The Viceroys of Ireland

The next viceroy, Sir Charles Blount, afterwards Lord Mountjoy, was a typical product of the Elizabethan court. He had been Essex's friend and afterwards his enemy, and when the earl retired prematurely from Ireland, Elizabeth sent Mountjoy to reopen the war against O'Neill and to crush him, irrespective of the treaty of security and peace signed by Essex in Elizabeth's name. He carried out his duties faithfully, and succeeded in driving the Tyrones out of their territory. On the final defeat of O'Neill, that chieftain made submission, and Mountjoy was graciously pleased to forgive the rebel and restore his title and estates to him. While in Ireland Mountjoy received a letter from Essex, then a prisoner on parole at York House, asking him to bring his army from Ireland, join a promised army of the King of Scotland, and drive Elizabeth's advisers from power. Mountjoy at once declined to hazard his own neck, and he left Essex to his fate. The hope that the earl placed on the viceroy was inspired by the latter's affection for Penelope, sister of Lord Essex. This lady was so notorious that even Queen Elizabeth had to refuse to receive her, but her faults were the faults of the age she lived in. At a very early age, and without having her wishes consulted at all, Penelope was married to an old roué named Lord Rich, a man of filthy habits and loathsome ways. Penelope bore him seven children, but the gross brutalities of her husband drove her into the arms of Sidney, and when she became Mountjoy's mistress, she had five children by him. The viceroy, however, was a faithful lover, and when Lord Rich divorced her after Mountjoy's resignation of his post, the viceroyalty, he married her, inducing his private chaplain, Laud, to perform the ceremony. The act of Laud's very nearly ruined his career, and, at any rate, it stood in the way of his promotion for several years. It is said that Mountjoy did intend to come to the rescue of his mistress's brother, and certainly Elizabeth, who wanted Mountjoy's services, suppressed a confession by a prisoner which, had it become public, must have cost Lord Mountjoy his head. As it was, he held the viceroyalty until 1603, and could have remained longer, for King James confirmed his appointment. Mountjoy, however, wanted his Penelope, and he left Ireland for her sake. James rewarded him with the Earldom of Devonshire, but as all his children were illegitimate, the titles died with him.

The Order of the Baronetage

The late viceroy's deputy, Sir George Cary, enjoyed only a few months in office, for Sir Arthur Chichester, afterwards Lord Chichester of Belfast, was given the post, and came to Ireland early in 1605. Chichester was forty-one, but he had already nearly thirty years' experience of public affairs, including the fight against the Armada. In his early youth he had assaulted an inoffensive citizen, and had fled from London to Ireland, but Elizabeth pardoned him and found him employment. Fortunately for Chichester, Lord Mountjoy took him into favour, and when the latter returned to England, and was appointed adviser to James on Irish affairs, he nominated Chichester as the most suitable person to govern Ireland. This viceroy made it a condition that religious persecution in Ireland should be abolished. Every precedent was against the continuance of a protracted and futile attempt to force an objectionable religion upon the majority of the people, and when he secured this concession to common sense from James and Mountjoy, Chichester must have realized that he was in a fair way to make his term of office a success. Some luck attended him. He was given a good army, and very early in his career in Ireland two of his most dangerous opponents, Tyrone and Tyrconnell, left Ireland for ever. Chichester then proceeded to colonize Ulster. The order of the Baronetage was created in 1611, and the title sold for £1,080, the proceeds being intended to pay the expenses of the colonization of Ulster. The large estates of the Tyrone and Tyrconnell families were distributed amongst the native Irish, the English and some planters from Scotland, Chichester himself being rewarded with a peerage. It was a wise move on his part, moreover, to give first choice to the native Irish in the matter of the division of the land, for he knew that peace could only be purchased at a price.

On these lines he governed Ireland for twelve years, and when he retired in 1614, he had the satisfaction of earning the praise of those he ruled and those he served. His wife, a daughter of Sir John Perrott, does not appear to have taken a very prominent part in Irish life. She was an invalid and contemptuous of the Irish, though the records of some of their entertainments in Dublin Castle prove that she was lavish in her hospitality, and even invited the heads of the great Irish families.

Sir Oliver St. John was in 1616 appointed Viceroy of Ireland. During the interval the Government had been in the hands of Adam Loftus, the indispensable Archbishop of Dublin, whose power was as great as his cupidity and avarice. St. John was a typical soldier of fortune, who had found fame and fortune on the battlefields of the Continent. In 1580, when twenty-one, he was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn, out a legal career ended suddenly as the result of a duel with Best, the navigator. Best died, and St. John fled the country, but after many profitless years he had the luck to come under the notice of the Earl of Essex at Rouen. Essex, who was in need of brave soldiers, enlisted St. John, and took him to Ireland to fight against Tyrone. In a few years St. John was elected member for Roscommon in the Irish Parliament, and followed that up by entering the English House of Commons as member for Portsmouth. Mountjoy knighted him and made him president of Connaught, so that when in 1616 he was made viceroy, he brought to the office a great experience of Irish affairs.

His first official act was to banish all those ecclesiastics educated abroad, his second, to make the Protestant religion compulsory, and his third, even more remarkable, took the form of a proposal to emigrate 100,000 Irish persons. This was a short method of dealing with a pressing problem, but it was hopelessly impracticable, and St. John, less successful as a statesman than as soldier, was commanded to deliver the sword of state to Adam Loftus, and return to England.

Henry Gary, Viscount Falkland, who succeeded, tried to carry on the St. John policy. Proclamations were issued extensively, and all the Irish were ordered to go to heaven by the Protestant road. Strangely enough, while Lord Falkland was doing his best to establish the Protestant religion, Lady Falkland was secretly a Catholic, and supplying the priests with money. For over twenty years she kept her secret from her husband, but he discovered it eventually, and promptly separated from her. The Privy Council, called upon to judge between husband and wife, declared Falkland's act justified, but ordered him to pay her £500 a year. Falkland retired in 1629 with the character of an unreliable, timid man.

