Duke of Ormond

“ There is no one creature so obscure, so low, or so poor, who may not, by the strange and unaccountable changes and vicissitudes of human affairs, somehow or other, and some time or other, become an useful friend or a trouble-some enemy, to the greatest and the richest. The late Duke of Ormond was almost the weakest but at the same time the best-bred, and most popular man in this kingdom. ”

“ At the momentous period when Shaftesbury was committed to the Tower, the Duke of Ormond was sent for to England, that his presence might add respectability and weight to the king's councils. He entered the city with great pomp; and was every where received with the veneration due to his rank, his age, and his services. He had never linked himself to any political faction; contented to serve the crown upon the old cavalier principles, which he always asserted. He was thought, however, to go too great lengths in advising the king to maintain his authority by harsh measures ”

“ Meanwhile, the Government was not meanly hostile to their dead enemies. The Duke of Ormond, the boldest and frankest of conspirators against the Hanoverian succession; the man who more than once would have invaded his country at the head of foreign troops; he who had fostered rebellion, and maintained foiled rebels, during his thirty years’ exile, had, at last, died in his eighty-third year. King and ministers made no opposition to the interment of this splendid arch-traitor in Westminster Abbey. ”

“ I was this morning with brother Bathurst to see the Duke of Ormond. We have given his Grace some hopes to be one of our Society. The Secretary and I and Bathurst are to dine with him on Sunday next. The Duke is not in much hopes, but has been very busy in endeavouring to bring over some lords against next Wednesday. The Duchess caught me as I was going out; she is sadly in fear about things, and blames me for not mending them by my credit with Lord Treasurer ”

“ When the cabal entered into the mysterious alliance with France, they took care to remove the duke of Ormond from the committee of foreign affairs; and nothing tended further to increase the national jealousy entertained against the new measures, than to see a man of so much loyalty, as well as probity and honor, excluded from public councils. They had even so great interest with the king as to get Ormond recalled from the government of Ireland ”

“ He became the prime favourite of the people, and his power with the mob seemed to make him the rival of the King. It added to the zest with which he pursued this new freak, that it helped him to satisfy private and personal piques. In particular the Duke of Ormonde had become the object of his almost insane jealousy. Ormonde's lofty character, his consistent loyalty, his influence in the counsels of the King, above all, his vast power as a great territorial magnate, had wounded the vanity of Buckingham ”

“ The duke of Ormond is censured here by those in power for very wrong management in the affair of the mayoralty. He is governed by fools; and has usually much more sense than his advisers, but never proceeds by it. I must know how your health continues after Wexford. Walk and use exercise, sirrahs both; and get somebody to play at shuttlecock with you, madam Stella, and walk to the dean's and Donnybrook. ”

“ He lived here in peace until 1670, when he made an attempt no less remarkable for its ingenuity than notable for its villainy. Towards the end of that year the Prince of Orange, being in London, was invited by the lord mayor to a civic banquet. Thither the Duke of Ormond attended him, and subsequently accompanied him to St. James's, where the prince then stayed. A short distance from the palace gates stood Clarendon House, where the duke then resided, and towards which he immediately drove, on taking leave of his royal highness. ”

“ I shall therefore leave posterity to the information of better historians, than the author of the Crisis, or myself; and go on to inform the present age, in some facts, which the great orator and politician thinks fit to misrepresent, with the utmost degree either of natural, or wilful ignorance. He asserts, that in the duke of Ormond's campaign, "after a suspension of arms between Great Britain and France proclaimed at the head of the armies, the British troops, in the midst of the enemy's garrisons, withdrew themselves from their confederates." ”

“ In the midst of his other distresses, the king's nose began to bleed, in consequence, it was said, of the repeated blows he had endured from the soldiery, who had flown in his face with the utmost disloyalty. He consequently made up his mind and his portmanteau to retreat, when, in stopping at Andover, he asked his son-in-law, Prince George of Denmark, and the young Duke of Ormond, to sup with him. ”

“ He shuts up his door at eight o'clock in the evening, and studies till midnight. He is temperate, courteous, and excellent in all his behaviour." When the Duke of Ormond went into exile, his son was imprisoned by Cromwell, but, being afterwards released, he went abroad. In 1659, he married the daughter of Beverwaert, governor of Sluys, a leading man in the States-General. Upon the Restoration, he was promoted in the army, which did not prevent his exerting his gallantry on another element ”

“ The second Duke of Ormonde, though in a sense born to greatness, certainly did not contrive to achieve it. The exceptional popularity which he enjoyed in England in the earlier half of his life is easily accounted for. Swift, describing the French ambassador to Stella, says that ‘he is a fine gentleman, something like the Duke of Ormonde, and just such an expensive man.’ He was not less munificent than he was wealthy, gracious in manner, and high-church in opinions. ”

