When taking leave of his Council, Clarendon defended the English in Ireland from the charge of fanaticism. They were, he said, good Church of England men, and had been the first of the late King’s subjects to restore him. They had also been against the Exclusion Bill, and were most ready to acknowledge royal authority. He pointed with some pride to the Irish Exchequer. Under Ormonde the annual revenue had risen to over 300,000l. a year without subsidies, and his successor had made it cover the expenses. All charges had been defrayed as they became due, and the army was paid up to the last month of his reign. James had indeed no fault to find with him but his religion. Having personally delivered the sword to Tyrconnel, Clarendon returned to England, and on March 3 Evelyn drove out of London to meet him. He was received at Court very soon after.[157]
FOOTNOTES:
[139] Proclamations of February 10 and 11, 1684-5, Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 543. Ormonde’s letters of February 22, March 1 and 4, in Singer’s Correspondence of Clarendon and Rochester. Luttrell’s Diary, March 27. The story of the officers’ dinner is in Secret Consults of the Romish Party, 1690. Ormonde’s arms were placed over the entrance to the new hospital.
[140] Proclamations of Lords Justices against Monmouth and his adherents, June 13 and 22; as to the militia arms, June 20 and October 16, 1685. For Argyle’s expedition, Earl of Antrim to Lords Justices, May 18, and Captain Thomas Hamilton of the Kingfisher to Granard, June 17, in State Papers, Ireland, vol. cccli. As to the removal of officers, Tyrconnel and Granard, August 12, ib., and Justin MacCarthy to Granard, ib. Ormonde to Primate Boyle, October 17, 1685, Ormonde Papers, vii. 374. Tyrconnel reached Ireland before May 29, ib. 341.
[141] Correspondence between Ormonde and Roscommon, particularly August 15 and September 17, 1685, Ormonde Papers, vol. vii.
[142] Clarendon to Rochester, December 28, 1685, Clarendon Correspondence. Writing on December 20, 1685, Bishop Fell wishes Clarendon ‘good luck with his honour, which to me seems sufficiently hazardous,’ Hatton Correspondence. According to the Sheridan MS., Sunderland had suggested Clarendon to the King, ‘for mending his fortune, of which he stood in need, pacifying Tyrconnel by saying that the two brothers would be ruined by being kept apart.
[143] Evelyn’s Diary, December 16, 1685. Clarendon’s letters, December 21 to January 10 and January 23, 1685-6. Ellis Correspondence, i. 9, 11. Luttrell’s Diary, December 16 and 18, 1685. Clarendon’s speech on taking office is in the Clarendon and Rochester Correspondence, ii. 475.
[144] Evelyn’s Diary, November 3, 1685. A newsletter to Colonel Grace from Dublin, November 11, in Clarendon’s Correspondence, notices the silence of the Gazette there about the French persecutions and the persistence of unauthorised sheets: ‘if it be a fiction, as certainly it is for the most part, why does not the Government take notice of it?... great concern that those of Geneva—Dublin have for their Calvinist brethren in France.’ The latest lights are in Lavisse’s 7th and 8th vols. and Rousset’s Hist. de Louvois, iii. chap. vii. For the dragonnades in Bearn, Henry IV.’s own country, see Sainte-Beuve’s article on the intendant Foucault, Nouveaux Lundis, vol. iii. In 1686 Avaux found there were 75,000 French refugees in Holland, Lavisse and Rambaut’s Hist. générale, vol. vi.
[145] Clarendon’s letters, February and March 1686, particularly that of February 14. Sunderland to Clarendon, March 11. An acute observer notes that the Irish Protestant refugees in England were too proud to complain and less noticed than the French, though they were ‘our bone and our flesh.’ Every Frenchman was distinguished by garb and speech, but those from Ireland by neither, and so in the crowd not discerned. Character of the Protestants of Ireland, May 1689, p. 8.
[146] Clarendon to Rochester, March 14 and April 17. James II. to Clarendon, April 6. In Burnet’s Hist. i. 654, the remarks on Porter are much softened compared to his original MS., Supplement, ed. Foxcroft, p. 170.