Rochester was not destined to cross St. George’s Channel on this occasion. Charles II. died on February 6, 1685. Within six weeks Halifax lost the Privy Seal, though he had been the chief instrument in securing James’s succession, and Rochester became Lord Treasurer. Sunderland, who had voted for the Exclusion Bill and whose intrigues reached everywhere, remained a Secretary of State. A few days later the Chancellor-archbishop Boyle and Lord Granard were made Lords Justices by patent to take effect as soon as it suited Ormonde’s convenience to swear them in. This was done on March 20, and by the end of the month he was in London, having been met on the road by an unprecedented number of coaches. St. James’s Square was crowded with people who had no coaches, but who showed their admiration of his character by their shouts. In the month following the late King’s death there had been more robberies in Ireland than during a whole year before, the Tories expecting that there would be no circuits and perhaps pardons at the coronation.[138]
FOOTNOTES:
[117] Fitzmaurice’s Life of Petty, p. 174. H. Coventry to Ormonde, June 18, 1678, Ormonde Papers, N.S. Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 469-473. ‘The Earl of Essex told me that he knew the King did often take money into his privy purse to defraud his exchequer,’ Burnet, i. 398.
[118] Essex to Harbord, March 28, 1674, Essex Papers. H. Coventry to Ormonde, June 18, 1678, Ormonde Papers, N.S. Longford to Ormonde, ib. August 24, September 14, and October 5, Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 472.
[119] A brief account of the conspiracy, &c., Ormonde Papers, N.S., iv. 181, calendared at August 13, 1678, but the date must be considered doubtful. Southwell to Ormonde, September 28, ib. p. 454. Ormonde to Lord Chancellor Boyle, October 7, ib. Narrative of proceedings of Lord Lieutenant from October 7, 1678, to April 5, 1679, transmitted to Coventry, Ormonde Papers, 1st series, ii. 254. Ormonde to Southwell, October 5, ib., and the proclamations, ib. pp. 350-359. Account of the public affairs in Ireland since the discovery of the late plot, London, 1679 (after April 7).
[120] Anglesey to Ormonde, November 23, 1678, and the answer, November 29, which was considered satisfactory, Ormonde Papers, N.S. Ossory to Ormonde, October 23 and December 10, ib.
[121] Among the many letters in Ormonde Papers, vol. iv., the following are the most important: Ossory to Ormonde, November 26, 1678; Ormonde to Burlington, December 21; Ormonde to Orrery, January 11, 1678-9 (unfinished, with the above quotation endorsed); Burlington to Ormonde, January 10; Orrery to Lord Chancellor Boyle, January 28, and the answer March 8. A correspondent of Ormonde, writing from London, May 13, 1679, says, ‘Lady Ranelagh defames your Grace more maliciously than ever, and there have been and daily are frequent meetings, both public and private, for that purpose.’
[122] Shaftesbury’s speech, March 25, 1679, is in his Life by Christie, ii. appx. vi., and Ormonde’s letter to him, May 25, ib. ii. 337. Ossory’s speech and William of Orange’s comments (French) in Carte’s Ormonde, ii. appx. 93 and 94. Ormonde to Southwell, May 24 and November 8, Ormonde Papers, 1st series, ii. 288, 293. Southwell to Ormonde, ib., N.S., April 22, iv. 505.
[123] ‘Monsieur Barillon said it ‘was making des Etats and not des conseils,’ Temple’s Memoirs, 3rd part. Many details in Courtenay’s Life of Temple, chap. xxiv. See the remarks in the second chapter of Macaulay’s History. Henry Savile to Halifax, May 17, 1679, in Savile Correspondence. Halifax favoured the reappointment of Essex in 1679, Burnet, i. 470. Later on Shaftesbury accused him of bargaining with the Court to make him Lord Lieutenant, ib. 537.
[124] Lords Journals, xiii. 643. Hist. MSS. Commission, xi. 2.
[125] Grey’s Debates, December 9, 10, and 15, January 6 and 7, 1680-1. Burnet’s Own Times, i. 485. An independent version of the January debates in H.M.C., 12th Report, appx. ix. 106.
[126] Plunket’s account of the proceedings at Dundalk and afterwards in Cardinal Moran’s Life of him, p. 289. Arran to Ormonde, November 6, 1680, Ormonde Papers, v. 477, and April 16, 1681, ib. vi. 36. The present state and condition of Ireland, but more especially of the province of Ulster humbly represented to the kingdom of England by Edmund Murphy secular priest and titular chanter of Armagh, and one of the first discoverers of the Irish Plot, London, 1681.
[127] Francis Gwyn to Ormonde, February 12, 1680-1, Ormonde Papers, v. 580. Ormonde to Arran, February 19, ib. 586. Burnet’s Own Times, i. 502. Moran’s Life of Plunket, chaps. xxv. and xxvi. Writing to Sir John Malet, May 13, 1679, Orrery says Murphy had deposed very circumstantially at Dublin, but was said to be a man of crazed brain and therefore not much to be believed, Additional MSS. 32095, f. 186.
[128] State Trials, iii. 293.
