Tempest family

The Tempest family was an English recusant family that originated in western Yorkshire (part of which is now eastern Lancashire) in the 12th century.

Tempest baronets of Stella and Stanley, County Durham

A branch of the Tempest family of Holmside, County Durham descended from Nicolas Tempest (1486–1539), described as of Stanley Byers and Stanley Parke, the fourth son of Robert Tempest and Anne Lambton of Holmside. 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.

Thomas Tempest (1530–1578) was the son of the above; he married Elizabeth Place of Halnaby, Yorkshire and was of Stanley. His eldest son: Sir Nicolas Tempest, 1st Baronet (1553–1625). He was created a baronet on 23 December 1622 by James I, then being described as of Stella Hall, Blaydon, County Durham, a former monastic property granted to the family by Elizabeth I c1600. Surtees suggests that the "Tempests resided here in catholic splendour and loyalty during the reign of four Stuart kings" indicating a steadfast adherence to the Roman Catholic faith at Stella during the whole of the 17th century.

Bishop Toby Matthew of Durham described Tempest as "as much a church papist as any in England", 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.