Ireland under the Stuarts and During the Interregnum, Vol. 3 (of 3), 1660-1690

by Richard Bagwell

FOOTNOTES:

[260] Lauzun to Seignelay, April 6/16 and July 16/26, in Ranke’s appendix.

[261] There is a full account of the Charlemont episode in Story’s Impartial Account, and an accurate contemporary plan in the Continuation. Compare Schomberg’s letters in State Papers, Domestic, December 26, March (p. 534), May 5, 11, 12, and 19.

[262] Delamere to Carmarthen, n.d., but calendared in State Papers, Domestic, under 1689, p. 381. Grey’s Debates, ix. 512, x. 2, 150. ‘Is the King so cock-sure of his army?’ was one of Delamere’s questions.

[263] Story’s Impartial Hist. June 1690, and Continuation, chap. ii. Proclamations of June 19 and 24. General order of June 20 among the Clarke MSS. Colonel Culter’s application, endorsed, ‘Not granted,’ July 10, ib. Luttrell’s Diary, ii. 12, and throughout the first half of the year. Contemporary letters in Benn’s Hist. of Belfast, p. 180-182. Lauzun to Louvois, June 16/26. The Clarke MSS. are rich in details as to the preparations.

[264] Story’s Impartial Hist., p. 68. Lauzun to Louvois, June 23/July 3, in Ranke’s appendix. Light to the Blind, p. 96.

[265] Lauzun to Louvois, June 21/July 1 to June 26/July 4, and to Seignelay, July 16/26. Clarke’s Life of James II., original memoirs, ii. 391-393. Light to the Blind, p. 97. Lauzun quite understood that William was well supplied by sea, but the author of Macariæ Excidium imagined that he was dependent on the resources of Ulster. Stevens’s Journal, June 23-29. Two Scotch ensigns who deserted to William said it had been resolved to defend the Moyry pass. Diary of Dean Davies, June 22.

[266] Story’s Impartial Hist., pp. 70-8, and Continuation, pp. 19-22. Bellingham’s Diary, June 26-30. Parker’s Memoirs, p. 21. General Douglas’s letter of July 7 to his brother, Queensberry, printed in Napier’s Dundee, appx. vi., has the following as to William’s wound: ‘He said nothing, only three words in Dutch, T’hoobt niet naeder—that is, it needs not to come nearer.’ See Portland to Melville, July 4/14, in Leven and Melville Papers. Dean Davies’s Diary, June 30. Stevens’s Journal, June 27-July 1. William said to Burnet (ii. 46): ‘that the going against King James in person was hard upon him, since it would be a vast trouble both to himself and to the Queen if he should be either killed or taken prisoner.’ In a note to this Dartmouth says William gave orders to the fleet to take James at sea and convey him to Holland, but the real order to Herbert was to do so if he ‘took any vessel in which the late King should happen to be.’ The original letter in Nottingham’s hand is printed in Ellis’s Original Letters, 2nd series, iv., 186. A captive king in Holland would be much less dangerous than in England.

[267] In his letter of July 7 Douglas, whose authority on this point seems superior to all others’, says the original detachment under Meinhart Schomberg was 4000 horse and 3000 foot, and that he was sent to support him with 12,000 foot. Lauzun says: ‘Le petit jour venu, nous les vîmes marcher en colonnes cavalerie et infanterie de l’autre côté de la rivière droit à Slaine sans que le camp qui était devant nous branlât ou fît aucun mouvement.’ Light to the Blind says Slane bridge was broken down. G. Bonnivet, whose journal is Sloane MS. 1033, was with Douglas’s wing.

[268] Payen de la Fouleresse stood close to William while the Danes were crossing and heard him praise them: he wrote his letter on a drum next day. In his letter above cited Douglas says, ‘The enemy’s horse fought wonderfully bravely as ever men could do.’ Payen’s letter to his sovereign Christian V. of Denmark, July 2, 1690, is in Notes and Queries, July 1877.

[269] ‘A saying of Sarsfield’s deserves to be remembered; for it was much talked of all Europe over. He asked some of the English officers if they had not come to a better opinion of the Irish by their behaviour during this war; and whereas they said it was much the same that it had always been; Sarsfield answered: As low as we now are, change but kings with us, and we will fight it over again with you.’ This was after the capitulation of Limerick.—Burnet, ii. 81. Lauzun to Seignelay, July 16/26. Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 397, Original Memoirs. Berwick.

