Earl of Essex
Lord Essex 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 nobility dwelt in their strongholds or emigrated to fight under foreign flags. If we are to believe the records of the times, Lord Essex 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 Essex took her part in the work of her husband, being really the first of the 'vicereines'—to use an apt if technically incorrect description of the wives of the viceroys—to enter into the social life of the people her husband governed. She entertained as a great hostess, and was charming and popular. It was her accessibility which led to an incident which rendered the last few months of Essex's viceroyalty painful. The times were ripe for the propagation of scandal. The king's patronage of vice gave it an appearance of virtue, and certainly many rewards. The chivalry of the time was an elaborate ritual in honour of free love, and, of course, the influence spread to Dublin. Personally Lord Essex was almost a little better than his contemporaries, but he held the honour of his wife to be something very sacred, and when he heard that it was the talk of Dublin that she was carrying on an intrigue with a Captain Brabazon he was greatly embittered. It was fashionable to be vicious, but Essex would not believe that his wife was guilty, although Captain Brabazon swore that she was. According to the laws of honour, a duel with Brabazon was the viceroy's only court of appeal, but as the king's representative he could not issue a challenge or accept one, and he was therefore compelled to affect a haughty indifference to the covert insults heaped upon himself and Lady Essex. Fortunately for the viceroy and his wife, Captain Brabazon, rejoicing in his immunity, became too precise; he offered details of times and places, and once he had sworn to these it was easy to prove them wicked and malicious falsehoods.
The viceroy was not sorry to yield up office to Ormonde, although, as is always the case, popular feeling turned in his favour, and even gossip admitted nothing but good of the countess. The whole plot had been hatched by the Duchess of Cleveland in revenge for his refusal to rob the Treasury on her behalf. On his return to London, Lord Essex immediately sought out Charles and complained of the scandalous treatment he had received. The king was sympathetic—weak-minded persons find in sympathy their only virtue—but he would do nothing, and the ex-viceroy, disappointed and enraged, flung himself out of the royal presence. He was a marked man now, and all his sayings were improved upon and reported to Charles. The Rye House plot ended his career. He was arrested and committed to the Tower, where he was said to have taken his own life in a fit of depression. Whether true or not scarcely matters, for his act merely saved his head from the executioner's axe.
CHAPTER VII
The Duke of Ormonde's career in London during his period of unemployment was not without excitement. As a great nobleman he frequented the court without ever becoming one of its favoured habitués. In his salad days Ormonde had been one of the gayest of the gay, but he was a veteran when Robarts succeeded him in Ireland, and his temperament was that of a statesman rather than a courtier.
His enemies, however, feared and detested him, and finding that they could not compel the complacent Charles to banish the duke, they took it into their own hands to try and murder him. One night, therefore—it was December 5, 1670—Ormonde's coach was stopped in St. James's Street by Thomas Blood and five other ruffians, who dragged the duke out and carried him off on horseback. The affair created a tremendous sensation, the most widely-spread rumour being that the five accomplices were well-known friends of the King's, inspired by him to assassinate a man who had helped Charles to regain his throne. Blood became famous in one quarter and infamous in another, while Lord Ossory, the duke's eldest son, believing that Buckingham had instigated the plot, went in search of the duke, and, finding him with the king, did not hesitate to tell him that if his father died a violent death he would pistol Buckingham, even if he sought shelter behind the king. Ormonde escaped mainly owing to the over-sureness of his captors. The strangest incident, however, was yet to come. Blood was captured—he made no attempt to escape—and it was expected as matter of course that he would be hanged, but Charles sent for the duke, and in a private interview persuaded that nobleman to pardon his would-be assassin. This action of the king's proved conclusively that if Buckingham paid Blood to attempt Ormonde's life Charles must have had cognizance of the matter, while it is certain that the germ of the whole idea originated with one of Charles's mistresses, who hated Ormonde, not because he was excessively moral or squeamish, but because he declined to treat seriously their pretensions to be considered members of the nobility.
Nearly seven years after this episode Charles reappointed Ormonde Viceroy of Ireland. The duke was now sixty-seven, but he took up office with all his old zest, and he made his entry into Dublin an elaborate ceremonial, behaving himself as though he were the King of Ireland, and not merely a king's deputy.