The Earl of Strafford

Another period of government by Council and Lords Justices covered the years from 1628 to 1633, and then Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, one of the great figures of the early days of the Civil War, was chosen by Charles I. to represent him in Ireland. Wentworth's appointment was dated 1632, but that nobleman did not hurry to take over his post, and besides, there were many urgent affairs to keep him at home. Wentworth was leader of the House of Commons, and at the first encounter with the king stood by the Commons. Charles, however, determined to secure his personal adherence, and by means of titles, the bait of kings, Wentworth foreswore his radical opinions, came over on to the king's side, and was ever afterwards a most zealous and devoted servant of the Crown. When Charles conferred with his advisers upon the coming struggle with the people, Wentworth made the first practical suggestion by subscribing £20,000 towards the royal treasury. Wentworth was, therefore, the most trusted of the King's advisers, and he was sent to Ireland with the object of raising money for His Majesty.

The new viceroy hastily summoned a Parliament at Dublin, and persuaded it to vote £180,000 for the king's use against the army of the Covenanters. Further, Wentworth raised an army with the object of invading England and joining Charles's forces. The intention was never carried out; but when Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, stood his trial at Westminster Hall, on April 5, 1641, the principal charge against him was that he had raised an army of Irish Papists to make war upon His Majesty's subjects. Strafford was executed on May 12.

His history concerns England rather than Ireland, but he had considerable influence upon the latter country, and did something towards placing Irish industries upon a better footing. In an age of wars and rebellions the reformer was out of place, but Ireland owes something to the Earl of Strafford's memory. When he died, Ireland mourned for him, and Sir Charles Wandesford, who had acted as one of his deputies, died of a broken heart upon hearing the news.

Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester, should have succeeded Strafford, but he lingered in England, conscious that his own country would be the centre of great events. He asked his son, Lord Lisle, to take his place, but that young man had no taste for the rigours of Ireland. His prognostications were justified, and with the outbreak of the Civil War Lord Leicester abandoned all intention of taking up the office of viceroy. Charles wanted every available soldier, and Ireland was left to look after itself. There was a nominal Government in Dublin, and the Earl of Ormonde, at the beginning of his splendid career, was Commander-in-Chief. Ormonde was a devoted royalist, and in the king's hour of need sent him 5,000 soldiers from Ireland, paying their expenses himself. In the midst of his worries Charles found time to show his gratitude by making Ormonde a marquis, and appointing him Viceroy of Ireland. This was in 1644, but strong man as he was, Ormonde's tenure of office was shorn of all its glory and strength. He was destined later to play a leading—the leading—part in Irish affairs; but during the Civil War there was no effective government in Ireland, and the country went back to its ruling chiefs, and Dublin and a few provincial towns sheltered the remnants of the party that looked to England for protection and guidance. Lord Ormonde's determination was to hold Ireland for the king, and with this object he strengthened the garrison towns. The massacres of the settlers in the North he had punished, but until the settlement of the conflict in England he was in a dangerous and anomalous position.

CHAPTER VI

James Butler, first Duke of Ormonde, was born at Clerkenwell on October 19, 1610. For political reasons he was brought up in London under the immediate influence of the court. The boy, who was known as Viscount Thurles, was as popular as he was handsome, and in his early manhood he was one of the most famous 'bucks' about town. The story of his marriage is a romantic one, and much has been written about it. The facts are that the young Lord Thurles saw Elizabeth Preston, only daughter and heiress of the Earl of Desmond, in church. She was very beautiful and wealthy, and Thurles resolved to wed her. Whether it was a case of love at first sight or not depends upon the sentiment of the reader. We know that the lady's fortune did much towards restoring that of the house of Ormonde.

Elizabeth Preston, however, was already reserved for someone else, and under the watchful and jealous guardianship of Lord Holland she was hidden from Lord Thurles. Realizing that his attentions would not be displeasing, Lord Thurles disguised himself as a pedlar, and carried his pack to the back-door of Lord Holland's Kensington residence. Happily for the course of true love, the ladies of the house were not above opening the door to pedlars, and Lord Holland's daughters performed that service for the lover. They made a few purchases, and then hastened to Elizabeth, to tell her that the handsomest pedlar in England was at the back-door, and to beg her to come and patronize him. The girl recognized Thurles, and when he pressed a pair of gloves upon her, she asked him to wait while she went for some money, although her companions offered to save her the trouble by lending her the necessary amount. This she declined, guessing that one of the gloves contained a love-letter. In the safety of her own room she read Thurles' impassioned address, and then, having penned a suitable and favourable reply, came down again and returned the gloves, declaring that they smelt abominably, and could not be worn by a lady. Never did a pedlar accept the cancellation of a bargain so gleefully as this one did. The message the gloves contained settled his doubts and fears, and later Viscount Thurles and Elizabeth Preston were wedded. Lord Holland's consent was purchased for £15,000, and when he succeeded to the Earldom of Ormonde, Butler took his bride to Ireland.

The coming of the Earl of Ormonde to the country of his ancestors was hailed as a welcome sign by the leading Irish families. By his marriage Ormonde had united two of the greatest and ended a bitter feud, and the native party looked to him to lead them against the English. His only disadvantage was his religion. He was a Protestant, the result of his education in England, but the question of religion was ignored by the Irish, and the handsome and chivalrous earl was called upon to take his stand in the forefront of the Irish army. Lord Strafford was viceroy at the time, and upon him lay the responsibility of influencing Ormonde's choice. The viceroy acted wisely. Personally he disliked the young earl, but he realized that to make an enemy of the most powerful nobleman amongst the Irish families of distinction would be fatal to his own chances of success as Viceroy of Ireland, and so he immediately made overtures of friendship to the man whom he had known as a boy in London. Lord Ormonde responded, and the two noblemen became fast friends, a friendship not forgotten to the last by Wentworth. When the latter had been sentenced to death for treason against the State, he implored Charles to give Ormonde the garter left vacant by his death, and also warned that monarch that the only loyal servant he had in Ireland was the Earl of Ormonde, advising the king to appoint him Lord-Deputy. The king, whose principal weakness was a tardiness of judgment, granted neither request at the time. But in 1644 he made Ormonde viceroy, and later bestowed the garter, though at a time when that emblem of royal favour was little better than a brilliant mockery.