[270] Dangeau, July 23/August 2 and following days. De Sourches, July 17/27. Abbé de Choisy to Bussy-Rabutin, August 13/23, in the latter’s Correspondence, vol. vi. Duke of Modena’s letters, July and August, in Stuart Papers, i. Melfort’s letters, August and September, in Ellis’s Original Letters, 2nd series, vol. iv. Writing to Madame de Sévigné on May 21/31, less than six weeks before the Boyne, Bussy-Rabutin says: ‘Les affaires d’Irlande vont assez bien; il n’y a que le roi Jacques qui gâte tout, et qui montre tous les jours par sa conduite qu’il mérite ses disgrâces.’ Writing to Louvois on July 15/25, a fortnight after the battle, when James was back in France, Luxembourg says (in Rousset, iv. 423): ‘Ceux qui aiment sa gloire ont bien à déplorer le personnage qu’il a fait.’ The Marquis de la Faro says the rejoicings for William’s supposed death were the greatest possible compliment to him. He had fought like a lion, while James had lost a throne without fighting, ‘malgré la ferocité des Anglais.’ The author of Light to the Blind repeatedly calls the Boyne a skirmish and a paltry combat.

[271] Life of James, ii. 391, Original Memoirs. True and Perfect Journal. Lauzun to Seignelay and to Louvois in Ranke’s appendix.

[272] In his éloge prefixed to Berwick’s memoirs, Montesquieu says the English rightly regarded this war as all-important, and the French merely as ‘d’affection particulière et de bienséance. Les Anglais qui ne voulaient point avoir de guerre civile chez eux, assomèrent l’Irlande; il paroît même que les officiers français qu’on y envoya pensèrent comme eux qui les envoyaient: ils n’eurent que deux choses dans la tête, d’arriver, de se battre et de s’en retourner. Le temps a fait voir que les Anglais avaient mieux pensé que nous.’ Macaulay sought in vain for the full account of the battle which Lauzun must have sent to Louvois. His despatch has been printed by Ranke, vi. 117, but it is to Seignelay and not to Louvois, and written from Limerick, July 16/26.

[273] True and Perfect Journal. Clarke’s Life of James II., ii. 403, 406. According to De Sourches (May 20, 1690), a letter from Dublin seldom reached Paris under thirteen days; nine days was a ‘diligence surprenante.’ Both he and Dangeau complain that the truth about Ireland was hard to come by. A pair of gold sleeve-links are preserved at Castleboro’ by Lord Carew, whose ancestor is said to have met and assisted James at Aughnacoppal bridge, and to have received this keepsake from him. See Mahan’s Sea-power, chap. iv. Randall’s Narrative.

[274] Letter of Payen de la Fouleresse from Duleek, July 2. King William’s declarations of July 7 and August 1, 1690. True and Perfect Journal. The Full and True Account of the late Revolution in Dublin, dated August 15 and licensed September 15, is attributed in Harris’s Ware to Robert Fitzgerald, but was more probably written by another from facts furnished by him. The letter to William included in it, dated Dublin Castle, Thursday, August 3, 8 A.M., is signed by Lords Ross and Longford, the Bishops of Limerick and Meath, Dr. King, Fitzgerald himself, and three others. Eight of the eleven signed Fitzgerald’s commission as Governor.

[CHAPTER LV]
SOCIAL IRELAND FROM RESTORATION TO REVOLUTION

After the Civil War.

Macaulay thought that under the Protectorate Ireland was probably a more agreeable residence for the higher classes, as compared with England, than at any time before or since. This may be true if we understand by the higher classes the men whose property was granted or confirmed by the Settlement after the Civil War. People bought and sold with confidence and with little fear of coming change. Nor was this confidence altogether misplaced, for we have seen that Charles II., however unwillingly, was forced to leave most of the Protestant settlers in possession. A certain number of Roman Catholic royalists were restored more or less completely, but they were not enough to disturb the balance of power, and in the Parliament of 1661 the House of Commons was entirely composed of Protestants. The position of the re-established Church was unassailable, and the Presbyterians, though troublesome to bishops, could not seriously disturb social relations. The destruction of property during the war had been great, but from 1652 onwards much was done to repair the damage. Ireland is studded with ruined castles, but there are many modern houses where the thick old walls have been utilised, and the process of conversion may be readily traced.

Country houses. Portmore.

