BERESFORD, Tristram (c.1600-73), of Coleraine, co. Londonderry.

Originally of Kentish stock, Beresford’s father came to Ireland in 1610 as an agent for the Irish Society of London in their plantation of Ulster. In the next 25 years the Beresfords became the dominant family in the planter town of Coleraine, and acquired substantial land-holdings of their own across co. Londonderry.20Moody, Londonderry Plantation, 99, 263, 282-3; DIB. Beresford shared in his father’s success, being sworn as a freeman of Coleraine in 1625 and appointed governor of Culmore Fort (on the River Foyle) on the king’s recommendation in 1627.21 Coleraine ed. McGrath, 10; Moody, Londonderry Plantation, 361, 391. Before 1636 Beresford made an advantageous match with the daughter of another major Ulster planter, John Rowley, who had been his father’s business associate since the beginning of the century.22CP. After the confiscation of the London companies’ plantation lands in 1635, Beresford lost his command at Culmore, and the family came under investigation for irregular leases and illegally held church lands. Disaster was only averted by the intervention of the Irish Parliament on the Beresfords’ behalf in 1640-1, and this, in itself, is a measure of the standing which the family already enjoyed in planter circles.23CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 290-1; 1647-60, pp. 192, 230, 356; CSP Dom. 1625-49, pp. 747, 750; 1640, p. 304; Moody, Londonderry Plantation, 391, 402-3.

At the outbreak of the Irish rebellion in October 1641, Beresford took part in the defence of Coleraine, and in the spring of 1642 he was commissioned to command one of the five companies of foot which formed the garrison of Londonderry.24Irish Rebellion, ed. Hogan, 7, 12; SP28/1B, ff. 568-9; PJ, ii. 429, 451, 464. Beresford remained at Londonderry in the early years of the 1640s, and was drawn into the factionalism which soon became endemic within the Protestant camp. His support of the pro-royalist mayor of Londonderry, Robert Thornton, involved him in a feud which split the city corporation after 1644, and Beresford was himself accused of receiving bribes and suppressing information about the financial irregularities of his friends.25Irish Rebellion, ed. Hogan, 119-21; SP28/255, unfol.: Jasper Hartwell’s information, 31 Dec. 1644; SP28/256, unfol.: charges against Robert Thornton, c.1646; SP28/139/9. There were also divisions within the Protestant army in Ulster. In 1645 Beresford defended Colonel Audley Mervyn against charges of disloyalty to Parliament, and supported the claim of Edward Conway to take control of the regiment formerly commanded by his royalist father, Viscount Conway.26Bodl. Tanner 60, ff. 1-3; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 402. Whether this indicates any more than a personal sense of obligation on Beresford’s part is uncertain: his brother, Michael Beresford, was more open in his support of Parliament, and had taken the Covenant by the spring of 1645.27Bodl. Carte 14, f. 425. Doubts about Tristram Beresford’s own loyalty may have receded by the following summer, when his company with incorporated into a regiment raised by the newly-appointed governor of Londonderry, Lord Folliot.28CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 416, 616. Folliot’s brother-in-law, Sir Robert King*, served as one of Parliament’s Ulster commissioners in 1645-7, and Beresford seems to have cultivated this connection, securing payments and allowances and, in January 1647, being granted the custody of James Oge O’Cahan’s lands in Londonderry at a rent of £4 per annum.29CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 582, 587, 616. With his local influence and his high-level contacts with Parliament’s commissioners, Beresford was an obvious choice as London agent for the Ulster officers in February 1647.30HMC Egmont, i. 356.

The exact details of Beresford’s visit to England and his military service in Ireland in the last two years of the 1640s are uncertain, but it seems likely that he refused to join the ‘Laggan’ army and the Ulster Scots in their defection to the king’s side in 1648, and that in the new year of 1649 he continued to serve in the beleaguered Londonderry garrison, commanded by Sir Charles Coote*. In the early months of 1649 Beresford’s brother was Coote’s messenger to Parliament on at least two occasions, and by the autumn of 1650 Beresford had been appointed lieutenant-colonel of the foot regiment of Sir Charles Coote’s brother, Thomas Coote*, which garrisoned Coleraine.31CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 20-2, 40-4; SP28/70, f. 776; Wanklyn, New Model Army, 209. Beresford continued with this regiment until its disbandment in August 1653, and during this period he seems to have become a political ally of the Cootes.32SP28/93, f. 100. He also strengthened his position in Coleraine, and shortly after his father’s death in September 1649 replaced him as alderman.33Coleraine ed. McGrath, 204, 212. In early May 1652 Sir Charles Coote and Arthur Hill* persuaded the parliamentary commissioners to reward Beresford for ‘his service and constant fidelity to the Parliament of England’, and later in the same month Beresford was part of negotiating team appointed by Coote to secure the surrender of the co. Roscommon stronghold of Ballyshannon.34Bodl. Firth c.5, f. 33; Ire. under the Commonwealth, i. 212. After the disbandment of Thomas Coote’s regiment in 1653, Beresford became involved in the Irish land settlement, and in 1654 he and his brother worked as surveyors of cos. Londonderry, Donegal and Tyrone.35Civil Survey, iii. 19, 70, 85, 141, 165, 196, 218, 246, 308, 412. He was one of the individuals who signed the election indenture for the three counties in August 1654, and in October he was appointed to the assessment commission for co. Londonderry.36C219/44, unfol.; An Assessment for Ire. (1654). In January 1655 Beresford was elected mayor of Coleraine, assuming office in July, and he was re-elected in January 1656.37Coleraine ed. McGrath, 249, 251, 253-4. It was his growing influence across the region, reinforced by his connection with the Cootes, explains Beresford’s election for the combined counties on 27 July 1656.38Ire. under the Commonwealth, ii. 625; C219/45, unfol.