Ormonde served an apprenticeship as Commander-in-Chief of the troops during Wentworth's viceroyalty, and on his own appointment to the latter position he combined the two offices. His duties as viceroy were, however, merely nominal, and believing that he could be of more service to the royal cause in England, he resigned his post—inspired, no doubt, by the fact that Parliament had appointed Philip Sidney, Lord Lisle, Lord-Lieutenant, under its jurisdiction—in 1647. Ormonde went at once to Charles at Hampton Court, and acquainted him with the news that it was the intention of the Parliamentary leaders to seize his person and bring him to trial. Charles, of course, declined to believe the existence of the Parliamentary plot, and the ex-viceroy, again appointed Lord-Lieutenant, but armed with a worthless commission, returned to Ireland. Lord Lisle was not in residence, and the Government that represented the Commons consisted of five commissioners—Arthur Annesley, Sir R. King, Sir R. Meredith, Colonel John Moor, and Colonel Michael Jones—a quintette scarcely likely to impress Ormonde with a sense of their dignity, or inspire in the country a feeling of security.

Dublin, however, was in the hands of the Parliamentarians, and Ormonde chose to assert what authority he possessed from the provinces. Had Charles's cause been the strongest in the world, it could not have survived the adverse verdict of the series of great and decisive battles that temporarily ended the monarchy. Ormonde was not dismayed, however, and even the execution of the king found him dauntless and fearless. He proclaimed the son of the murdered monarch king, and wrote entreating him to come to Ireland, assuring the prince that his troops could hold that country for him. Meanwhile Ormonde attacked Dublin, captured Drogheda, suffered defeat at Rathmines, where Colonel Jones, the Parliamentary leader, with that strange inspiration for successful fighting and generalship which inspired the leaders of the democracy, outpointed him, and drove him and his army from the field.

Whatever hopes Ormonde may have entertained of recovering his position, they were soon extinguished by the arrival of Oliver Cromwell. It was an unexpected move on the part of Parliament, but now that Charles was dead, and the royal family in exile, it was considered safe to send the strongest man of his generation to cope with the Irish rebellion. In 1642 Cromwell had subscribed £600 towards the cost of an expedition for avenging the massacres of the previous year, and this act showed that he took a practical interest in Irish affairs, and realized the country's importance to England. Ormonde was a resourceful, determined leader, and a man of unquestioned courage, but Cromwell was his superior in the field and in the council-room, and he had the advantage also of a united army. Twelve thousand picked soldiers, their courage exalted by a fanaticism that combined psalm-singing with murder, took the field under Cromwell against Lord Ormonde, who had to depend for the greater part upon ill-trained troops officered by men who were not the less incompetent because the Protestants among them refused to be led by Catholics, and Catholics declined to recognize the authority of Protestants. Ormonde strove frantically to unite his forces, but without success, and Drogheda, Wexford, Ross, and other towns were left to the cruel mercies of Cromwell.

The English leader came to Ireland as Commander-in-Chief and Lord-Lieutenant at a combined salary of £13,000 a year. His first act, characteristic of the man, was to issue a proclamation against swearing, and he discouraged plunder and looting by hanging even those of his own soldiers who transgressed his rules. Inspired by a sense of his own rectitude, Cromwell marched on Drogheda. The massacre has stained his memory almost as much as it stained the streets of the town, and after it Wexford's tragedy seems light in comparison.

Ormonde, suspected by the native leaders, was in no enviable position. Waterford, besieged by Cromwell, declined to allow his army to enter because its leader was 'English.' There was thus no work for him to do, but he remained on, contemptuously rejecting Cromwell's offer of a passport to the Continent.

In the great Cromwellian campaign the ex-viceroy took no part. The English leader, encouraged by a series of victories, was suddenly disconcerted by the successful resistance of the citizens of Waterford, and his failure to take Clonmel ended his enthusiasm for the task of conquering Ireland. In a pessimistic letter to the House of Commons he warned the Speaker not to imagine that by his victories at Drogheda and Wexford he had subdued Ireland. He knew too well that in reality he had not conquered a square foot of the land.

The outwitting of Cromwell by Hugh O'Neill, the gallant defender of Clonmel, is one of the lighter episodes of an era of tragedy. The English leader had restarted his campaign following a rest after the setback at Waterford. He besieged Kilkenny, and was compelled to stoop to an honourable treaty to secure the town, and then he marched on Clonmel, where O'Neill, the Irish idol who had supplanted Ormonde as the national hero, was performing wonders at the head of a small and badly-armed garrison. And this garrison withstood the flower of Cromwell's soldiery, fighting for their country without any hope of gain, and repeatedly defeating the invaders. Cromwell, sick at heart, was considering the advisability of abandoning the siege which had brought him so many rebuffs, when he was agreeably surprised to hear that the Mayor of Clonmel, Mathew White, wished to see him. The mayor's object was to surrender the town on certain terms, and Cromwell was, of course, only too glad to save his face by granting any concessions so long as they brought him the town of Clonmel. A treaty was hastily drawn up, guarding against the atrocities that had distinguished Drogheda and Wexford, and then the English General inquired if Hugh O'Neill was aware of the mayor's action. Mathew White replied with well-assumed diffidence that O'Neill and his army had left the town some hours before! Cromwell stormed and raged, and demanded his treaty back, but White played upon the Puritan's vanity of reputation, and Cromwell kept his word.

Death of Henry Ireton

Despite his reverses, Cromwell had hopes of firmly establishing English authority by means of the Protestant religion in Ireland. He drew up a series of recommendations on the subject, but by now there was more important work for him to do. England required his services, and on May 29, 1650, his son-in-law, Henry Ireton, was appointed Lord-Deputy and Commander-in-Chief, and instructed to carry out the Cromwellian policy. Ireton did not spare himself or others. He besieged Limerick, and in four months starved the garrison out, but it was his last effort, and on November 26, 1651, he died of the prevailing plague.

