unfortunate for Lacy, who, in consequence of his known attachment to
the constitution of the Cortes, was deprived of all his offices--a base
return for his many noble services--and he was coldly permitted to
retire in obscurity, with his family, to Vinaroz, in the province of
Valencia, where he spent two years in peace, though brooding over his
wrongs, and planning means of redress.
In 1816, fatally for himself, he returned to active life; for, since
the death of Parlier, and other brave men, who had fallen in attempting
to secure to Spain that independence for which they had struggled
against France, the eyes of all the Liberalists were turned on Louis
Lacy, and in him their hopes reposed.
Having gone to Calvetes, in Catalonia, to drink the mineral waters, it
chanced that he met there an old companion in arms, General Milano,
and his brother, Don Raphael Milano, with two other Spanish gentlemen,
whose political sentiments coincided with his own; and, after several
secret meetings, they boldly resolved on re-establishing the Cortes at
the point of the sword; for Lacy, relying on the sympathy of several
regiments, and the regard they paid to his name and achievements, hoped
to make them revolt in his favour, on the 5th April, 1817, and proclaim
the Constitution.
Denounced by two traitors, the whole enterprise fell to pieces, and the
four projectors failed to save themselves.
Abandoned nearly by all on whom he had relied, the unfortunate Lacy
was arrested, with a few faithful friends, and conveyed, under care
of a strong guard of soldiers, to a prison at Barcelona, where he was
hastily tried by a subservient military commission, and sentenced _to
death_--a doom which he heard with a calmness that staggered even the
stern and partial judge who pronounced it.
As a rising of the Catalonians in his favour was feared and expected,
the officials of the arbitrary Government at Barcelona secretly
embarked him on board of a small vessel, at midnight, on the 20th June;
and, resolving not to be cheated of their victim, sailed for the island
of Majorca; and there he was quite as secretly landed on a solitary
part of the coast, and conducted, on the night of the 4th July, to the
Castle of Belver, which was garrisoned by a regiment of Neapolitan
soldiers.
At four o'clock next morning he was suddenly brought out of the
fortress, just as day was breaking, and conducted to the deep fosse
before the gates; there he was barbarously shot by a platoon of
Italians, pursuant to the orders of those who had conveyed him from
Barcelona.
Louis Lacy had already faced death too often to receive it otherwise
than with the hereditary courage and coolness which had distinguished
him through his eventful life, and he fell with his face to his
destroyers.
His body was deposited in the old cathedral church of San Dominic, at
Palma, the capital of the island; but there it was exhumed, in 1820,
and conveyed, with much religious pomp and solemnity, to Barcelona,
and interred near the remains of his uncle, the Captain-General Count
Francis Anthony; while the newly-established Cortes, vainly to honour
the memory of one who had died for them, named his son _the first
grenadier of the Spanish army_.
Thus perished Louis Lacy, in his forty-second year, one who, more even
than Riego, had secured, by his patriotism, the Revolution of 1820.
"_Lacy_," says a French writer, "etait doué d'une forte constitution,
et d'une âme ardent, energique et généreuse. Habile général, intrepide
dans les dangers, _il s'était distingué par des faits d'armes, et par
un patriotisme dignes des Grecs et des Romains_!"
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 11: This is _not_ the same Irish officer of whom a memoir is
given elsewhere.]
[Footnote 12: _Edinburgh Courant_, 7th January, 1761.]
[Footnote 13: Count O'Rourke died at Lincoln's Inn, London, in 1785.]
COLONEL WALTER BUTLER,
OF THE IRISH MUSKETEERS.
In the army of Ferdinand II., Emperor of Austria (who succeeded his
brother Matthias in 1619), then commanded by Albrecht, Count of
Wallenstein and Duke of Friedland, were two brave Irish soldiers of
fortune--James Butler, who commanded a regiment of Irish dragoons; and
his younger brother, Walter, who was colonel of a regiment of Irish
musketeers.
