And now this prophecy is come to pass,
For Talbot's a dog and James is an ass!"
The French authorities quoted by Macaulay are probably quite correct in stating that the Duke of Tyrconnel had arranged with James to make Ireland a French protectorate, in case the English crown should again be on the head of a Protestant king. The thought that he was just the Irishman to entertain such a design was sufficient to make him execrable to the Englishmen of his own day, and no less infamous to Macaulay, that strict respecter of conventions, who ferreted his forgotten name out of the oubliettes of history to depict him as the traitor par excellence. But it was certainly not England that Talbot would have betrayed had his schemes succeeded. To him the yoke that crushed his race and creed was foreign. Nor would Ireland have altogether resented his handing her over to France, all bleeding as she was from Protestant and English wounds. Of the two yokes the French would assuredly have been the easier for Ireland—at least so Irishmen have declared on many occasions.
Be all this as it may, perhaps no other but Talbot could have maintained himself against the calumnies and intrigues that began slowly to break down his iron frame. It must have been with something of relief, something of despair, that the high-spirited Duchess of Tyrconnel learnt that the factious Franco-Irish army was finally to meet the common foe. She knew well enough, when on the night of the 30th of June a courier brought her the news that a battle would be fought on the morrow, that on its issue hung all her future. The agony of suspense in which she passed the day of the Battle of the Boyne found her at evening no less exhausted than the conquered and fugitive James when he reached Dublin Castle. Nevertheless, in this hour of her deepest humiliation she rose proudly above despair. As soon as the worst was told her she bore herself with as high a spirit as when years before she had faced Jermyn. When the fleeing King arrived, faint and covered with mud so as to be hardly recognisable, the Duchess of Tyrconnel assembled her household in state, and dressing herself magnificently received him with all the splendour of Court etiquette. Never has Dublin Castle witnessed a function more dramatic than this of Dick Talbot's Vicereine on the night of the Battle of the Boyne. Having on one knee congratulated James on his safety, she invited him to partake of refreshment. His answer is celebrated. Shaking his head sadly, he replied that his breakfast that morning had spoiled his appetite, and ironically complimented her on the swiftness of her husband's countrymen's heels. "At least your Majesty has had the advantage of them," she could not help retorting, stung by the ruin of her hopes and ambitions. When Lauzun, the French general, told her that fifteen Talbots and half as many Hamiltons had been slain, and that her husband had fought like a hero of romance, she might have been acquitted of disloyalty had she cried, as she must have felt, with the Irish soldiers, "Change kings, and we will fight the battle over again!"
At the Council held on the following day it was decided that James should return to France, and the Duchess of Tyrconnel either went with him or followed shortly afterwards. It was no doubt necessary for the Viceroy to have his clever wife to intrigue in his behalf at St. Germain, where his enemies were the most dangerous. She did her best for him in that plot-laden atmosphere, but Tyrconnel and the cause he represented were hopelessly broken, and the doom of the wicked fairy had fallen on the Duchess. Her star had set, never to rise again.
In the following year the patriotic Viceroy died suddenly at Limerick, whither he had gone in brave despair to give battle to the fatal William of Orange once more. Before he died his enemies at St. Germain had triumphed over his wife, and the weak, ungrateful James had at last allowed himself to be persuaded to deprive him of all authority in Ireland. But, so loved as well as feared was he, the despatch which disgraced him was kept a profound secret. His death was generally attributed to poison, but the real cause, according to a more trustworthy opinion, was apoplexy. So exciting were the times, that his end scarcely caused a thrill. Death must have been welcome, for his passionate heart was broken.
Thus perished this questionable hero, whose virtues and abilities have been covered with infamy by failure and the unbounded popular passions of the times in which he lived. Two voices only have ever been lifted in his defence: one was Berwick's, his contemporary, who, when the opportunity was offered, nobly refused to supplant him; the other was Lady Morgan's, a sympathetic critic of a later day. "Of Richard Talbot, Duke of Tyrconnel," she said, "much ill has been written and more believed; but his history, like that of his unfortunate country, has only been written by the pen of party, steeped in gall, and copied servilely from the pages of prejudice by the tame historians of modern times more anxious for authority than authenticity."
His brilliant wife, whom his death reduced to poverty, paid his memory such honour as she could. At her entreaty Anselme, the most popular preacher of the day, pronounced his oraison funèbre in Paris, and the Courts of Versailles and St. Germain assembled to hear it. The obscurity in which the rest of her long life was spent has only been fitfully illuminated. Neglected in the distracted Court of the exiled Stuarts, she was so poor that she was often in want of the necessaries of life. On one occasion temporary relief was afforded her by the gift of four hundred pounds from the pension the Pope gave to James II. Her proud spirit having been embittered by misfortune, she quarrelled with nearly all her relations, living on especially bad terms with her "three viscountesses;" her only child by Talbot that survived, and whom she had married to the Prince of Vintimiglia; and her luckier but no cleverer sister, the Duchess of Marlborough. Many years later, in the reign of Queen Anne, when her famous brother-in-law was at the height of his power and playing his double game between the Whigs and the Jacobites, she was employed for a time in his secret negotiations. But the proceedings are wrapped in mystery. There is a story said to be apocryphal, though Horace Walpole and others believed it, that she was in England in 1705, and sold haberdashery at the Royal Exchange, which was at that time let out in stalls.
"Above stairs," said Walpole, "sat, in the character of a milliner, the reduced Duchess of Tyrconnel, wife of Richard Talbot, Lord Deputy of Ireland under James II. This female, suspected to be his duchess after his death, supported herself for a few days, till she was known and otherwise provided for, by the little trade of the place. She had delicacy enough to wish not to be detected; she sat in a white mask and a white dress, and was known by the name of the White Milliner."
It is certain that three years later she was at Brussels, where she had a meeting of a political nature with the Duke of Marlborough. In describing it to his wife he wrote that he found her grown very old and hoarse, and so much changed as to be hardly recognisable. Through his influence some of her confiscated property in Ireland was restored to her, and she went to Dublin, where she remained for the rest of her life, with what thoughts one would like to know! She lived for nearly thirty years in a most devout and lonely retirement, and, her funds being now more than sufficient for her wants, founded a nunnery for the Order of Poor Clares. "Her death," says Walpole, "was occasioned by falling out of her bed on the floor in a winter's night, and being too feeble to rise or to call out, she was found in the morning so perished with cold that she died in a few hours." Her age was eighty-three, and she had survived the fatal Battle of the Boyne forty years!