succeeded General Wynne as colonel of the 5th royal Irish dragoons, 27 June 1737; became a lieutenant-general in Ireland in 1739, and master-general of the ordnance in Ireland in 1740; a lieutenant-general on the English establishment, 1 July 1742; a general of horse, 24 March 1746; commander-in-chief in Ireland in September 1751, and a field-marshal in 1757. He was governor of Kilmainham, and was admitted a member of the Royal Society 15 March 1721 (Thompson, App. iv. p. xxxv. He died 12 Oct. 1758, aged 78. A portrait of Molesworth was painted by Lee and engraved by Brooks.
Molesworth married, first, Jane, daughter of Mr. Lucas of Dublin (she died 1 April 1742, having had a son, who died an infant, and three daughters, and was buried at Swords); secondly, Mary, daughter of the Rev. William Usher, archdeacon of Clonfert, by whom he had one son, Richard Nassau, fourth viscount, and seven daughters. At his death, Molesworth's widow received a pension of 500l. a year, and seven of his unmarried daughters pensions of 70l. a year each. The second Lady Molesworth met with a tragic fate. She, her brother, Captain Usher (royal navy), two of her daughters, their governess, and four servants were burned in their beds by a fire originating in the nursery of her house in Upper Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, London, early in the morning of 7 May 1763. Captain Usher's servant, who had in the first instance escaped, gallantly went back to save his master, and perished. George III directed 200l. a year to be added to the family pension in consideration of their misfortune (Gent. Mag. 1763, p. 255).
[Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, vol. iii.; Burke's Peerage, under 'Molesworth;' 'Succession of Colonels,' in Cannon's Hist. Rec. 9th Lancers.]
MOLESWORTH, ROBERT, first Viscount Molesworth (1656–1725), was the eldest son of Robert Molesworth (d. 3 Sept. 1656), who fought on the parliament side in the civil war, and at its conclusion obtained as an undertaker 2,500 acres of land in the county of Meath; he afterwards became a merchant in Dublin, accumulated great wealth, and was high in Cromwell's favour (cf. Gilbert, History of Dublin, i. 58-9). The Molesworth family, of Northamptonshire origin, was very ancient. An ancestor, Sir Walter de Molesworth, attended Edward I to the Holy Land and was appointed sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire for a period of ten years in 1304. One of Sir Walter's descendants, Anthony Molesworth, nearly ruined himself by his profuse hospitality to Queen Elizabeth at Fotheringay. The younger of this Anthony's sons, Nathaniel, accompanied Sir Walter Raleigh in his voyage to Guiana; the elder, William, who was the first viscount's grandfather, took part in Buckingham's expedition to Ré, and died about 1640, leaving issue a daughter, Elizabeth (1606-1661), who was married to Gervase Holies [q.v.], and three sons, of whom the youngest was the father of the subject of this memoir. His mother was Judith, daughter and coheiress of John Bysse, by Margaret, daughter of Sir Gerard Lowther.
Born in Fishamble Street, Dublin, on 7 Sept. 1656, four days after his father's death, Robert was educated at home and at Dublin University, where he 'had a high character for abilities and learning,' and is stated by Taylor (Univ. of Dublin, p. 385) to have graduated with distinction, though his name does not appear in the list of Dublin graduates. In the struggle that attended the revolution of 1688 in Ireland, he became prominent in support of the Prince of Orange; he was consequently attainted and his estate, valued at 2,285l. per annum, sequestered by James's parliament on 7 May 1689. After the Boyne he was restored to his possessions and summoned to William's privy council. He appears to have been sent on a private mission to Denmark during 1689-90 and in 1692 he was despatched as envoy extraordinary to that country. He managed, however, to give serious offence to the court of Copenhagen, and left the country abruptly and without the usual formality of an audience of leave in 169& The only account of the circumstance is that published by Molesworth's adversary, Dr. William King (1663-1712) [q. v.], who stated, on the authority of Scheel, the Danish envoy, that Molesworth had most unwarrantably outraged the Danish sense of propriety by poaching in the king's private preserves and forcing the passage of a road exclusively reserved for the royal chariot. The charges are probably not devoid of truth, for Molesworth was an ardent admirer of Algernon Sidney, but the gravity of the offences may have been exaggerated by Dr. King. The aggrieved envoy withdrew to Flanders, where his resentment took shape in 'An Account of Denmark as it was in the year 1692' (London, 1694). There the Danish government was represented as arbitrary and tyrannical and held up as an object lesson to men of enlightenment. The book, which was half a political pamphlet in support of revolution principles, and was also strongly anti-clerical in tone, at once obtained popularity and distinction. It was highly approved by Shaftesbury and by Locke, to whom it introduced