Beresford’s parliamentary career got off to a bad start. On 6 October 1656 the acting governor of Ireland, Henry Cromwell*, complained to Secretary John Thurloe* that Beresford and another MP had been secluded from Parliament, although ‘I never heard anything but well of them’, and he added that ‘[I] am well assured the council have not been rightly informed concerning the gentlemen’.39TSP v. 478. Whether this was a genuine mistake, or a political move by the protectorate council, worried by the strength of the Irish lobby at Westminster, is unclear; but the decision was reversed in the next few days, for Beresford had taken his seat in the Commons by 15 October, when he was added to the committee for Irish affairs.40CJ vii. 439a. Thereafter, his attendance was very patchy. After a five month gap he was named one committee in March 1657, and three more in May and June, and he was listed among those Irish MPs who ‘have the names of officers but are none’ who supported the offer of the crown to Oliver Cromwell*.41CJ vii. 513b, 532a, 537b, 543b; Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 13, 23 (E.935.5). He may have been involved in Irish business through the committee of Irish affairs, and two other appointments suggest he was interested in the land settlement: on 8 May he was added to the committee on Charles Lloyd’s* bill; and on 22 May, he joined the committee on the bill for attainting Irish rebels and redistributing their estates.42CJ vii. 532a, 537b. He was not recorded as having attended the second sitting of this Parliament in early 1658.

Despite his relative inactivity in the House, Beresford’s position as an MP seems to have benefited his career in Ulster. In November 1656 – perhaps as a further mark of the Dublin regime’s confidence in his loyalty - Beresford was appointed commissioner for the security of the protector.43A. and O. In March 1657, when a new charter was granted to the city of Londonderry, Beresford was named as a chief burgess.44Bishopric of Derry ed. Moody and Simms, i. 281. After the dissolution of Parliament rejoined the army as a captain, probably in command of a local company.45Wanklyn, New Model Army, ii. 268. In this period Beresford also increased his land holdings, acquiring property in Antrim, Galway and Sligo (the last being a county allocated to men who had served under the Cootes) as well as Londonderry.46NAI, Ferguson MS 10, p. 26; C6/135/13; C6/135/15; CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 534. After the collapse of the protectorate in 1659, Beresford seems to have retired to Coleraine, where his brother was serving as mayor.47Irish Census, 1659, 139; Coleraine ed. McGrath, 257, 269. He had re-emerged by the spring of 1660, when he was elected as representative for co. Londonderry in the General Convention, which met in Dublin in February. The other seat for the county went to his wife’s relative, John Rowley; Michael Beresford sat for Coleraine.48Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 178-9.

Tristram Beresford survived the restoration of the monarchy without incident, and continued to play an active role in Old Protestant politics. He was retained as an officer of the royal army in Ireland after 1660, and received arrears for his service in earlier years.49CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 289; HMC Ormonde, n.s. iii. 425. He was elected as Member for co. Londonderry in the Irish Parliament in 1661, and his son, Randal, served as burgess for Coleraine.50CB.; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 289. Beresford’s official pardon was passed by the king on 19 July 1662, and other favours soon followed.51NAI, Lodge’s MSS 1.A.53.55, f. 60. In 1664 he was knighted, in 1665 created baronet, and in 1666 received a grant of lands in co. Cavan under the act of settlement.52SP63/319, f. 163v; CSP Ire. 1669-70, pp. 260-1. The Cavan lands were consolidated into one manor by royal intervention in 1670.53CSP Ire. 1669-70, pp. 177, 260-1. Beresford died in January 1673, and was buried in St Patrick’s Church, Coleraine, where his monument now stands.54J.S. Curl, The Londonderry Plantation (Chichester, 1986), 52. He was succeeded by his son, Sir Randal Beresford, who had married the sister of the earl of Anglesey (Arthur Annesley*) in 1663; his descendants became viscounts of Tyrone in 1720 and marquesses of Waterford in 1789.55CB.