Catherine Sedley in Ireland.
The struggle for supremacy at Court between Rochester and Sunderland was still undecided, but the latter gradually gained ground, though he had supported the Exclusion Bill, while Halifax, who had been largely instrumental in rejecting it, was turned out of the Government, and even out of the Privy Council. Sunderland was ready to increase his power over James by turning Roman Catholic, while Rochester, who would not go that length, was willing to let the King believe that he was open to conviction. The reputation of Sunderland is so bad as to need no remark, but Rochester, who did suffer for his religious opinions, was not above supporting Catherine Sedley, James’s ugly but witty mistress, against Mary of Modena. With Father Petre’s help, the Queen won, and Catherine, who became Countess of Dorchester in January 1686, was ordered to retire into Flanders, but resolutely refused to inhabit any country where there were convents, and preferred Ireland, where the Lord Treasurer’s brother could protect her. She was through life immoderately proud of her ill-gotten rank, and insisted upon being fully recognised. When Clarendon went to the Curragh races he did not take his wife, because Lady Dorchester would have gone too. She was commonly the first at church in the morning, and Lady Clarendon thought she might make a very good Irish saint ‘if our preachers do not make her despise them.’ But after a time she found Ireland dull, and returned to England in August. The discarded favourite ceased to be politically important, but she had pensions, and used to dine with Clarendon both before and after the Revolution. He and his brother lost influence at Court by supporting her, and in Irish matters their loss was Tyrconnel’s gain.[149]
Protestant officers and soldiers got rid of.
While still at Court, Tyrconnel had devoted his attention to the Irish army, since there was no immediate prospect of gaining the viceroyalty for himself. To the King he said his main object was to get Cromwellian officers and soldiers dismissed, and Clarendon, who clung to office, was willing to go a good way with him. Lord Granard, who commanded the forces under the Lord Lieutenant, was superseded with a pension and the post of President of the Council; but there had never been such an office in Ireland, and the old soldier felt himself quite unfit for work of that sort. In the end he had the pension without the place. The ground having been thus cleared, Tyrconnel was sent over with a lieutenant-general’s commission, making him quite independent of the viceroy. He desired Thomas Sheridan, who was in favour at Court, to help Sunderland in undermining Rochester while he was in Ireland. Sheridan said he did not want to burn his fingers ‘like the cat in the apologue,’ but it was arranged that he should correspond with Tyrconnel, visit Sunderland at times, and tell the King as much as was desirable for him to know. The new general carried with him a long list of officers to be removed in favour of his own friends and relations. He wished to have some thousands of Irish Catholics incorporated in the English army, excluding the native Irish. In this scheme Sheridan refused to help, saying that the O’s and Macs were ten to one of the others. During the whole time of his power Tyrconnel continued to favour the Anglo-Irish at the expense of the old Irish, and this preference was a source of weakness to the Jacobite cause. The King had to pension some of the loyal Protestants who had been cashiered, and a much greater number carried their swords and their grievances to the Prince of Orange. The same process was going on in the ranks, and in nine months 2300 recruits were enlisted, of whom five-sixths were Irish Roman Catholics. But the pace was too slow to satisfy Tyrconnel, who landed on June 5.[150]
Contest between Clarendon and Tyrconnel.
Hard cases.
The Lord Lieutenant and the Commander-in-chief had a preliminary interview on the day of the latter’s arrival. On the morrow they met for business, and Tyrconnel made a long rambling speech of which Clarendon took notes at the moment, and which may be taken as the key to what followed: ‘My Lord, I am sent hither to view this army and to give the King an account of it. Here are great alterations to be made, and the poor people who are put out think it my doing, and, God damn me, I have little to do in the matter: for I told the King that I knew not two of the captains nor other officers in the whole army. I know there are some hard cases, which I am sorry for; but, by God, I know not how to help them. You must know, my Lord, the King, who is a Roman Catholic, is resolved to employ his subjects of that religion, as you will find out by the letters I have brought you, and therefore some must be put out to make room for such as the King likes.’ Meritorious officers were displaced without pity, and Clarendon mentions a few specially ill-treated men among the multitude who were in the ‘common calamity of being put out.’ Thus Captain Brook was deprived of his troop, for which he had paid 1600l. two years before, and Lieutenant Pargiter of his commission for which he had given 800l. The privates were treated in the same way. When a troop or company was mustered Tyrconnel merely sent an order to the captain to dismiss such men as Colonel Richard Hamilton marked upon the list. ‘Could not I have done that as well?’ asked the Lord Lieutenant pathetically. Four hundred men were thus turned out of the regiment of Guards in one day. The General himself was so little of a soldier that he could not draw up a regiment, and his orders sometimes disgusted officers of his own Church as much as the Protestants. He told Lord Roscommon to admit only Roman Catholics into Ormonde’s regiment. Major Macdonnell, who had served in Germany, received the same order, and gave it out on parade, but in his walks about Kilkenny freely declared that he had never known a distinction between soldiers on the score of religion. Tyrconnel denied his orders, but Roscommon was as outspoken and as sure of his fact as Macdonnell. The men dismissed were often physically superior to those who supplanted them, and many recruits spoke no English, which in Dublin excited the mockery of street boys. The disbanded men despised their successors, and ‘rapped them soundly at fisticuffs.’ To make sure of getting good Catholics, one of the places selected for recruiting was St. John’s Well, resorted to by pilgrims at Midsummer.[151]
Tory Hamilton’s case.
Captain William Hamilton had been in the King’s service ever since he could carry a musket. He had almost cleared Ulster of Tories, and Sir William Stewart, afterwards Lord Mountjoy, suggested that he should be made a magistrate for Armagh, Monaghan, and Tyrone until some more substantial reward could be given. Hamilton’s success was largely due to the clever way in which he employed two soldiers as spies, but he was ready enough to risk his own life. ‘Neal O’Donnell,’ he wrote, ‘fled a considerable way, but being overtaken by my cousin, Archibald Hamilton, when his feet could not carry him off, he turned and first snapped his gun at me, and then fired a pistol at my cousin, who was not above four yards from him, on which my cousin fired at him, and, being the better marksman, knocked the rogue over, so that he had as fair play for his life as ever any Tory had.’ Among the changes following the death of Charles II., Tory Will, as he was called, lost his military employment, great zeal in the service of Government having never been a sure way to promotion in Ireland. He had, however, many friends, including Rochester, and by purchase or patronage he managed, after a visit to England, to secure a troop of horse. His old lieutenant was cashiered, and Tyrconnel appointed Daniel Magennis, with whom and his brother Murtagh he had had a dispute, saying that they would soon make friends in the same troop. The Lord Lieutenant thought differently. By blood or fosterage many outlaws had interest with the native gentry, though in this case Clarendon thought the Magennises were chiefly anxious to appropriate some of the credit which had been given to Hamilton. The quarrel came to a head at Downpatrick. Murtagh refused to withdraw in writing some charge which he had made against Hamilton, who seems to have struck, or at least threatened, him with his cane, but without drawing his sword. Magennis’s friends held Hamilton while he stabbed him to death, also wounding a Mr. Maxwell who was with him. The Assizes were going on, Nugent and Lyndon being the judges, and when the first report came that Magennis was the victim, the former said they would try the case at once. ‘But quickly after the truth was brought that Magennis had killed Hamilton; upon which the whole court was emptied in a minute, and only the judges and the prisoners left in it.’ The coroner’s jury found a verdict of murder, and even Nugent made some difficulty about bail, but Tyrconnel overruled everyone, saying that it was often given in murder cases; and he took Magennis with him to England to get a pardon.[152]
Aston’s case.