Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 54.djvu/94

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Stanwix
87
Stanyan
164; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography; Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe; Wallace's Chronicle and Hist. of the 60th or King's Royal Rifle Corps.]

E. M. L.

STANWIX, RICHARD (1608–1656), divine, born in 1608, was son of James Stanwix of Carlisle, who was fourth son of James Stanwix, head of an ancient family which had their origin at Stanwix, near Carlisle. Richard was educated at the free school in Carlisle under Thomas Robson, formerly of Queen's College, Oxford. He was admitted a servitor of the college under the tuition of Charles Robson [q. v.], son of his old schoolmaster, and matriculated on 21 Nov. 1628, according to Foster. He afterwards became a tabarder, graduating B.A. on 12 May 1629, and proceeding M.A. on 24 Jan. 1631–2. He was made a fellow about the same time, and on 4 July 1639 obtained the degree of B.D. In 1640 he was incorporated at Cambridge. Entering into holy orders, he was appointed chaplain to the lord keeper, Thomas Coventry [q. v.], through the recommendation of the provost, Christopher Potter [q. v.], and, after Coventry's death, to his successor, Sir John Finch, baron Finch of Fordwich [q. v.] When Finch was impeached by the Long parliament in 1640, and took refuge in Holland, Stanwix returned to Oxford, and was appointed rector of Chipping Warden, Northamptonshire, in 1643, by Sir Richard Saltonstall, of Queen's College. He remained undisturbed in his living during the Commonwealth, and died at Chipping Warden on 8 April 1656.

He was the author of ‘A Holy Life here the only Way to Eternal Life hereafter. Wherein this truth is especially asserted, that a Holy Life, or the Habitual Observing of the Laws of Christ, is indispensably necessary to Salvation,’ London, 1652, 8vo.

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 427; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Bridges's Northamptonshire, ed. Whalley, i. 116; Foster's Visitations of Cumberland and Westmoreland, p. 128.]

E. I. C.

STANYAN, ABRAHAM (1669?–1732), diplomatist, elder son of Laurence Stanyan of Headley, Middlesex, was born about 1669, and entered as a student of the Middle Temple in 1690. He is to be distinguished from the Abraham Stanyan (probably a cousin) who was admitted from Winchester as a scholar of New College, Oxford, on 14 July 1691, and who died of smallpox when a fellow of New College in 1696. Stanyan's ability met with early recognition, and in 1698 he was offered the post of secretary to Sir William Norris [q. v.], who was despatched in that year as king's commissioner to obtain certain privileges from the Mogul emperor, Aurangzíb. After much hesitation he declined the offer, and his refusal was justified in the following year, when he was appointed one of the clerks to the council extraordinary. Some four years later, on 6 Jan. 1702, he was appointed secretary to the Earl of Manchester at Paris, a post which had been recently held by Matthew Prior. He cannot have remained there long, as the war broke out almost immediately; but he was despatched on 8 May 1705, in the place of ‘Mr. Aglionby,’ as envoy to the Swiss cantons, taking with him bills of exchange upon the bankers of Genoa for the allied forces in Italy. His instructions were also to detect and neutralise the artifices of the French minister at Geneva, and to endeavour to obtain a free passage for the allied troops through the Swiss mountain passes. With these objects he caused to be published in 1707, ‘Mémoire de M. de Stanian, envoyé extraordinaire de S. M. la Reine de la Grande Bretagne vers les Louables Cantons Réformés, presenté 25 Juillet.’ Another ‘Mémoire’ printed by Stanyan about the same time had an object of more immediate importance. On 16 June 1607 died at Paris the Duchesse de Nemours, princess of Neufchatel and Valangin. No less than thirteen competitors laid claim to the principality, to rescue which from French influence became a paramount object with the allies. Stanyan at once hastened to Neufchatel, and, joining his influence to that of the Dutch envoy (Runkel), succeeded in obtaining the investiture for the king of Prussia. Louis XIV moved a large force up to the frontier as if with the purpose of invading the territory, but Stanyan's vigilance obtained from the sovereign council at Berne a prompt resolution to defend the principality with all their forces, ‘whereupon the French thought it advisable to lie quiet under their disappointment’ (Boyer, pp. 306–7; State Papers, Dutch, in Add. MS. 5132). In 1708 he found it necessary to issue a letter contradicting a rumour which had been circulated by Louis to the effect that in North Britain the natives were ready to sacrifice everything for ‘James VIII.’ Stanyan returned home in February 1709, but was soon back again in Switzerland, and was in February 1710 entrusted with a secret mission to Piedmont. During the summer of 1712 he was very busy at Milan endeavouring to adjust the differences between the emperor and the Duke of Savoy, and to obtain the adherence of both to the proposed