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
habitues. 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
{104} 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 {105} 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.
[Sidenote: 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 {106} 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,
{107} 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.
[Sidenote: A Catholic regime]
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 regime. 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 {108}
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 {109} from prison, and permitted to live in semi-retirement
until his death in 1709 at the age of seventy-one.
[Sidenote: 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, {110} 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 regime. 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 {111} 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.
[Sidenote: '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 {112} 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.
[Sidenote: 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
{113} 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 {114} 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 {115} 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.
[Sidenote: 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
fete 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 {116}
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 {117} only the bravery
and genius of the troops made the Battle of the Boyne a battle at all.
[Sidenote: 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.
{118}
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 L8,000. 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.
[Sidenote: The Treaty of Limerick]
On August 14, 1691, Tyrconnel died, sixty-one {119} 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 feted 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.
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