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 ; but at Canning's request he remained till the end of the year to assist Wellington at Verona.

On 8 Aug. 1808 he had married Catherine, daughter of the third Earl of Darnley. She died on 8 Feb. 1812, while he was on his way home from Spain, leaving one son. On 3 April 1819 he married Frances Anne, only daughter of Sir Harry Vane-Tempest, and of Anne, countess of Antrim, and heiress of very large estates in Durham and the north of Ireland. On his marriage he took the surname of Vane, and on 28 March 1823 he was created Earl Vane and Viscount Seaham in the peerage of the United Kingdom, with remainder to the eldest son by his second marriage. After his return from Vienna he and his wife occupied themselves in improving and developing their property, especially the Seaham estate, which he bought from the Milbanke family in 1822. By opening collieries, and making a harbour, docks, and a railway, he created a thriving seaport which has abundantly justified his foresight, and has nearly ten thousand inhabitants. He rebuilt the mansion at Wynyard twice, for it was burnt down in 1841, and he remodelled the park.

In 1835, during Peel's short administration, he was offered and accepted the embassy at St. Petersburg. The support given by France to Mehemet Ali made the British government draw towards Russia, and he was a man who would find favour there. But in England, as a conspicuous opponent of reform, he had incurred so much hostility that he was on one occasion mobbed and dragged off his horse. Always an uncompromising tory, he did not measure his words, and he had shown some want of sympathy with the Poles. The appointment was bitterly attacked in the commons on 13 March, and not very stoutly defended; and Londonderry, feeling that such a debate would weaken his hands, withdrew his acceptance. The appointment had been recommended by Wellington, who was foreign secretary. He told Greville ‘that he was not particularly partial to the man, nor ever had been; but that he was very fit for that post, was an excellent ambassador, procured more information and obtained more insight into the affairs of a foreign court than anybody, and that he was the best relater of what passed at a conference, and wrote the best account of a conversation, of any man he knew’ (, Journals, 15 March 1835).

Londonderry compensated himself by travels in Russia and other parts of eastern and southern Europe in 1836 and subsequent years. He had succeeded the prince regent as colonel of the 10th hussars on 3 Feb. 1820, and in 1823 he had thought himself bound to accept a challenge from Cornet Battier of that regiment, arising out of a trivial matter brought before him as colonel. This brought him a sharp reprimand from the Horse Guards, while Battier was dismissed from the army. In 1839 he fought another duel with Henry Grattan the younger, owing to an absurd charge which the latter had made against the tories in connection with the bedchamber question. In each case Londonderry received his adversary's fire, and then discharged his own pistol in the air.

On 10 Jan. 1837 he became general, and on 21 June 1843 he was transferred from the 10th hussars to the 2nd life-guards. He had been appointed governor of co. Derry in 1823, and one of the joint-governors of co. Down in 1824; and he was made lord-lieutenant of Durham on 27 April 1842. In 1852 he received the Garter made vacant by Wellington's death, and was one of the pallbearers at his funeral. But he did not long survive his old chief. He died at Holdernesse House, London, on 6 March 1854, from influenza, and was buried on the 16th at Long Newton, near Wynyard Park, co. Durham, where his widow built a ‘memorial-room’ for the insignia of his orders and other relics of him. She died on 20 Jan. 1865.

Londonderry's only son by his first wife, Frederick William Robert Stewart (1805–1872), succeeded as fourth Marquis of Londonderry. Londonderry had three sons and four daughters by his second marriage. The eldest of these sons, George Henry Robert Charles William Vane-Tempest (1821–1884), succeeded him as Earl Vane, and (by the death of his half-brother) became fifth Marquis of Londonderry on 25 Nov. 1872. The latter's son is the sixth and present marquis.

There is a portrait of him by Sir Thomas Lawrence, painted during the Peninsular war, in hussar uniform, and a later one by Bostock, painted in 1836.

He was the author of several works: 1. ‘A Narrative of the Peninsular War from 1808 to 1813,’ 2 vols. 4to, London, 1828. This was based upon letters written by him to Castlereagh during the war, and combines freshness of style with much exact information. It did not include the campaigns of 1812 and 1813. 2. ‘A Narrative of the War in Germany and France in 1813–14,’ 4to, London, 1830. 3. ‘Recollections of a Tour in the North of Europe in 1836–7,’ 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1838. 4. ‘Journal of a Tour in the Southern Parts of Spain, &c.’ (privately printed), London, 1840. 5. ‘A Steam