These gentlemen were nearly related to James, then Earl of Ormond, and
were driven to seek service in foreign wars by the result of a quarrel
between their family and King James VI. of Scotland and I. of England,
who had unjustly wrested from the Butlers their valuable estates,
and bestowed them upon his Scottish favourite, Sir Richard Preston,
Laird of Craigmillar (near Edinburgh), and Knight of the Bath. This
gentleman, who was afterwards created Lord Dingwall in the peerage
of Scotland, and Earl of Desmond in that of Ireland, 6th June, 1614,
claimed Ormond in right of his wife, Lady Elizabeth Butler, who was
the only daughter of Thomas, Earl of Ormond, and widow of Theobald,
Viscount of Theophelim. Such was the undue partiality of James for
his countryman, the Viscount Dingwall, that in 1614, when Sir Walter,
eldest son of Sir John Butler, third brother of the old Earl of Ormond,
inherited that title, the Ormond estates (which in ancient times were
an Irish principality on the left bank of the middle Shannon, in the
northern part of Munster) were bestowed upon the stranger; and the
king, to enforce his claim, wrote a very peremptory letter to the Irish
Privy Council. Sir Arthur Chichester, Baron of Belfast, was at that
time Lord Deputy and Chief Governor of Ireland. Finding the Council
averse to this injustice, James, who was notorious for entertaining
the most absurd ideas of his prerogative, took the matter into his own
hands, and, charging the Earl of Ormond with "non-compliance," threw
him into the Fleet prison, where he remained for eight years, enduring
great want and misery, while all his old hereditary possessions were
seized and confiscated, by which his family were reduced and ruined.
Preston, Lord Dingwall, was drowned in June, 1621 when on his way from
Dublin to Scotland. He left an only daughter, Lady Elizabeth Preston,
through whom his titles and Irish estates went afterwards to the Earls
of Ossory.
The trouble in which the family became involved, and the wandering
spirit which possessed the Irish, like the Scots of those days, led the
earl's two cousins, James and Walter, into the Imperial service, where
they soon obtained the command of regiments, and served under John de
Tscerclai, the Count Tilly, and the great Wallenstein, in most of the
battles of the Thirty Years' War.
In 1631, Walter Butler, with his battalion of Irish musketeers,
formed part of the Imperial garrison which defended the town of
Frankfort-on-the-Oder against the victorious army of Gustavus Adolphus.
Frankfort was even then a large town, and being capital of the middle
mark of Brandenburg, was remarkable for its fairs and university. As it
stood only forty-eight miles from Berlin, the imperial generals were
anxious about its safety. Hannibal Count de Schomberg, the successor
of old Torquato Conti, commanded the garrison, which consisted of ten
thousand horse and foot. The town was surrounded by strong ramparts and
gates, but was divided in two by the Oder.
At the head of eighteen thousand men, with two hundred pieces of
cannon, and a pontoon bridge one hundred and eighty feet long, the
warlike King of Sweden marched along the banks of the river, and
appeared near the town on the 1st day of April. No troops ever
presented a finer aspect than the Swedish, as they marched in several
columns to the investment of Frankfort, the attack on which was
planned by Sir John Hepburn, of Athelstaneford (afterwards a maréchal
de camp in France), who then commanded the green brigade of Scots in
the service of Gustavus. In the army of the latter were no less than
fifteen thousand Scots at this time.
There is an old rhyme, which says--
"He who lyes before Frankfort a year and a daye,
Is lord of the empire for ever and aye."
But, knowing well that the fiery King of Sweden would not remain a week
if he could help it, Count Schomberg, the commander-in-chief; the Count
de Montecuculi, an Italian; Campmaster-General Teiffenbach, and Colonel
Herbertstein, made the most vigorous preparations to defend the place;
and to _Walter Butler_ and his Irish musketeers assigned a post of the
greatest danger.
"Take him in every respect," says the historian of Gustavus, "he
was one of the bravest officers in the Emperor's service; but as
the Imperialists envied this gallant foreigner, care was taken to
place him in _the weakest part_ of the fortification; or, to speak
more to the purpose, in a part that scarcely deserved to be called
a fortification." In no way either daunted or disheartened, Butler
resolved to make the best of it, and ordered his Irishmen to dig a
trench and form a breastwork in rear of it; and thus, after incredible
labour, they formed a solid rampart in one day; but that evening he
went to Count Schomberg, and represented "that the post assigned to
him was almost incapable of being defended, and that unless a sally
was made that very night, to prevent the Swedes and Scots from coming
nearer his indifferent parapet, the place would be taken."
But Schomberg heard him without interest or attention.
"Give me but five troops of cuirassiers, Count Hannibal," said he, "and
five of dragoons, and at the peril of life and reputation, I will
undertake to make the Swedes raise the siege."