The rest of the Commonwealth deputies were undistinguished so far as their Irish careers were concerned. Major-General Lambert was chosen to succeed Ireton, but he was more suited for the camp than the council board, being a bluff soldier with a partiality for the rough pleasures of the average campaign. Cromwell did not care for 'Honest John' Lambert, and having in mind a scheme whereby Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Fleetwood, who had wisely married Ireton's widow and the Protector's daughter, should be made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, he induced Parliament to abolish the post. Lambert was enraged, for the prospect of ruling a country had excited his imagination, and he made great preparations to inaugurate his term of office. The Protector gave him two thousand pounds as compensation, and offered him the post of Commander-in-Chief, which he declined angrily. Fleetwood was thereupon given the post, and after a couple of years of government by commissioners, he was created Lord-Deputy.

Fleetwood distinguished himself by priest-baiting and an attempt to revive the 'plantation' methods of Sidney and Perrott. Henry Cromwell, fourth son of Oliver, who had been given command of an army in Ireland, in order to amuse himself and learn the arts of war, replaced Fleetwood. This Cromwell was unambitious, something of a poltroon, and only kept in the forefront by the personality of his father. Nepotism nourishes even in democracies, and Henry, a Colonel at twenty-two and Lord-Deputy before he was thirty, was not the man to carry on the traditions of the Protector. The Restoration found Henry Cromwell pitiably anxious to submit to the new order of things, and when the new reign opened and Lord Ormonde returned to resume his duties at Dublin Castle, Cromwell was grateful for being allowed to retire into private life.

The Restoration

During the years of the Commonwealth Lord Ormonde had resided abroad, stanchly faithful to the discredited cause of the Stuarts. When others grew faint-hearted, and deserted, Ormonde spoke the encouraging word, and he spent all his revenues in the royal service. Recalling a promise made by Cromwell that his wife's fortune would not be confiscated, he sent her to the Protector, and she succeeded in getting five hundred pounds in cash and two thousand a year for life. In 1658, six years after his wife's visit, Ormonde entered England disguised, charged with a mission from the Royalist party to ascertain if the times were rife for a rising. The ex-viceroy returned with a pessimistic report, and on his advice Charles waited. Two years later came the Restoration, and with it Ormonde's fortunes rose to a dazzling height.

In the first flush of gratitude King Charles showered honours upon the Irish nobleman. He was created Duke of Ormonde in the Irish peerage, Earl of Brecknock in the English, appointed Chancellor of Dublin University, Lord Steward, Lord-Lieutenant of Somerset, and High Steward of Kingston, Westminster, and Bristol. At the coronation of Charles II. he carried the crown. The restoration of his Irish estates followed as a matter of course, and the king added a promise to pay him a large sum of money. This promise was never kept, but the Irish Parliament, anxious to curry favour with Ormonde and the king, voted him thirty thousand pounds. At the close of his career Ormonde declared that he had spent nearly a million of money in the king's service, and although this is an obvious exaggeration, yet it is a fact that he lost heavily pecuniarily and otherwise by his adherence to the Stuart cause.

Ultra-patriotic writers, with that passion for obscure data which characterizes the partisan historian in his search of an argument, have chosen to regard the first Duke of Ormonde as the friend of England and the enemy of Ireland. They shed inky tears over the fate of men like Hugh O'Neill and Shane of that family, but the success of either of these would have meant a return to the absurd state of affairs which made Ireland a nation of kingdoms and traitors. O'Neill represented only his own followers, and his success would have bred rivals and imitators. There was no hope of peace or prosperity if the country came under the dominion of men brave on the battlefield and foolish and quarrelsome in their councils. Mere bravery is not statesmanship; victories on the battlefield have to be supported by wisdom in the council, or all their benefits are lost.

Ormonde and Lady Castlemaine

The Duke of Ormonde was the first of the great race of Irishmen, worthily descended from famous persons in the two countries, who aimed at a united Ireland in honourable federation with England. To a man of his breeding and education the civilization of Pall Mall was more pleasing than the semi-barbarous condition of provincial Ireland, but he accepted again the thankless position of viceroy, and, hampered by the new school of politics that had arisen in London, he did his utmost for Ireland. He was the best man for the task, and Charles knew it, and although his enemies never lost an opportunity for damaging his reputation, he retained the post until March 14, 1669, having conducted the government in person for nearly seven years. Ormonde was one of the first to realize the fact that Charles was endangering his throne by his profligacy. Almost every decree that emanated from Whitehall was inspired by the whims and vagaries of one of the mistresses of the 'Merry Monarch,' and even Ormonde, attached as he was to the person of the king, could not submit to the insolent demand on the part of Lady Castlemaine that her lover should grant her Phoenix Park as a private demesne. Lady Castlemaine, however, ascribed her defeat to Ormonde's jealousy, and it was mainly through her that the viceroy's enemies continued their plottings and secured his recall. The charges against him were that he had billeted soldiers on civilians and had executed martial law, charges so ridiculous that there was never any serious attempt to investigate them after Ormonde's return to London.

He was not without honour, however, even in England, for Oxford University elected him her Chancellor, and in 1670 the city of Dublin presented an address to Lord Ossory, the duke's son, which consisted of complimentary references to the late viceroy and ignored the then holder of the post, Lord Robarts. Lord Ossory had acted as deputy for his father in 1664-65, and gave promise of a brilliant career.

Eight years of court life followed, during which Ormonde, who knew more about Ireland than any other living person, was seldom called in to advise Charles. Robarts, a stolid nobleman of no accomplishments beyond a little pride, managed to last a year—1669-70. On the Restoration, Robarts, the son of a tin merchant and a usurer, was appointed deputy to General Monck, whom he considered an upstart, but he declined to represent such a man, and Charles, who was heavily in his debt, made him Lord Privy Seal, and thus enabled him to avoid the indignity of occupying an inferior position to General Monck.

The next viceroy was a distinguished survivor of the Civil War in the person of John Berkeley, first Lord Berkeley of Stratton. He was a nobleman of elaborate tastes, who took full advantage of Charles II.'s indebtedness to him for services rendered during the great exile. This he supplemented by marrying three times, the third wife bringing him an immense fortune. She was plain and old, but Berkeley overcame his natural repugnance to the ugly in this particular case. In Ireland he was a success mainly because his sympathies inclined towards the Catholic religion, and he left well alone. The country would have welcomed a longer viceroyalty than two years, but Berkeley was not the man to waste his energies in Dublin, and he was glad to return to London and to the court.

