter Margaret having married Richard Shuttleworth of Forcett and Gawthorpe Hall (Lancashire) William Tempest (31 January 1653 – 16 March 1700), second son of John Tempest of The Isle and Old Durham and Elizabeth daughter and sole heiress of John Heath, represented the City of Durham as Member of Parliament in 1678, 1680 and 1689.
He may have been implicated in the conspiracy of John Fenwick against William III, being recorded as under house arrest at his home of Old Durham, 19 March 1695.
[10] His family's extensive landed interests including the manors of Wynyard (purchased in 1742 for £8,000), The Isle, Swainston, Kelloe, Dalton-le-Dale, Old Durham, Sherburn, Brancepeth Castle, Stainton, Thorpe Thewles, Carlton, Redmarshall, Broomhall, Offerton.
[22] He represented the City of Durham in the Parliaments of 1741 (elected 3 April 1742), when he is listed among those voting against Hanoverian troops being taken into British pay, 1747, 1754 and 1761.
Their only son, John Wharton Tempest (1772–1793, the subject of a painting by George Romney), predeceased them as a result of a riding accident.