[129] State Trials, ut sup. For the opinion of Essex and the King’s comments on it, see the notes to Airy’s edition of Burnet, ii. 292, and Burnet’s own opinion. Luttrell does not seem to have had much misgiving, for he considered the charge fully proved and ‘the defence very weak, alleging only that he wanted his witnesses and papers which were in Ireland,’ June 9 and July 1, 1681. Hibernia Dominicana, p. 130.
[130] The Irish evidence convicted by their own oaths by W. Hetherington, London, 1682. Power of attorney from Ormonde, September 1, 1681, Ormonde Papers, vi. 306; to Arran, June 26, 1683, ib. vii. 52. Luttrell, March 26 and May 3, 1683. Newsletter to Lady Weymouth, May 3, Additional MSS., 32095, f. 212. Ormonde to Arran, November 17, 1681, in appx. to Carte’s Ormonde, no. 126, contains the curious word ‘caronated.’ It appears in the original MS., but the late Sir James Murray was unable to pronounce on the etymology. Writing to Ormonde on May 20, 1682, Arran says, nine of the King’s witnesses petitioned for not less than 20l. apiece. He gave 40l. among them, ‘part to defray their charge at the inn where they lay, the rest to carry them home, where I doubt not but they will follow their other trade and come to the gallows that way.’—Ormonde Papers, vi. 365.
[131] Burnet, who was not prejudiced in Ormonde’s favour, says (i. 97) Anglesey ‘stuck at nothing and was ashamed of nothing,’ that he was loved and trusted by no man of any party, had no regard for truth or justice, sold everything and ‘himself so often that at last the price fell so low that he grew useless.’ Essex thought he intrigued against him, and Lord Mountjoy said he had no friends. Correspondence in the Ormonde Papers, beginning with Lord Burlington’s letter of October 12, 1680, and Ormonde’s of February 19 following. Mountjoy’s narrative in 2nd Report of Hist. MSS. Commission, p. 213. Athenæ Oxonienses (Bliss), iv. 181. I have used the Dublin 1815 reprint of Castlehaven’s Memoirs from the revised edition of 1684: Anglesey’s letter is appended. In the Supplement to his History, ed. Foxcroft, p. 62, Burnet says Anglesey ‘often begun a speech in Parliament all one way and (upon some secret look that wrought upon him) has changed his note quite and concluded totally different from his beginning ... I never knew any one man that either loved him or trusted him.’
[132] A true account of the whole proceedings between his Grace James Duke of Ormonde and the Rt. Hon. Arthur Earl of Anglesey, late Privy Seal before the King and Council, London, 1682 (attributed to Bishop Morley). Lord Longford to Ormonde, February 25, 1681-2, and March 28, Ormonde Papers, vi. 324, 325. Foxcroft’s Life of Halifax, i. 360. Luttrell, August 10, 1682. Anglesey’s account of the Irish Civil War is unfortunately lost. His son told John Dunton that the MS. was in hands which would not let it all appear, Dunton’s Conversation in Ireland, 1699.
[133] Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 512; Ormonde Papers, vols. v. and vi., particularly Captain Charles Poyntz to Sir William Flower, May 3, 1681. Edmund Murphy’s pamphlet quoted above. Other details in Prendergast’s Cromwellian Settlement, 2nd edition, p. 352, and in the same writer’s Ireland from the Restoration to the Revolution. Notes to Hill’s Montgomery MSS., p. 119. Article on Redmond O’Hanlon in Dict. of National Biography.
[134] Letters in vol. vii. of the Ormonde Papers, particularly W. Hamilton to William Ellis, January 2, 1683-4; Primate Boyle to Ormonde, October 3, 17, and 27, 1685; Longford to Ormonde, October 27.
[135] Arran’s letters of May 27 and 30, and June 5, 1684, in Ormonde Papers, vol. vii.; Anglesey to North and Halifax, ib. March 13; Sir C. Wyche to Ormonde, ib. February 24, 1684-5. Cox’s Hibernia Anglicana, ii., Charles II., p. 16. Secret Consults of the Romish Party, London, 1690, p. 40.
[136] Statement of Revenue for 1664, signed by Anglesey as Vice-Treasurer, March 20, 1664-5, State Papers, Ireland: the total is 153,205l. 19s. 8d. Abstract of Revenue for 1683 in appx. v. to Clarendon and Rochester Correspondence, vol. i.: the total is 300,953l. 17s. 6d. Liber Munerum Publicorum, part ii. 133. Among a host of letters in Ormonde Papers, see particularly Longford to Ormonde, March 21, 1681-2, vi. 349, and Arran’s letter with Report on arrears following September 22, 1683, ib. vii. 135. See also the article on Ranelagh in Dict. of National Biography.
[137] Charles II. to Ormonde, November 19, 1684, Carte’s Ormonde ii. appx. 128. Ormonde to Southwell, ib. 135 and 139. Rochester to Ormonde, August 26, Ormonde Papers, vii. 266.
[138] Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 542 sqq. Ormonde to Sunderland, March 6, 1684-5, in Ormonde Papers, vii. 266.