The Duchess of Cleveland

Ireland did not, of course, escape altogether from the evil consequences of Charles's partiality for frail femininity. His illegitimate children had to be provided with money as well as with titles, and their mothers' anxiety for the future dispelled. When there were murmurings in England against the king's extravagant methods in satisfying the cupidity of his creatures, these latter asked for something out of Ireland. The Duchess of Portsmouth wanted Phoenix Park, and Charles was quite willing that she should have it, but the Duke of Ormonde and the Earl of Essex, who knew the fatal stupidity of the Stuarts, managed to convince Charles that he would run the risk of losing his crown if he lost his head over the woman who made the title of duchess as cheap as water while she flaunted it in Whitehall. It was not to be expected that an illiterate woman would be able to understand the reasons that made the gift of Phoenix Park impracticable, and she plotted with all the feline spite that she was capable of to injure the men who had defeated her ambitions. Ormonde, however, was too strong, but when Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, was appointed to succeed Lord Berkeley in 1672, she carried on an intrigue against him, and did not cease until his recall in 1677. Lord Essex was the son of the Lord Capel who had been executed in 1649, and Charles owed him and his family something. That debt was never repaid fully, and had it not been for a sudden revulsion of feeling in Ormonde's favour Lord Essex might never have gone to Ireland. The new viceroy was not popular among the king's coterie of duchesses and countesses. When at the Treasury he had declined to pay the Duchess of Cleveland £25,000 out of the public funds, and, of course, the duchess was furious. Essex was not dismayed. He knew that Charles dare not quarrel with a man of his position on the question of the subsidies he considered his mistresses ought to have. Publicity was the last thing he desired. Essex was not the man to send to Ireland to represent the Duchess of Cleveland or the Duchess of Portsmouth, and Ormonde persuaded Charles that in Ireland he was regarded as king, and that the people in that benighted country were so unacquainted with the manners of polite society as to be quite unable to appreciate the delicate position of duchess without a duke.

Lady Essex took her part in the work of her husband, being really the first of the 'vicereines'—to use an apt if technically incorrect description of the wives of the viceroys—to enter into the social life of the people her husband governed. She entertained as a great hostess, and was charming and popular. It was her accessibility which led to an incident which rendered the last few months of Essex's viceroyalty painful. The times were ripe for the propagation of scandal. The king's patronage of vice gave it an appearance of virtue, and certainly many rewards. The chivalry of the time was an elaborate ritual in honour of free love, and, of course, the influence spread to Dublin. Personally Lord Essex was almost a little better than his contemporaries, but he held the honour of his wife to be something very sacred, and when he heard that it was the talk of Dublin that she was carrying on an intrigue with a Captain Brabazon he was greatly embittered. It was fashionable to be vicious, but Essex would not believe that his wife was guilty, although Captain Brabazon swore that she was. According to the laws of honour, a duel with Brabazon was the viceroy's only court of appeal, but as the king's representative he could not issue a challenge or accept one, and he was therefore compelled to affect a haughty indifference to the covert insults heaped upon himself and Lady Essex. Fortunately for the viceroy and his wife, Captain Brabazon, rejoicing in his immunity, became too precise; he offered details of times and places, and once he had sworn to these it was easy to prove them wicked and malicious falsehoods.

The viceroy was not sorry to yield up office to Ormonde, although, as is always the case, popular feeling turned in his favour, and even gossip admitted nothing but good of the countess. The whole plot had been hatched by the Duchess of Cleveland in revenge for his refusal to rob the Treasury on her behalf. On his return to London, Lord Essex immediately sought out Charles and complained of the scandalous treatment he had received. The king was sympathetic—weak-minded persons find in sympathy their only virtue—but he would do nothing, and the ex-viceroy, disappointed and enraged, flung himself out of the royal presence. He was a marked man now, and all his sayings were improved upon and reported to Charles. The Rye House plot ended his career. He was arrested and committed to the Tower, where he was said to have taken his own life in a fit of depression. Whether true or not scarcely matters, for his act merely saved his head from the executioner's axe.

CHAPTER VII

The Duke of Ormonde's career in London during his period of unemployment was not without excitement. As a great nobleman he frequented the court without ever becoming one of its favoured habitués. In his salad days Ormonde had been one of the gayest of the gay, but he was a veteran when Robarts succeeded him in Ireland, and his temperament was that of a statesman rather than a courtier.

His enemies, however, feared and detested him, and finding that they could not compel the complacent Charles to banish the duke, they took it into their own hands to try and murder him. One night, therefore—it was December 5, 1670—Ormonde's coach was stopped in St. James's Street by Thomas Blood and five other ruffians, who dragged the duke out and carried him off on horseback. The affair created a tremendous sensation, the most widely-spread rumour being that the five accomplices were well-known friends of the King's, inspired by him to assassinate a man who had helped Charles to regain his throne. Blood became famous in one quarter and infamous in another, while Lord Ossory, the duke's eldest son, believing that Buckingham had instigated the plot, went in search of the duke, and, finding him with the king, did not hesitate to tell him that if his father died a violent death he would pistol Buckingham, even if he sought shelter behind the king. Ormonde escaped mainly owing to the over-sureness of his captors. The strangest incident, however, was yet to come. Blood was captured—he made no attempt to escape—and it was expected as matter of course that he would be hanged, but Charles sent for the duke, and in a private interview persuaded that nobleman to pardon his would-be assassin. This action of the king's proved conclusively that if Buckingham paid Blood to attempt Ormonde's life Charles must have had cognizance of the matter, while it is certain that the germ of the whole idea originated with one of Charles's mistresses, who hated Ormonde, not because he was excessively moral or squeamish, but because he declined to treat seriously their pretensions to be considered members of the nobility.

Nearly seven years after this episode Charles reappointed Ormonde Viceroy of Ireland. The duke was now sixty-seven, but he took up office with all his old zest, and he made his entry into Dublin an elaborate ceremonial, behaving himself as though he were the King of Ireland, and not merely a king's deputy.