Envious of the honour already won by the stranger, the Imperialist
declined alike the offer and advice, though secretly he dispatched, on
the very service coveted by Walter Butler, a certain German commander,
whose cuirassiers failed to perform the duty required, for they were
driven in by the Scottish Highlanders of Gustavus, and their leader was
shot, while Major Sinclair, of Sir John Hepburn's Scots musketeers,
followed them almost into the town.
Covered by the Rhinegrave's cuirassiers, under Colonel Hume, of
Carrolsidebrae, Hepburn's brigade of Scots intrenched themselves
before the great gate of the town; the yellow brigade occupied the
Custrin road; and the white brigade of Swedes was spread throughout the
suburbs. After a smart cannonade, on Palm Sunday, the 3rd of April, the
King of Sweden ordered a general assault.
"The Swedish soldiers wanting ladders for the scaling of the walls,
runne to certaines Boores' houses hard bye, whence they bring away the
racks in the stables, and those others without, upon which the Boores
used to lay their cowes' meat. With these and some store of hatchets
they had gotten, to a mightie strong palisadoe of the enemies' neere
the walls they goe, which they fell to hewing downe. The enemies
labouring to defend the stocket or palisadoe, to it on both sides they
fall; the bullets darkening the very aire with a showre of lead. The
Imperialists being at length, by main force, beaten off, retire through
a sally-port into the towne. Being entered within the outer port,
there stay they and shoote amaine. The King calling Sir John Hebron
and Colonel Lumsden unto him--'_Now, my brave Scotts_' (saies he),
'_remember your countrymen slain at New Brandenburg!_'"[14]
The Scottish infantry advanced with their pikes in the front rank and
their musketeers firing over their heads; thus a terrible slaughter
was soon made of the Imperialists. "One Scottish man," continues the
quaint record of the Swedish war, "killed eighteen men with his own
hand. Here did Lumsden take eighteen colours; yea, such testimony
showed he of his valour, that the king after the battle bade him aske
what he wolde, and he wolde give it to him." This brave officer was
Colonel Sir James Lumsden, of Invergellie, in Fifeshire, afterwards
made Governor of Newcastle by the Scottish Parliament, and a
major-general in the army which invaded England in 1640.
Meanwhile Gustavus was pressing with his own brigade upon the quarter
occupied by Butler and his Irish musketeers, who defended themselves
with incredible resolution; so much so, that when one of them was
dragged over the rampart, he was asked by the Swedish king, "what
soldiers these were who fought so valiantly?" "Colonel Butler's Irish
regiment," replied the prisoner. This was at half-past one in the day,
and Gustavus, on hearing it (according to Harte), drew off his brigade,
and in despair of forcing a passage through the Irish, assailed the
strong Gueben gate, and about four in the afternoon broke into the town
through the Germans.
The Governor, Schomberg, Campmaster-General Tieffenbach, the Count
de Montecuculi, Colonels Behem and Herbertstein, with most of the
Imperialists, fled out of the city with great baseness, leaving the
faithful Butler to fight single-handed against the tides of Swedes and
Scots who surrounded his almost indefensible post. Already three Irish
lieutenant-colonels, O'Neil, Patrick, and Macarthy were slain, with
Captain-Lieutenants Grace and Brown, and Ensign Butler, all Irish, and
many of their men. At last Walter Butler was pierced by a bullet, and
had his sword-arm broken by a musket-ball, and when he fell the remnant
of his gallant soldiers surrendered, and resistance was at an end.
Meanwhile the fugitive generals fled towards Silesia, and everywhere
gave out that Butler and the Irish had betrayed Frankfort, by
permitting the enemy to enter by _their_ quarter, as it was the
weakest; and had it not been for a providential accident, adds an
historian, Butler might have been beheaded and degraded, in spite
of all his gallant services; but next day, says one of the stormers,
the Scottish Colonel Munro, in his history, "It was to be seen where
_the best service was done_; and truly had all the rest (of the
Imperialists) stood to it as well as the _Irish did_, we had returned
with great loss, and without victory." He adds, there were taken fifty
standards, one colonel, five lieutenant-colonels, "and one Irish
cavalier, Butler, who behaved himself honourably and well." Hundreds
of Imperialists were drowned in the Oder, and a vast quantity of
plunder was taken. That night the King of Sweden gave a banquet to his
principal officers and colonels, Sir John Hepburn, Munro, Lumsden, Sir
John Banier, and others; and when they were assembling, "Cavaliers,"
said he, "I will not eat a morsel until I have seen this brave Irishman
of whom we hear so much; and yet," he added, to Colonel Hume, "I have
that to say to him which he may not be pleased to hear."
