He returned to Paris, having proved, what was already undoubted, his courage and zeal to the King’s service, but with no other good result. His presence in the French capital was almost as dangerous as it had been in London, for Cromwell had set a price upon his head, and the Cardinal Mazarin, who was then Prime Minister, was by no means insensible to the charms of money.
The liberality of Lord Ormonde, even in his straitened circumstances, had like on one occasion to have been productive of unfortunate results, and the incident teaches a lesson of the necessity of studying the peculiar manners and customs of foreign countries in contradistinction to our own. Lord Ormonde was much respected and courted by the French nobility, to one of whom he paid a visit near St. Germains, and on his departure, according to the well-known English fashion of ‘vails’ or parting gifts, he presented the maître d’hôtel with ten pistoles, being the whole contents of his purse.
Riding onward, as we may imagine rather disconsolately, the Marquis was startled by the sound of wheels driving furiously; and, looking back, perceived his late host’s coach gaining on him. He reined in his steed, sprang from the saddle, and embraced his friend, who alighted at the same moment. Lord Ormonde was surprised at a decided coldness in the Frenchman’s manner and tone of voice, as he said, ‘After you left the château, I heard a great disturbance among the servants of my household, and, inquiring into the cause, found them all quarrelling over their share of the money which your Lordship, for some inexplicable motive, had given to my maître d’hôtel. I am come to ask if you found any fault with your treatment in my house?’
‘On the contrary,’ warmly responded Lord Ormonde.
‘Then why did you treat it as an inn? I pay my servants well to wait on me and my guests. I do not know, my Lord, if this be the custom in your country, but assuredly it is not so with us. Here are the ten pistoles, which I have rescued from my servants’ grasp; you must either take them back at my hands, or else your Lordship must give me on the spot that satisfaction which no gentleman can refuse another.’
We may believe the affair turned into one of laughter rather than of ‘honour,’ when Lord Ormonde explained that in his country such amenities were invariably practised by guests at leave-taking.
The King of England was now at Brussels, hampered and entangled by fruitless negotiations with foreign powers, and he sent for his right hand, Lord Ormonde.
Short cuts are proverbially dangerous, and so thought the Marquis, who, taking horse, rode from Paris, via Lyons and Geneva, through the Palatinate to Brussels, where he joined the King, who, failing in his Spanish views, had formed an idea of marrying the daughter of Frederic Henry, the Stadtholder. But the Dowager Princess of Orange, who was very powerful at her son’s Court, opposed the design so strongly that the match was prevented.
Meanwhile Lord Ormonde’s eldest son, the Earl of Ossory, fell in love with Emilia, daughter of Louis de Nassau, Lord of Auverquerque, a natural son of Maurice, Prince of Orange. Louis was much esteemed, both for character and position, and had considerable weight in the Assembly of the States. At first he was persistent in his demands that Lord Ormonde should come forward with good settlements, but, being made to understand the state of Irish affairs, he was content to accept what Lord Ossory’s mother (who could deny nothing to her first-born) contrived to spare out of her hardly gained pittance. Moreover, he found the young couple were devotedly attached, and that Ossory had refused a more advantageous marriage with the daughter of the Earl of Southampton, in consequence of his preference for Emilia; and so the marriage was arranged, Lord Ormonde himself nothing loath that his son’s happiness should be assured by a connection which he hoped might also prove beneficial to the King’s interests. One of Lord Ossory’s daughters married Auverquerque, Earl of Grantham, and their daughter, Henrietta (eventually sole heiress to her grandfather), married the second Lord Cowper. From this lady the present Earl lays claim, not only to titles and estates, but to a lineal descent from the illustrious patriot, William the Silent.
Better times were in store, of however short duration. The Restoration was at hand, and Ormonde, as may have been expected, was one of those faithful friends whom the King ‘delighted to honour.’ He was made Lord Steward of the Household, Duke of Ormonde in the peerage of Ireland, Earl of Brecknock and Baron Lantony in that of England, and all his estates, dignities, and privileges in the sister country of which he had been deprived, restored to him, though, as far as emolument went, some were scarcely more than nominal. He walked at the coronation as Lord Steward, and carried St. Edward’s crown. The Viceroyalty of Ireland, having been offered to and declined by the Duke of Albemarle, was next proffered to the Duke of Ormonde, who undertook the thankless task with eyes sharpened by long experience; and in so doing he remarked to a friend: ‘Besides many other disadvantages, there are two proper to me—one of the contending parties believing that I owe them more kindness and protection than I find myself chargeable with, and the other suspecting I entertain that prejudice to them from which I am free. This temper will be attended undeniably in them with clamour and scandal upon my most equal and wary deportment,’—a prophecy which was too soon and too exactly fulfilled. The Lord-Lieutenant was received with great pomp and splendour, and a sum of several thousands voted to facilitate his acceptance of the dignity; but a year had not elapsed before a deeply-laid plot was discovered to seize the Castle of Dublin and the person of his Excellency; and though the principal conspirators were arrested, and some executed, the arch-traitor Blood, who was one of them, escaped, with a vow of vengeance in his heart against the Duke, as will be seen hereafter.