Family and Education

bap. 8 Feb. 1675, 4th but o. surv. s. of Sir Richard Stote, serjeant-at-law, of Lincoln’s Inn and Jesmond Hall by Margaret, da. of Henry Holmes, merchant, of Newcastle.  educ. Westminster; L. Inn, 1691; Trinity, Camb. 1693. unm.  suc. fa. 1682, uncle Henry Holmes at Whitchester, Northumb. 1706.1

Offices Held

Member, merchant adventurers’ co. Newcastle 1700, hostmen’s co. 1701.2

Biography

Stote belonged to a wealthy family whose prosperity stemmed from their mercantile interests at Newcastle. Rather than enter trade, however, his father pursued a successful and lucrative legal career, purchasing property in Northumberland and Durham during the 1650s and 1660s, and had risen to become a serjeant-at-law. In March 1701 Stote was listed among Northumberland’s deputy-lieutenants, and at the December 1701 election stood for the county. He was defeated on this occasion, but was returned unopposed in 1702. What little is known of Stote’s parliamentary career clearly demonstrates his Tory sympathies. In March 1704 he was included on the Earl of Nottingham’s (Daniel Finch†) list of those willing to support the secretary of state in connexion with the Scotch Plot. In October he was forecast as a likely supporter of the Tack, and when the occasional conformity bill was introduced on 14 Nov., Stote was reported to have responded ‘very handsomely’ to Hon. Henry Boyle’s criticism of this measure. His support of the measure was further seen in his vote for the Tack in the crucial division on 28 Nov. An inactive Member, he was named on 9 Feb. 1705 with Gilfrid Lawson to prepare a private bill relating to a Northumberland estate. Stote did not stand at the 1705 election, despite Robert Harley’s* forecast that he would. Little more is known of him before his death in 1707, his burial taking place on 22 July. He was succeeded in his considerable estate by his three sisters. Three years later William Pittis named Stote as the author of the Tory political satires Faction Displayed (1704) and Moderation Displayed (1704), but modern commentators have attributed these works to William Shippen*, a contemporary of Stote’s at Westminster school and Cambridge, who in 1712 married one of Stote’s coheirs.3

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

• 1. New Hist. Northumb. iv. 383; xiii. 114–15.
• 2. Newcastle Merchant Adventurers (Surtees Soc. ci), 333; Newcastle Hostmen’s Co. (Surtees Soc. cv), 274.
• 3. New Hist. Northumb. iv. 382; xiii. 114–15, 321; xiv. 455; Surtees, Dur. ii. 56; CSP Dom. 1700–2, p. 255; CJ, xiii. 656; Procs. Occasional Conformity Bill, 56; Add. 70334, list of constituencies, 7 Feb. 1704–5; Poems on Affairs of State ed. Ellis, vi. 650.