In 1703 Ormonde entered upon his first term of office as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and, of course, the Protestant party welcomed him joyfully. Parliament met, and subserviently voted him a subsidy, conscious of favours to come. But the viceroy did not fulfil their hopes. Ormonde was not the man to stoop to persecution and fraud, and, being only a layman, he could not see that religion covered a multitude of sins. His Parliament grew unruly, and from asking for favours began to demand them. This was too much for the grandson of the great duke, and so he dissolved the assembly, as his powers entitled him to do, and continued to rule, preferring, no doubt, the private criticisms of Jonathan Swift, who was in his favour, rather than submit to the arrogance of a minority as unscrupulous as it was intolerant.
Swift was at this time beginning to make himself known in those high circles which soon began to fear him. Ormonde liked the somewhat eccentric clergyman, while the duchess and her daughters were delighted with his witty conversation and his powers of repartee. Swift, however, was restlessly ambitious, and he was continually journeying to London, returning each time more disappointed and more ambitious.
Court intrigues
It was one of the most peculiar periods in the history of England. The daughter of James II. was on the throne, and it was the generally accepted national policy that she should be the last of her family and race to wear the crown. There were a dozen parties in the State, and the poor queen had to suffer herself to be buffeted by the numerous leaders, who plotted without principle, and were religious without having any religion. Marlborough, Godolphin, Somers, and half a dozen others buzzed round the queen. Ladies of high estate joined in the numerous intrigues, and every party had its literary hacks and hangers-on who wrote to order, and hoped to fatten on the carcass of the State when their particular masters had triumphed. It was the Golden Age of the wirepullers.
Ormonde's position in Dublin was at once safe and tantalizing. The government was entirely in his hands, and he could do what he liked; but the knowledge that the plotters in London might precipitate a revolution or ruin the country made Ormonde—an ambitious man himself—long to be free to take his own part in the underground fight. The triumph of his opponents in 1707 naturally relieved him of his office, and it was not until the end of 1710 that his party returned, and the queen reappointed him.
Meanwhile Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and Thomas, Earl of Wharton, ran their brief careers in the viceregal court. Ormonde's second term lasted a little over two years, but his recall also brought with it the higher post of Captain-General of the Forces and the sweet satisfaction of seeing the Marlborough party in disfavour. No doubt, if it had been possible, Ormonde would have used his great position to insure the Jacobean succession, but he knew that public opinion was unanimous in its detestation of the Stuarts, and that Jacobinism was merely a harmless political theory to be debated by students and ignored by statesmen. Bowing to the inevitable, Ormonde signed the proclamation announcing the death of Anne and the accession of George I. But he could not conceal his dislike of the Hanoverian monarch, and he made his house at Richmond a meeting-place for those who desired the return of the Stuarts.
The remainder of his life is a record of disappointment. There was no chance of his cause succeeding, and without even a blow he fled from England and spent the last thirty years of his life in exile, visiting England but once, and experiencing the humiliating poverty of the harmless plotter, the recipient of pity when he expected hero-worship, and, worse than that, regarded generally as a hopeless crank. His estates were declared forfeited and vested in the Crown; but in 1721 the exile's brother, Lord Arran, was allowed by Parliament to purchase them. Thirty years after his flight Ormonde died, the year of his death—1745—marking the last attempt of the Jacobites to regain the throne of England. He outlived his glory, and those who met him during the last few years of his life could see nothing but a querulous old man who boasted of exploits forgotten if not altogether discredited; but he had been great once, and so merited their pity, and pity is all the fallen greatness earns in obscurity.
Lord Pembroke and Swift
The Earl of Pembroke remained in Ireland less than a couple of years, playing at governing, and amused by Swift. The post of Lord High Admiral was more to his liking, and he gladly resigned the viceroyalty to take it up. Swift acted as chaplain to Pembroke, but his principal duty appears to have been that of amusing the earl with humorous doggerel or by his caustic criticisms of Dublin's leading citizens, official and otherwise. The punning correspondence with the viceroy was the forerunner of a habit that lasted through Swift's life, and gained him a reputation for wit which, fortunately for the dean, was supplemented by something more recondite. During several viceroyalties he exercised considerable influence, and although Swift hotly repudiated the title of Irishman, at times he rendered some service to the country in which he was born. The Earl of Wharton was sixty when appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland on November 25, 1708, and there were forty years of profligacy behind him. He was an atheist, unscrupulous, licentious, witty, contemptuous, and absolutely without fear. From the first he had been an opponent of James II., and the invitation to William was suggested by Wharton. To send this man to Ireland to settle the religious question and maintain the supremacy of the Protestant party was a matchless piece of irony; but Wharton, who could insist upon an elaborate ritual of household prayers in his own home, undertook the task, undeterred by the sneers of his opponents, the amazement of his friends, and the bitter invective of that disappointed office-seeker, Jonathan Swift.