The Viceroys of Ireland

by Charles Kingston O'Mahony

Lord Capel of Tewkesbury

It was expected that care would be taken to make the new viceroy acceptable to the Protestant party; but there was a delay, and William allowed the Government to be conducted by three Commissioners, the most powerful being Sir Henry Capel, Lord Capel of Tewkesbury. Capel was a fanatical Protestant and a bitter opponent of Roman Catholicism in all shapes and forms. His fellow-commissioners were less ferocious, but Capel managed to gain his way in most things, and he was viceroy in reality, though not in name. Meanwhile the English party in Dublin used every atom of influence to secure the elevation of Capel to the viceroyalty, and in 1695 they succeeded. The cause of Protestantism seemed safe now, but Capel did not live long, and on May 14, 1696, he died in Dublin Castle. Capel is remembered mainly because he gave Jonathan Swift his first preferment—the benefice of Kilroot, worth about £100 a year. This was in 1695.

Commissioners in the persons of Lords Justices conducted the affairs of State without the supervision of a viceroy. One of these was the Earl of Berkeley, whose dealings with Dean Swift, when that eccentric cleric was seeking a high appointment, have become historic. Berkeley was one of the Lords Justices, and he had it in his power to bestow preferment, but Swift was unable or unwilling to pay his price, and one day in a rage he cried to Berkeley and his secretary: 'God confound you for a couple of scoundrels!' On December 12, 1700, William appointed his wife's uncle, Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, a nobleman who had accepted this office sixteen years before from Charles, and had not troubled to journey to Ireland. His second appointment did not arouse any enthusiasm either in the man or in the country he was called upon to govern, and it was not until the following September that he landed in Ireland. As a relative of the queen's—his sister, Anne Hyde, was her mother—the Earl of Rochester carried greater authority than many of his predecessors; but he was no statesman, and at sixty years of age he was not inclined to try experiments. William thought he was indolent and contemptuous of his duties, and in 1702 he informed him that he had been relieved of his office. Immediately, however, further news came from London continuing Rochester in his office. This was the result of the intervention by Queen Mary; but Rochester resigned on February 4, 1703, rather than be subjected any longer to the machinations of the Marlborough party at the court.

Lord Rochester returned to London in a passion scarcely cooled by the length of the journey; but he was mollified somewhat by the fact that his successor, the Duke of Ormonde, was his son-in-law. He had no objection to his daughter reigning at Dublin Castle.

The second Duke of Ormonde

The Duke and Duchess of Ormonde were received with an enthusiasm in Dublin that was reminiscent of the personal supremacy of the viceroy's grandfather, known as the 'Great Duke.' The new viceroy had been carefully educated for his position. A son of the celebrated Lord Ossory, he had been from his birth in 1665 educated with a view to future eminence in the service of the State. The boy's grandfather sent him to France in 1675 to acquire the French language and the polite arts of the centre of good manners and tone. When he was seventeen he was married to Anne Hyde, a daughter of Laurence Hyde, and a cousin to the Duchess of York. She died early the following year, and when, in 1686, he married a daughter of the Duke of Beaufort, he was a Lord of the Bedchamber to James II., and one of the most influential of the younger nobility. The year of the Revolution witnessed Ormonde's succession to the title and estates, and he became one of the most powerful pillars of the Protestant faith in the country. The ancient Universities were in grave doubt as to the king's intention, and Oxford, therefore, in order to secure the aid of such a powerful nobleman in the cause of the Protestant faith, elected him Chancellor. He had been a student at Christ Church, and the honour was, therefore, a fit one.

James went to work cautiously to win over the young duke to his new policy. He gave him the Garter, and hinted at even greater honours in store for one who by his birth became entitled to nearly everything that life had to offer. The question of religion, however, caused a breach between James and the duke, and William's invasion of England brought Ormonde to his side.

Ormonde's adhesion undoubtedly had the effect of bringing over to the new monarch a great many persons in Ireland who had acted previously like sheep without a shepherd. All that the dethroned king could do was to declare Ormonde's estates forfeited and his person guilty of high treason. But the acts of a fallen king are merely futilities, and the Duke of Ormonde was able to witness the triumph at Boyne and know that William's success meant his own. The duke's principal task in the war was to secure Dublin for the king, and he accomplished this without much difficulty, thanks to the weakness and mistake of his opponents rather than to his own skill. Later he entertained William at his ancestral home, Kilkenny Castle, in celebration of the royal successes.

The accession of Queen Anne, second daughter of James II., did not affect Ormonde's high position in the State. He had stood by the bedside of William, and he was one of those who settled the difficult question of the succession. Queen Anne must have guessed that Ormonde at heart wished for the success of the Jacobean cause, and it was during her reign that he was successively Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland and Captain-General of the Forces in England.