Civil war seeming unlikely to recur, it was natural that country houses should be built or improved. One of the finest was erected soon after the Restoration by the third Lord Conway at Portmore on the lake of the same name, not far from his town of Lisburn. His predecessor’s library had been burned by the rebels at Brookhill, which belonged to Sir George Rawdon. Rawdon, who acted as Conway’s agent and married his sister, built Moira on his own account. Portmore had every attraction that a great mansion could possess. A park of 2000 acres, well stocked with deer, magnificent oaks, a rabbit warren, a decoy, a glen specially planted for woodcock, flocks and herds, hawks and hounds, racehorses, vast stables, gardens, orchards, and fisheries are mentioned; and Rawdon is to be praised for providing the Lisburn district with the best roads in Ireland. Jeremy Taylor was brought over by Conway under the Protectorate and became Bishop of Down. He in turn brought over George Rust, who became Bishop of Dromore. Neither Conway nor Rawdon loved the Presbyterians, but Lady Conway became a Quaker, and her husband thought her circle would be too dull for Rawdon’s daughter, a lively girl who married Lord Granard’s son. Valentine Greatrakes, who was brought from the county of Waterford to treat Lady Conway’s headaches, was unsuccessful in her case, but successful in many others. He practised a kind of massage, which, of course, did not suit every patient, and Archbishop Boyle was inclined to call him an impostor; but Robert Boyle thought there was something in the matter. Greatrakes, who was not excessively modest, had more followers in England than in Ireland. Conway in later life was much involved in Court intrigues, but Rawdon remained generally in Ireland and continued his civilising work.[275]

Charleville.

The Boyle family were great builders, both in England and Ireland. In 1661 Orrery founded Charleville, abolishing what he called ‘the heathenish name of Rathgogan’ in honour of his master. This great house had an even shorter life than Portmore. Orrery had a patent for fortifying it and mounting eighteen guns, and he sought a similar privilege for Castlemartyr. Essex refused this request, and succeeded in getting the clause in the patent surrendered. He feared that other great men might arm in the same way, and then combine against the King like the barons of England in former times. Castlemartyr, with or without guns, made a faint attempt at resisting Tyrconnel in 1688. In 1690, when the owner of Charleville was a child and absent, the Duke of Berwick, having dined in the house, ordered it to be fired and stood by to see it consumed. According to Evelyn, it was a stately mansion and had cost 40,000l.[276]

Kilkenny Castle.

Such time as Ormonde could spare from his duties in London as Lord Steward, or in Dublin as Viceroy, he spent at Kilkenny Castle, which had escaped during the Civil War, and enjoyed a holiday there as only a hard worker can enjoy one. Hawking was his favourite sport. ‘I am gotten hither,’ he wrote in August 1667, ‘and am yet in the happiest calm you can imagine. Fine weather, great store of partridge, a cast of merlins, and no business; and this may hold for a week.’ Strafford found partridge so scarce about Dublin that he had to take to hawking blackbirds; and the garrison were great poachers then and later. Ormonde had gone fox-hunting with Castlehaven in the midst of the Civil War, and afterwards had a pack of beagles at Kilkenny who were so well trained that they always turned homewards at the sound of the castle dinner-bell. He kept bloodstock, importing both Barbs and Arabs, but was not very successful as a breeder, though he took some pleasure in the reflection that Irish horse-flesh generally would be improved. There is, indeed, no pursuit in which money is more easily lost or less easily got, unless it is made the chief business of life. We have inventories of the plate, furniture, and tapestry in Kilkenny Castle at the end of Charles II.’s reign. There were also many pictures, including three or four portraits of Strafford, and a library of nearly a thousand volumes. The catalogue contains Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and many lesser dramatists; Milton and Taylor, Hobbes and Stillingfleet, are well represented. There are many Latin and French books, and a few Italian. Inventories are also extant of Ormonde’s property in Dublin Castle when he was Lord Lieutenant in 1679. The clerks and upper servants were well lodged, but eight boy scullions had only four beds between them, and ‘two scavengers in the dark kitchen’ probably had no beds at all.[277]

Dublin Castle.

A viceregal progress.

