Dublin, however, was in the hands of the Parliamentarians, and Ormonde chose to a.s.sert 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, a.s.suring the prince that his troops could hold that {90} 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Oliver Cromwell]
[Sidenote: The Cromwellian campaign]
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 ma.s.sacres 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 {91} 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 rect.i.tude, Cromwell marched on Drogheda. The ma.s.sacre 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 pa.s.sport 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 {92} 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-a.s.sumed 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 {93} played upon the Puritan"s vanity of reputation, and Cromwell kept his word.
[Sidenote: 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 {94} 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.
[Sidenote: 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 {95} 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 grat.i.tude King Charles showered honours upon the Irish n.o.bleman. 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 pa.s.sion 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 {96} 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.
[Sidenote: 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, {97} 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 n.o.bleman 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 {98} 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 n.o.bleman 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.
[Sidenote: The d.u.c.h.ess 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 t.i.tles, 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 d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth wanted Phoenix Park, and Charles was quite willing that she should have it, but the Duke of Ormonde and the Earl of Ess.e.x, who knew the fatal stupidity of the Stuarts, managed to convince Charles that he would run the risk of losing {99} his crown if he lost his head over the woman who made the t.i.tle of d.u.c.h.ess 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 Ess.e.x, 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 Ess.e.x 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 Ess.e.x might never have gone to Ireland. The new viceroy was not popular among the king"s coterie of d.u.c.h.esses and countesses. When at the Treasury he had declined to pay the d.u.c.h.ess of Cleveland 25,000 out of the public funds, and, of course, the d.u.c.h.ess was furious. Ess.e.x 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. Ess.e.x was not the man to send to Ireland to represent the d.u.c.h.ess of Cleveland or the d.u.c.h.ess 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 {100} of polite society as to be quite unable to appreciate the delicate position of d.u.c.h.ess without a duke.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Earl of Ess.e.x]
Lord Ess.e.x found Ireland as peaceful as he could expect. Fortunately for him, he lacked the ambition that had attacked so many former viceroys like a disease, and did not wish to conquer Ireland. He realized that beyond Dublin and a few provincial cities the rule of England did not extend, but provided he was allowed to remain in peace at Dublin Castle, he did not worry. And in fact Dublin was the only habitable place. Centuries of warfare had left the land in a terrible state. Education and all the arts were at a standstill, while the traders had not yet raised themselves to a position of independence, and the resident n.o.bility dwelt in their strongholds or emigrated to fight under foreign flags. If we are to believe the records of the times, Lord Ess.e.x confined himself to Dublin and the Castle, and all his entertainments were for the benefit of the officials and occasional visitors from London. He did something to make Dublin worthier of its position as the capital city. Highway and street robberies were punished severely and building improvements encouraged.
Lady Ess.e.x 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 {101} months of Ess.e.x"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 Ess.e.x 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 Ess.e.x 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 Ess.e.x. 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 d.u.c.h.ess of Cleveland in revenge for his refusal to rob the Treasury on her behalf. On his return to London, {102} Lord Ess.e.x 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.
{103}
CHAPTER VII
The Duke of Ormonde"s career in London during his period of unemployment was not without excitement. As a great n.o.bleman 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 a.s.sa.s.sinate 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 n.o.bleman to pardon his would-be a.s.sa.s.sin. 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 n.o.bility.
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 impa.s.sioned 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 t.i.tle 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 n.o.bility, 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 n.o.blemen, 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 a.s.sa.s.sinate 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.