Family and Education

b. 8 July 1688, 1st s. of William Keyt of Ebrington, Glos. by Agnes, da. of Sir John Clopton of Clopton, Warws. educ. privately. m. 23 Nov. 1710, Anne, da. of William, 4th Visct. Tracy, of Rathcoole [I], 3s. 2da. suc. gd.-fa. as 3rd Bt. 30 Nov. 1702.

Offices Held

Recorder, Stratford-on-Avon 1709-d.

Biography

Keyt was descended from an old Gloucestershire family, who acquired their Warwickshire estates by purchase in the seventeenth century. In 1715 he was turned out of the commission of the peace for proclaiming the Pretender, to whom his name was sent in 1721 as one of the chief Warwickshire Jacobites.1 On his election for Warwick in 1722 a local Whig wrote:

There has been above £3,000 spent on both sides at Warwick. Sir William Keyt, who is returned, is a Tory indeed; barring that, I hear a mighty good character of him in all respects.2

He sat for Warwick, voting against the Government, till 1735, when he was unseated on petition.

Keyt subsequently left his wife to live with her maid on his Gloucestershire estate, where he impaired his fortune by extravagant expenditure on building. When his mistress, viewing his house, asked ‘what is a kite without wings’, he added two large side extensions to it. Deserted by her, he took to the bottle. Setting fire to his house after a prolonged drinking bout in September 1741, he perished in the flames, resisting attempts to rescue him.3

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Shirley Matthews

Notes

• 1. VCH Warws. iii. 253 n. 49; Stuart mss 65/16.
• 2. HMC Portland, vii. 368-9.
• 3. London Mag. 1741, p. 464; R. Graves, The Spiritual Quixote (2nd ed. London 1774), iii. 168-9, 172-3.