As long as Charles II. lived, life in town and country was easy, except for occasional mischief done by Tories. During his short reign as Viceroy, Clarendon saw much company in Dublin Castle, but it is to be noted that ladies and gentlemen do not appear to have mixed at meals. He was accused of not taking enough notice of the King’s birthday, though he gave a state dinner to twenty persons at his own table, ‘besides the ladies who were with my wife and at other tables in the house.’ On New Year’s Day the Lord Mayor and aldermen dined with him and played cards afterwards. When the Lord Lieutenant withdrew, the men all went to the cellar, and after that it was perhaps as well that they did not have to join the ladies. Three days later all the citizens’ wives dined with Lady Clarendon, and his Excellency had to take refuge with the Lord Chancellor. There was, however, no objection to ladies attending the Curragh races, but Clarendon’s wife did not care to do so in company with Lady Dorchester. He found the racecourse much larger, and with much finer turf than Newmarket Heath. Later in the year he made a progress in the south. Lady Clarendon was left at Kilkenny Castle, Ormonde about the same time making some stay at Cornbury. At Waterford the Lord Lieutenant was very well received publicly, Lords Tyrone and Galway attending him, but not one of the many considerable Roman Catholics making any sign. He dined with Henry Boyle at Castlemartyr, and at Lismore; where Lord Burlington had given orders that he should be sumptuously entertained, he ‘destroyed some of my lord’s salmon.’ He visited Kinsale and Bandon, and at Cork Major-General MacCarthy brought Bishop Creagh and four Roman Catholic merchants with him, but not ten of his Church paid their respects all the way from Kilkenny. ‘Our people are mad,’ said one priest at Cork; ‘our clergy have forbidden gentlemen to appear.’ At Limerick things were a little, but only a little, better, the Irish citizens showing a determination to keep apart from the English. The see of Limerick was vacant, but Dr. Brenan, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cashel, was very civil. At Thomastown in Tipperary, Clarendon stayed with Ormonde’s half-brother, Captain George Matthew. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is a very fine place, and the most improved of any situation I have seen since I came into this kingdom, especially considering that it is but fifteen years since he first sat down upon it, when there was not a house upon it.’ Clarendon admired the rich country about Clonmel, ‘but all pasture and employed in sheep walks, and feeding black cattle.’ Here and elsewhere he notes the want of population, which the exodus of Protestant settlers did not improve.[278]

An Irish Tunbridge Wells.

Macaulay’s description of Tunbridge Wells in the days when fine gentlemen, sick of the airs of actresses and maids of honour, refreshed themselves by flirting with the farmers’ daughters who brought them cream and butter, had a sort of counterpart in Ireland. Near the West Gate of Wexford is a mineral well which was brought into fashion by Dr. Patrick Dun, a Scotch physician, whose name is still well remembered in Dublin. While prescribing syrup of buckthorn as an addition to the waters, he did not forbid good claret if it was to be had in the town. The spa was nasty enough, but one grave visitor thought the ‘fantastical ladies, and fops, and lampoons in Wexford doggerel’ were as bad. The dietary in vogue was dry roast mutton and chicken without sauce, and the conversation turned, as at other watering-places, on the visitors’ ailments. Good lodgings were scarce, but Lord Chancellor Fitton, Accountant-General Bonnell, at least two bishops, and Dr. William King, afterwards the famous Archbishop, were among those who underwent the cure.[279]

Condition of the poor.

In general it may be said that people who were well-to-do lived in Ireland much as their equals did in England, and from the abundance of food money went farther in the poorer country. But in 1672, when the Restoration Settlement was well established, the great mass of the people lived miserably enough. In the absence of proper statistics, we must depend on Petty’s estimates, which in most important points are sustained by a cloud of witnesses, though his figures, by the nature of the case, may be inexact. He gives the total population as 1,100,000. Of the inhabited houses 16,000 had more than one chimney, 24,000 had only one, leaving 160,000 without any. Three-fourths of the land and five-sixths of the houses belonged to British Protestants, and ‘three-fourths of the native Irish lived in a brutish, nasty condition, as in cabins, with neither chimney, door, stairs, nor window, fed chiefly upon milk and potatoes.’ These cabins, which he elsewhere calls sties, were not in all worth more than 50,000l. Fifteen years later, Petty believed that the population had increased to 1,300,000. The 160,000 chimneyless cabins which sheltered the mass of the people could not be kept free from vermin or animals, and all the eggs ‘laid or kept’ in them were musty. Some cottars might have afforded a chimney, but preferred the warmth of the smoke. With or without one, they had to pay hearth-money. Even in a small farmer’s house near Kilkenny, Stevens found no food but milk, and had to lie on straw. Straw, indeed, was the usual bedding, and it was not always clean. Turf was abundant in most places. Between Dublin and Kildare Clarendon saw fine-looking men, poor and half-naked, idle, except when starvation stared them in the face, and ready to steal if they could not easily get work; the women did nothing but mind two or three cows, on whose milk they lived. ‘Their habitations,’ he said—‘for they cannot be called houses—are perfect pig-sties; walls cast up and covered with straw and mud; and out of one of these huts, of about ten or twelve foot square, shall you see five or six men and women bolt out as you pass by, who stand staring about. If this be thus so near Dublin, Lord! what can it be farther up in the country?’ During his tour in the south, he lamented the want of population, miserable as the people were. Yet improvements had been made, and there might be more if any encouragement was given. The rich county of Tipperary was given up to cattle, but the number of beasts had decreased because capital was frightened away by Tyrconnel’s proceedings. There was very little tillage. What could be expected of people when whole families, with sometimes a travelling stranger, or pack-carrier, or pedlar or two, lay nine or ten of them together, naked, heads and points? The bare necessaries of life could be had with little labour. Fourpence a day was the current rate of wages, while the lowest class of workmen in England received a shilling. ‘Their lazing’ seemed to Petty not so much natural as caused by want of employment and inducement to work. These people were content with potatoes, and one man’s labour could feed forty. They liked milk, and in summer one cow would supply three men. Fish and shell-fish were easily got, and a house could be built in three days. Why should they breed more cattle since it was penal to import them into England? Trade was so fettered that capital was kept away, and even land was not safe from legal trickery. Temple said much the same as Petty, and their almost verbal agreement suggests that they had consulted each other.[280]

