William, 4th Baron Widdrington

Tutored at the same Jesuit college in Paris as Lord Derwentwater, and from the same network of Catholic families, he was second in importance only to the Earl in northern Jacobite circles. The family had a long royalist and Catholic history, and their seat at Widdrington Castle on the coast of Northumberland had been assigned as one of the key places in the planned French landing of 1715. After his marriage to Jane Tempest in 1700, he resided mainly at Stella Hall, a coal-mining property on the Tyne, inherited by his wife. Despite being noted as an unostentatious man of neither military nor political expertise, he was well known by the authorities for his strong Jacobite allegiance, and, in the weeks before the Rising, Stella Hall was closely watched. He was a brother-in-law of Richard Townely of Townely in Lancashire, and through this connection was in close communication with the Jacobites of the North-west. Imprisoned in the Tower, he was reprieved on the morning of his execution, but lost his title, money and estates. He eventually retired to Bath, where he died in 1743. After his death the confiscated estates were returned to the family, much of the land having been entailed by his heirs.

Sketch of Stella Hall