The Duke of Ormonde was not a patriot in the sense that the word is regarded nowadays. His policy was to increase the English ascendancy. His religion naturally placed him in the minority. He was a Protestant and a Royalist, but there can be no mistaking the earnestness of his views. He brought a conscientiousness to his task that distinguished him from the average viceroy, and he could pride himself upon knowing the country. The O'Neills, in their brief day of squabble and treachery, had taunted Ormonde with being English, and their fondness for creating parties within a party had helped to defeat Ormonde's policy more than once. In 1677, however, the duke had behind him the united power of England, and during his last viceroyalty he was all-powerful.

Proclamations against Catholics

The Popish plot that disturbed the Government towards the close of Charles's reign roused the fervid anti-Catholic spirit in Ormonde. He issued a proclamation banishing all ecclesiastics who took their orders from Rome; dissolving societies, convents, and schools, and commanding all Catholics to surrender their arms within twenty days. These measures, however, did not satisfy the bigots in London, and they clamoured for the viceroy's recall, declaring that he was in secret sympathy with the plotters. But the duke had a brave defender in the person of his son, Lord Ossory, the handsomest and most hot-tempered man of his day. Lord Ossory was his father's devoted friend, and during his long stay in London the younger man never lost an opportunity for confounding his father's enemies. In an impassioned speech he defended him in the House of Lords, and he had the satisfaction of defeating the intriguers.

The death of his son was a terrible blow to the duke, and he lost all interest in public matters. His supersession by the Earl of Rochester in 1683 was not unwelcome to him. Ormonde was seventy-three, and had aged considerably during the preceding ten years. On July 21, 1688, he died, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, a fit sepulchre for a man whose loyalty and conscientiousness were rare virtues in his day, and who had given more to his king than he had received. His last public act had been to carry the crown at the Coronation of King James, but he was spared the knowledge of the second and final exile of the Stuart family from England. His eldest son, Lord Ossory, the most popular man about town in his day, a confirmed gambler and an intimate of King Charles, who occasionally paid his card debts for him, left behind a son who succeeded his grandfather in the title and estates, becoming second Duke of Ormonde, and later Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. In Evelyn's 'Diary' there is a notable tribute to Lord Ossory. Universal grief was occasioned by the announcement of his death at an early age.

The new viceroy was the Earl of Rochester, a dull creature who grew restive in Dublin, where he ignored the local nobility, and was for ever pining for the pleasures of London. The expenses of the viceroyalty were very considerable now, and there were few opportunities of making money out of the office. Lord Tyrconnel, the Commander-in-Chief, treated him with open contempt, as he had treated the Duke of Ormonde, a stronger man than either of them, and Rochester, a product of society, was not likely to succeed against the bullying, swaggering methods of Tyrconnel, who was clearly aiming at the viceroyalty for himself.

A Catholic régime

In 1683 Charles commissioned Laurence Hyde, brother of the Earl of Clarendon, to replace Rochester, but Hyde, who was anxious to remain in London at that particular time, managed to delay his departure for over a year, and when the king died and James ascended the throne, Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon and brother-in-law of James, was selected for the task of permeating Ireland, especially official Ireland, with the new Jacobean policy. England was avowedly Protestant, and England in Ireland was similar. James, who was that human paradox—an insincere fanatic—instructed Clarendon to proceed cautiously in his difficult task of placing the Government and laws of Ireland in the hands of Roman Catholics, while at the same time maintaining outwardly a Protestant régime. Hyde, who was James's subservient minister, did his best, and within a year the majority of the judges, and nearly all the State officials, were Catholic. He found it comparatively easy to appoint Catholic officers to the highest positions in the army, for Tyrconnel, the Commander-in-Chief, was a Catholic, and he raised no objection to Clarendon's nominations. This was the only help the viceroy received from Tyrconnel, the most popular man in Ireland and the most powerful. He had the army behind him, and, knowing that he could take the viceroyalty whenever he cared to do so, he had sufficient sense of humour to wait until James had exhausted his stock of Pall Mall exquisites, and had to turn to him. It was characteristic of the king that he should try to carry out a Catholic policy with the aid of Protestant ministers, relying upon nepotism rather than upon conviction or sincerity, but the Stuarts were born to blunder, and they blundered.

Lord Tyrconnel pretended to obey the viceroy, but scarcely a single act from Dublin Castle was not ignored by him. He was jealous of the king's preference for English noblemen, firmly believing that Ireland should be governed by an Irishman and a Catholic. The Duke of Ormonde he had regarded as an Englishman, and that viceroy's terms of office were always noted for quarrels with Tyrconnel. The old Irish families and the common people looked to Tyrconnel to save them from the evil consequences of the mad policy of Charles II. and his successor. James certainly gratified them by his return to the old religion, but he went about it the wrong way, and with the usual result. Clarendon did his best, but Fate was against him. He was too weak to stand the strain fidelity imposed in such troublous times, and James removed him from office because he suspected his loyalty. The suspicion was correct. Clarendon was one of the first of James's intimates to go over to the party that invited William and Mary to ascend the throne of England. Later he plotted against William, and only the influence of great friends and a remembrance of previous services saved his life. He was released from prison, and permitted to live in semi-retirement until his death in 1709 at the age of seventy-one.

The Earl of Tyrconnel

When Clarendon's term of office ended there was only one man who could continue James's policy. This was Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel, the man who had done his utmost to kill the authority of half a dozen occupants of Dublin Castle. Fate retaliated by making his viceroyalty stormy and tragic. At the time of his appointment in 1687 Tyrconnel was fifty-seven years of age, and he had a long record behind him which, despite the tendency to idealize in the course of more than two centuries, seems to prove that he was nothing better than a bully and an adventurer. He was at the same time a brave soldier and a cowardly statesman, but his greatest defect lay in his utter inability to acquire the art of obeying. He wished to rule always, and when the critical time came, this contributed more than anything else to the complete defeat of the Jacobean cause in Ireland.