Ploughing by the tail.

Ploughing by the horses’ tails had been made illegal by Strafford’s Parliament, but custom is often stronger than law, and the Confederates stipulated with Ormonde that the Act should be repealed. This excited Milton’s ridicule, but the practice continued long after his time. In the stony barony of Burren in Clare, Dineley, in 1681, saw horses four abreast, drawing by their tails, ‘tolerated here because they cannot manage their land otherwise, their plough gears, tackle, and traces being (as they are all over the rest of the kingdom) of gadds or withs of twigs twisted, which here would break to pieces by the ploughshare so often jubbing against the rock, which, the gears being fastened by wattles or wisps to the horses’ tails, the horses being sensible stop until the ploughman lifts it over.’ Seven or eight years earlier Temple found the custom general, and proposed more drastic legislation, but it survived in remote parts, and found defenders there as late as the earlier years of Queen Victoria.[281]

Dublin.

In 1685, the year of Charles II.’s death, there were 6500 houses in Dublin. No estimate gives less than five persons for each house, and some raise the average to eight. The population was therefore a good deal more than 32,000. There was a great increase between the Restoration and the end of the reign. The town was larger than Bristol, then the second in England, where there were 5307 houses. It was exceeded by London, Paris, and Amsterdam, and apparently by Venice, but the information about foreign cities at this time is scanty. During the first half of the eighteenth century, at least, Dublin was reckoned the fourth or fifth in Europe. A great number of houses were very poor, which is not to be wondered at, for about a quarter of them were inhabited by sellers of liquor. In this respect there had been no improvement since Elizabethan days. According to Petty, there were in 1672, 164 houses in Dublin with more than 10 chimneys, Lord Meath’s having 27. The Castle had 125, but no Lord Lieutenant found it comfortable. Clarendon says it was the worst lodging a gentleman ever lay in, each shower finding its way through holes in the roof or chinks in the windows. He was unwilling to spend his own or the King’s money on such a place, but Tyrconnel, who laughed at his scruples, made some improvements. There were serious fires in Strafford’s time and in 1684, and a much worse one in 1711, when many records were lost, after which the Castle was gradually modernised. The country house at Chapelizod was preferred by viceroys as a residence during the Restoration period. The great town-houses in Dublin, many of which still stand, and are converted to public uses, belong to the eighteenth century. Two older ones, which have now disappeared, deserve mention. Cork House, adjoining the Castle, was built by the first Earl of that name, turned to various purposes after his death, and demolished in 1768. Chichester House, where the Bank of Ireland now stands, was originally built by Sir George Carey for a hospital, and was afterwards sold to Sir Arthur Chichester. Here Lord Justice Borlase was living when the rebellion of 1641 broke out, and here sat the Parliaments of 1661 and 1692, after which it became the regular place of meeting. The old house was pulled down in 1728, and the fine building which succeeded it was taken by the Bank after the Union.[282]

After the Revolution.

In spite of much well-grounded discontent, Ireland prospered under Charles II. After his death there was an interval of doubt followed by civil war. In the two years preceding the Boyne a vast number of houses and cattle were destroyed, nor did the mischief cease until the full establishment of William’s government. Penal laws and commercial restraint notwithstanding, capital was gradually accumulated during the next century, and fine houses were built both in town and country. But the mass of the rural population were badly off, for reliance on the potato long prevented improvement and kept thousands upon the verge of starvation. There was nothing to make Irish peasants forget that their ancestors had been reduced to poverty or driven into exile.[283]