Butler's wounds rendered him incapable of exertion; but on a litter of
pikes being formed, he was conveyed into the presence of Gustavus, who
gazed at him sternly, and asked with anger--
"Sir, art thou the elder or the younger Butler?"
"May it please your Majesty," replied the wounded man, "I am but the
younger."
"God be praised!" said Gustavus Adolphus. "Thou art a brave fellow.
Hadst thou been the elder, I meant to have run my sword through thy
body; but now my own physicians shall attend thee, and nothing shall be
omitted that may procure thee happiness and ease."
The action by which James Butler had kindled so much indignation in
the breast of the usually placid Gustavus is now unknown; but it must
have been something very remarkable to excite such angry bitterness.
Had Walter Butler been a Protestant, the king would, no doubt, have
endeavoured to lure him into the Swedish service; but the wounded
Imperialist was as famous for his strict adherence to the duties of the
Roman Catholic church as for his gallantry in the field.
While lying thus helplessly at Frankfort, he was deeply stung and
mortified by the rumour so wickedly and so industriously spread by the
Imperial generals, that he had occasioned the loss of the town; and he
cast his honour under the protection of the generous Gustavus.
"Sir," said the latter, "it is in my power to do your character ample
justice, and in such a manner that it can never be controverted. I will
bear full testimony to your faith and valour under my own hand and
royal seal."
Assuming a pen, he drew up a certificate, which set forth the heroism
displayed by Butler in the strongest terms, and added, "that if the
Imperial generals, instead of acting like poltroons, had performed but
a fifth part of what this gallant Irishman had done, he (Gustavus)
should never have been master of Frankfort, but after an obstinate
siege alone."
"This, sir," said the king, "is no more than is due to a brave and
injured man; so every general in the room will take a pride in signing
this paper with me." This was accordingly done by Sir John Banier, the
Scottish colonels, and others.
James Butler, who was then at the court of Ferdinand II., at Vienna,
was stung to the soul by the tidings that his brother had betrayed a
post, and he wrote to Walter a letter full of the bitterest reproaches.
"You have tarnished the lustre of the Imperial arms, as well as the
name of Butler," he wrote; "and Cæsar's court-martial will make your
name a bye-word of reproach."
Walter Butler was grieved by this insolence and unkindness, and
hastened to show the letter to the King of Sweden.
"Heed it not, Colonel Butler," said he; "send our testimonial to the
Emperor, and trouble yourself no more about it."
Thirty thousand pounds' worth of plunder, and ten baggage waggons, with
all the plate of the fugitives, were taken, and all their munitions of
war; however, they had buried in the earth a great quantity of arms. In
1850, a labourer, when digging a trench in a field near the outworks of
old Frankfort, came upon a depôt of old weapons, decaying, and covered
with rust. Among them were 2000 matchlocks, being part of the munition
concealed by the garrison of Count Schomberg. As soon as his wounds
permitted him to travel, Walter Butler left Frankfort, for Gustavus
was too generous to detain as a prisoner one whose gallant spirit was
writhing under unmerited reproaches. He travelled towards Silesia, and
sought out a Colonel Behem, who had commanded a regiment of German
infantry at the defence of Frankfort, and to whom he was fortunate
enough in tracing the first of the slanderous reports, and challenged
him to single combat on horse or foot, with sword and pistol; but, awed
by the justice of Butler's cause, his known skill and courage, and
by the formidable testimonial of Gustavus Adolphus, he signed a full
retractation and apology.
Butler then went into Poland, and at his own expense raised a fine
regiment of cavalry, all clad in buff coats, with back and breast
pieces, and triple-barred helmets. While recruiting there he daily ran
the risk of being murdered by the Polish peasantry, who were averse
to the Imperial service; but he marched as soon as his new levy was
completed, and on his return to the Emperor's army took possession
of Prague, the capital of Bohemia. This made him more than ever a
favourite of the great Wallenstein.
Soon after this exploit he married the Countess of Fondowna.