Born in 1630, Tyrconnel was twenty years of age when Cromwell came to Ireland and besieged Drogheda. Even at that early age he was well known for his reckless courage, and he was certainly one of the most gallant defenders of the town. He owed his escape to the fact that he was so dangerously wounded that he was placed amongst the dead, and he took advantage of the lonely battlefield to make his way out of Drogheda disguised as a woman. Coming to London, Tyrconnel was arrested by Cromwell, but escaped to the Continent, where he quickly determined to enter the inner circle of the royal exiles. Charles and his brother, the Duke of York, later James II., did not care for the society of a person who lacked the finer polish, and who found his acquaintances at the point of the sword. Tyrconnel, however, was crafty enough to sum up James's character, and by offering to go to England and assassinate Cromwell, he was at once taken into the confidence of the duke. Fortunately, it was soon realized that such a foul deed would merely serve to strengthen the Commonwealth in England, and certainly extinguish all hopes of another Stuart régime. It is not at all unlikely that Tyrconnel knew this; anyhow, he gained his ambition, and by the time the Restoration was accomplished, he was one of the royal prince's most trusted companions.

Unfortunately for Tyrconnel, he cast in his lot with the Duke of York, and twenty-five years passed before his patron was in a position to give him his earldom. Talbot, who was a product of the battlefield, was not likely to shine in the court of Charles II. He played a part in it for a time, and he was the hero of several love affairs, but he had not the courtly graces of a Buckingham or a Rochester. Women were afraid of provoking him, for he brooked no rivalry, and the man who in one week fought five duels in London and wounded his opponent every time was no fit companion for ladies whose fame depended upon the number of conquests they made, but they admired his courage and success. In his only really serious love affair Tyrconnel was rejected, and the lady married Sir George Hamilton. Richard Talbot also found consolation, but some years later, when his wife had died, he married Lady Hamilton, a widow with six children.

Charles was speaking more than the truth when he declared that no one would ever assassinate him to make James king, and Talbot, leading an aimless life in London, a beggared gambler, distrusted by the old aristocracy and feared by the new, sought vainly for adequate employment for nearly ten years. Then in 1669 Charles appointed him Commander-in-Chief in Ireland on the earnest and persistent solicitation of the Duke of York. London society was not displeased to get rid of the bully so easily, for in their estimation Ireland was still a place of exile, especially so in view of the comfortable statesmanship practised by Charles and his satellites in the palace of Whitehall. Talbot went to Ireland eagerly, knowing that the qualities which had won for him contempt in London would idealize him in Ireland. With the aid of the Duke of York, and also helped by the indolence of Charles, he knew that he could make his office of Commander-in-Chief at least equal to, if not more powerful than, the viceroyalty. Ormonde had been superseded by Lord Robarts, and Talbot detested the duke, whose religion made him unpopular with the Duke of York and his friends.

'Lying Dick Talbot'

On the accession of James II., Richard Talbot—Macaulay's 'Lying Dick Talbot'—was created Earl of Tyrconnel, and his powers as Commander-in-Chief increased. It was the king's ambition to make himself independent of Parliament by means of the army, and he hoped that Tyrconnel would bring the army in Ireland to such a state of efficiency that would render it an important asset in the struggle between the king and his subjects. To a man of Talbot's temperament unlimited power was a spur to unlimited ambition, and successive viceroys found themselves in a humiliating position. The noted duellist and bully—the man at whom half London sneered and whom the other half feared—was set in authority over some of the best blood in the kingdom, and although they complained bitterly to the king, there was no redress.

The state of the country

The nomination of Tyrconnel to the vice-royalty was, therefore, the only way out of James's difficulties in Ireland. Nearly every class in the country welcomed the appointment. The new viceroy proceeded to strengthen his own position rather than that of the king's. He had been instructed to pack the state and the bench with Catholics, but Tyrconnel, with thoughts of the future, selected creatures of his own, and in a short time he was master of the country. The bench, the corporations, the Justices of the Peace, were all subservient to him. He made and unmade laws, and the spectacle of a bully ruling a country might have made the world laugh had it not been so tragic. The disarmed Protestants were left to the mercy of the criminal classes and the legalized highway robbers; consequently many of the most prosperous and law-abiding families were compelled to leave their lands and homes and emigrate to England. Justice was a travesty; householders in Dublin had to keep watch all night to guard their property because the fear of punishment for crime no longer existed. The viceroy and his wife reigned in Dublin Castle, where sectarianism influenced every single act.

Lady Tyrconnel, who had been in her youth one of the most fascinating of the group of ingenuous beauties gathered about the court of Charles II., was in her middle age ugly, spiteful, and fanatical. Her husband was rough and coarse; she was feline and fanciful, but she adapted herself to the ways of his policy, and the Catholic religion found in her a devout adherent. She was not popular in Ireland, however. The mother of six children, she was fond of recalling the glories of her Whitehall past. Secretly she disliked James, and even at times broke out into petulant diatribes against her husband's patron; but all the time she aped the youth of her early years, and tried to hide the plain present by means of paint.

There was no room for the finer arts of life in Tyrconnel. He was now acting the statesman, and the result was very soon evident. Ormonde, despite his defects and dislike for the ultra-patriots, had succeeded in improving the condition of Ireland, and his successors had been willing to continue his social policy if they could not improve upon it. The Earl of Tyrconnel, however, was not the man to imitate others, no matter how praiseworthy such imitation might be, and in less than a couple of years he 'reduced Ireland from a place of briskest trade and best-paid rents in Christendom to utter ruin and desolation.' Dublin had progressed amazingly under Ormonde, and it seemed as if the capital city would rise to a place amongst the most important cities of the world, when Tyrconnel came to set it back a hundred years. England had never done anything for Dublin or any other town in Ireland, and the progress of the capital had been made in the face of the bitterest opposition and the most relentless persecution. London, Bristol, and the other ports of England were jealous of Dublin, and they were able to get edicts passed interfering with the shipping and the trade of the country, in order that they might not lose in competition. Dublin, however, rose superior to edicts and statutes, and by the end of the seventeenth century it was not a mean city. Even in London it was realized with something approaching wonder that Dublin was not to be despised. For five hundred years it had been the headquarters of the English colony, but it was in Tyrconnel's day entirely Irish. The English families had been merged in the Irish, and the result was a population anxious for peace and freedom from the persecutions entailed by religious squabbles and political struggles.

