Robert FitzRoy
Robert FitzRoy was born at Ampton Hall, Ampton, Suffolk, England, into the upper echelons of the British aristocracy and a tradition of public service. Through his father, General Lord Charles FitzRoy, Robert was a fourth great-grandson of Charles II of England; his paternal grandfather was Augustus Henry FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton. His mother, Lady Frances Stewart, was the daughter of the first Marquess of Londonderry and the half-sister of Viscount Castlereagh, who became Foreign Secretary. From the age of four, Robert FitzRoy lived with his family at Wakefield Lodge, their Palladian mansion in Northamptonshire.
Charles FitzRoy (British Army officer)
The second son of Charles FitzRoy, 1st Baron Southampton and Anne Warren, the daughter and co-heir of Peter Warren (Royal Navy officer) and a descendant of the Schuyler family, the Van Cortlandt family, and the Delancey family, all from British North America., FitzRoy entered the Army on 27 August 1779 with a commission as cornet in the 11th Dragoons, and in 1782 was made aide-de-camp to General Richard Whyte at Jersey. He was promoted to lieutenant in a newly raised corps, and on 26 March 1783 to the rank of captain-lieutenant in the 96th Regiment of Foot; when the regiment was reduced following the Peace of Paris the same year, he was placed on half-pay. He was made a captain in the 66th Regiment of Foot in 1787, and lieutenant and captain in the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards on 9 July 1788. In 1793 he served in Flanders, including at the siege of Valenciennes and the siege of Dunkirk. On 21 February 1794 he was made captain of a company in his regiment, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Army, and in May he returned to England.