He was at Prague when the ambitious Wallenstein became false to the
interests of the Empire, and fell into the deadly snare prepared for
him at Egra by Colonel James Butler and others, on whose unscrupulous
fidelity the Imperial court could rely. Had Walter not been a rigidly
honourable man, he might have realized a large fortune by the death of
his leader, who, being always fond of foreign troops, wished him to
return to Ireland for the purpose of raising a body of infantry to cope
with the Scottish brigades of Gustavus. For this purpose he offered
him money to the amount of 32,000_l._ sterling by bills of exchange
at Hamburg, and ready cash, which was lying useless at his palace of
Sagan, on the bank of the Bober, in Prussian Silesia. But he declined
the service with these remarkable words--"Poor old Ireland has been
drained too much of her men already." This anecdote, says Walter Harte
in his history, I learned at Vienna.
The wild schemes and daring ambition of Wallenstein now made him
indulge in the hope of dismembering the great conquests of the Empire,
and seating himself upon a new throne, to be erected by the sword in
northern Europe. This hope was crushed in 1634, when the great duke
was spending the holidays of Christmas in the old castle of Egra in
Bohemia. The garrison in this fortress was commanded by John Gordon, a
Presbyterian, a native of Aberdeenshire, who was colonel of Tzertzski's
regiment, and had once been a private soldier. Wallenstein's personal
escort consisted of 250 men of James Butler's Irish regiment, commanded
by that officer in person.
James Butler (without communicating the matter to his brother Walter),
John Gordon, and Major Walter Lesley, son of the Laird of Balquhan in
the Garioch, on receiving private instructions from Vienna, resolved,
without scruple or remorse, on removing the ambitious general from the
path of the emperor for ever. Butler prepared a grand banquet, to which
he invited the generalissimo's attendants. Previous to the latter,
Butler, who, felt some distrust of Lesley and Gordon, who were both
Scots and Presbyterians, while he was a Catholic, made some remarks
expressive of admiration for the duke.
"You may do as you please, gentlemen, in the matter at issue," said
Gordon; "but death itself shall never alienate me from the duty and
affection I bear his majesty the emperor."
Thus encouraged, Butler produced a letter from Mathias Count Galas
(who, after the siege of Mantua, obtained the supreme command of the
Imperial army), wherein Ferdinand II. authorized them and all his
officers to withdraw "their allegiance" from Wallenstein, for all the
troops had taken an oath of obedience to _him_ by the emperor's express
order. Fully empowered by this document to do what they pleased, the
three mercenaries resolved on his immediate destruction. One proposed
to poison him; another suggested that he should be sent a prisoner
to Vienna; a third, that he should be slain after _disposing_ of his
friends at the _banquet_. The last was at once adopted, and several
were invited, among whom were Wallenstein's brother-in-law, Colonel
Tzertzski; Colonels Illo, William Kinski, and the secretary, Colonel
Niemann. The castle was filled with soldiers on whom Gordon and Butler
could rely. As the fatal evening drew on, Captain Walter Devereaux,
Watchmaster Robert Geraldine, and fifteen other Irishmen, entered the
keep, and took possession of a postern; while to Captain Edmund Bourke,
with one hundred more, was assigned the duty of keeping the streets
quiet; for Tzertzski's dragoons occupied the town, which is the capital
of its circle, and was then surrounded by a triple rampart, washed on
one side by the Egra.
The banquet was protracted so long that at half-past ten the dessert
was still on the table, when Colonel Gordon filled up a goblet of wine,
and proposed the health of the shy and cunning John George, Elector of
Saxony, the enemy of the emperor.
Butler affected astonishment, and said "he would drink to no man's
prosperity who was the enemy of _Cæsar_."
Pretended high words ensued, and while the unsuspecting friends of
Wallenstein gazed about them in wonder and perplexity, the doors were
flung open, and Geraldine and Devereaux, with their soldiers armed with
drawn swords or partizans, rushed in.
"Long live Ferdinand the Second!" cried Devereaux.
"God prosper the house of Austria," added Geraldine; while Butler,
Gordon, and Lesley, snatched up the candles, held them aloft, and drew
their swords. Wallenstein's friends saw that they were betrayed; they
sprang to their weapons, all flushed with wine and with fury at this
treachery; the tables were dashed over, and a deadly combat began.
Colonel Illo was rushing to his sword, which was hanging on the wall,
when an Irishman ran him through the heart. Tzertzski placed himself in
a corner, and slew three; for the assailants, believing him to be proof
to mortal weapons, were afraid of him.
"Leave me, leave me for a moment," he continued to cry, while fighting
with all the energy of despair; "leave me to deal with Lesley and
Gordon--I will fight them both hand to hand--after that you may kill
me; but, O, Gordon, what a supper is this for your friends."