The Earl of Tyrconnel was too patriotic, however, to let the country rest. His crude mind was full of ambitious schemes, and from England James fed him with ambitious food. Between them they were to make England, Ireland, and Scotland wholly Catholic, and in the remote event of England failing the king, Ireland was to be made a French protectorate, so that the supremacy of the Catholic religion might remain undisputed.

Suddenly James appealed for help, and Tyrconnel sent him 3,000 men; but they could not keep the king's throne, and on March 12, 1689, James landed at Kinsale from France, a king without a throne, a Catholic without a conscience, and a fanatic without a scruple. His visit to Ireland had an ominous precedent in the case of Richard II., and it had a similar result. It was obvious that the English monarch relied entirely upon his viceroy to save his throne. Ireland was even then renowned for its simple-hearted allegiance to the old faith, and James was under the impression that fanaticism can beat generalship and numbers.

King James in Dublin

Tyrconnel, ever optimistic when fighting was imminent, met James at Cork, and headed the triumphant procession into Dublin on March 24, 1689. The king was rapturously welcomed from Cork to Dublin as the friend of Ireland and of its religion, and Lady Tyrconnel organized a fête at the Castle, in which she endeavoured to remind the nervous and dejected king of the former glories of the Stuart dynasty when the family seemed all-powerful and secure. James, however, unwisely and needlessly irritated her by a display of indifference, and at a dance he exasperated her by leading out a less-known but more beautiful member of Irish society. The viceroy's wife was Duchess of Tyrconnel by now, for the Lord-Lieutenant had been created a duke on the arrival of the king; but it is as Earl of Tyrconnel that he is known. James had not the power to create peerages in 1689.

There is no need to enter minutely into any of the details of the Jacobean war in Ireland. It was a religious and a political contest, but the presence of James and the multitude of his counsellors were the chief causes of the Catholic defeat. In the Parliament James summoned at Dublin there was a member named Patrick Sarsfield, afterwards given the worthless and illegal title of Earl of Lucan, who was destined to play a leading part in the fortunes of James, and who might have won success for his royal master had his qualities been recognized in high quarters. Tyrconnel, however, always ready to sacrifice the good of his country for the good of himself, kept Sarsfield under, and James, who had been given proof of Sarsfield's devotion, distrusted his ability. At a time when everybody had deserted James, Patrick Sarsfield stood by him, and in the very first encounter with the army of William he proved his courage. The viceroy was now old and crippled by gout, but he insisted upon holding the principal place in James's Council, and when it was announced that William was coming to Ireland, it was he who insisted upon James fighting for his crown, although that monarch was secretly preparing for his return to France. James created defeat for himself, and his motley collection of adventurers made that defeat certain. No real attempt was made to bring a disciplined army into the field against the King of England, and only the bravery and genius of the troops made the Battle of the Boyne a battle at all.

The Battle of the Boyne

This decisive conflict was fought on Tuesday, July 1, 1690, and the stars in their courses fought for William. James was in the way of his own Generals, and in the many critical moments of the battle there were schisms in the Council. But it was James who contributed most to the defeat of his army, and well might Patrick Sarsfield exclaim bitterly: 'Change kings, and we will fight you over again.'

The ex-king was almost the first fugitive from the field, and he rode without cessation until he reached Dublin Castle, weary, travel-stained, but just the same sneering, disappointed incompetent, who had sacrificed many humble lives nobler than his own. When Lady Tyrconnel, flustered and alarmed, came down to greet him, James caustically informed her that the Irish ran well.

'Your Majesty seems to have won the race,' was Lady Tyrconnel's witty rejoinder; and the king remained silent.

From Dublin James, thanks to his forethought, was able to cross to France immediately, and he scandalized Paris by declaring that the Irish were cowards to a man, who had run away at the first shot from the enemy. The result of this libel was that the members of the Irish colony in Paris were mobbed in the streets, and long afterwards, when physical ill-treatment ceased, the name of an Irishman stood for cowardice in the best Parisian circles.

The ex-king left Tyrconnel, Lauzun, Boisseleau, and Sarsfield to fight his battle against William, and after the disastrous Boyne they retired on Limerick. William followed hastily, and presently his 28,000 men were besieging the city, which was garrisoned by not more than 15,000 troops. The hero of the siege was Sarsfield, and it is to his story that this belongs. Tyrconnel was anxious to get out of the country, and when Sarsfield had driven the English army from the walls of Limerick the viceroy followed King James into exile, the Duke of Berwick being styled 'viceroy.' A Council of Twelve assisted the duke, while Tyrconnel, having, with his wife, gone to France with all their available resources, interviewed James, and induced him to send him back to Ireland as Lord-Lieutenant. Furthermore, James was persuaded to give Tyrconnel a grant of £8,000. In such a state of war there could be no real viceroy, and Tyrconnel was compelled to pass his time between pleasures and fears. Chroniclers recount stories of the festivities given by him in his own honour during a stay at Galway. He was too old for anything else. Meanwhile the rival generals in the field proved easy victims for William's commanders. The Earl of Marlborough came to Ireland to supplement his small experience of warfare, and, of course, he performed creditably, for the Jacobean troops were badly clothed, fed, and armed. Sarsfield alone seemed worth his position, and his efforts were negatived by the incompetence of his colleagues.

The Treaty of Limerick

On August 14, 1691, Tyrconnel died, sixty-one years of age, but worn out and feeble. He was buried by night and in such haste that his burial-place quickly became a mystery. He died just before the end of the Jacobean struggle in Ireland, for a few days afterwards the Treaty of Limerick was signed, and Sarsfield left the country to fight as a soldier of fortune, and to die an honourable death on a foreign battlefield. In the contest between James's Irish army and that of William the latter had all the luck and the former all the traitors. It was, therefore, a matter for astonishment that the Jacobean troops should have gained any victories at all. Certain it is that the English commanders never gained reputations so cheaply. When Marlborough returned to London he was fêted as a victor by the king; but all he did was to overcome by means of sheer force small and irregular bodies of troops indifferently armed and often badly led. Marlborough did not learn anything of the art of generalship by his month's visit to Ireland. Patrick Sarsfield was the only man who proved his worth as a leader and his courage as a soldier. We know that he fought for a good cause but an unworthy man, and that the cause was something better than the restoration of James to the throne of England.