“ Lady Catharine Hyde had a mighty mind I should be acquainted with lady Dalkeith, her sister, the duke of Monmouth's eldest son's widow, who was of the company to night; but I did not like her; she paints too much. Night, MD.
26. This day our society met at the duke of Ormond's; but I had business that called me another way; so I sent my excuses, and dined privately with a friend. Besides, sir Thomas Hanmer whispered me last night at lady Jersey's, that I must attend lord treasurer and duke of Ormond at supper, at his house to night ”

“ This day also I hear that my Lord Ormond is to be declared in Council no more Deputy Governor of Ireland, his commission being expired: and the King is prevailed with to take it out of his hands; which people do mightily admire, saying that he is the greatest subject of any prince in Christendome, and hath more acres of land than any, and hath done more for his Prince than ever any yet did. But all will not do; he must down, it seems, the Duke of Buckingham carrying all before him. ”

“ In the distribution of honours which followed he had a considerable share; he was at once placed on the commission for the treasury and navy, made lord steward of the household, a privy councillor, lord-lieutenant of Somerset, high steward of Westminster, Kingston, and Bristol, chancellor of Dublin University, Baron Butler of Llanthony, and Earl of Brecknock in the English peerage, and on 30 March 1661 he was created Duke of Ormonde in the Irish peerage, and lord high steward of England, carrying the crown in that capacity at the coronation (see Pepys, 23 April 1661) . ”

“ BUTLER, THOMAS, Earl of Ossory (1634–1680) , was the eldest son of James, first duke of Ormonde [q. v.] , and was born in the castle of Kilkenny on 9 July 1634. Here he remained, and was carefully educated, throughout the Irish rebellion, until Ormonde surrendered Dublin to the parliamentary commissioners in 1647, when he accompanied his father to England, and shortly afterwards, in February 1647–8, to France. He stayed with his brother Richard at Paris until Ormonde's return to Ireland in September. ”

“ But the Duke of Ormonde, who, with every other quality that can accomplish or adorn a great man, inherits all the valour and loyalty of his ancestors, found it very difficult to acquit himself of his commission; [6] for Prince Eugene, and all the field deputies of the States, had begun already to talk either of attacking the enemy, or besieging Quesnoy, the confederate army being now all joined by the troops they expected ”

“ The loyal Monmouth's wealthy western friend."
[337] It is probable either Stern or Boroski, if not Vratz, would have justified themselves at the Count's expence, had it suited the crown to have promised them a pardon on such conditions.
[338] The Duke of Ormond's eldest son.—See next note.
[339] Appendix to Life of Ormond, No. XCIII.
[340] Sir Richard Southwell. See Life of Ormond, Vol. II. p. 161.
[341]
War, and war's darling goddess, left him last ”

“ He was also a man of some literary acquirements and began a life of James, first duke of Ormonde, which his age and infirmities prevented him from finishing. The manuscript, ‘consisting of about one hundred pages in folio, and containing such domestic information touching the duke's life as he had received from his grace's own mouth,’ was lent by his son Edward to Thomas Carte. ”

“ It is related by Carte of the duke or Ormond, that he used often to pass a night with Dryden, and those with whom Dryden consorted: who they were, Carte has not told, but certainly the convivial table at which Ormond sat was not surrounded with a plebeian society. He was indeed reproached with boasting of his familiarity with the great; and Horace will support him in the opinion, that to please superiors is not the lowest kind of merit.
The merit of pleasing must, however, be estimated by the means. Favour is not always gained by good actions or laudable qualities. ”

“ In the following month he accompanied the Duke of Ormonde to Flanders, and in October proceeded to Paris, 'where he was received by the King of France's order like a prince. Never had a private man such honours paid him' (Carte's 'Memorandum Book,' quoted in Macpherson, Original Papers, 1775, ii. 420) . ”

“ The other two, Richard, created earl of Arran, and John, created earl of Gowran, both dying without male issue, and the male descent of the 1st duke becoming extinct in the person of Charles, 3rd duke of Ormonde, the earldom subsequently reverted to the descendants of Walter, 11th earl of Ormonde. ”

“ Wren and I to his chamber, and there talked: and he seems to hope that these people, the Duke of Buckingham and Arlington, will run themselves off of their legs; they being forced to be always putting the King upon one idle thing or other, against the easiness of his nature, which he will never be able to bear, nor they to keep him to, and so will lose themselves. And, for instance of their little progress, he tells me that my Lord of Ormond is like yet to carry it, and to continue in his command in Ireland ”

“ We have seen that one of his first acts, after he became King, was to recall Ormond from Ireland. Ormond was the head of the English interest in that kingdom: he was firmly attached to the Protestant religion; and his power far exceeded that of an ordinary Lord Lieutenant, first, because he was in rank and wealth the greatest of the colonists, and, secondly, because he was not only the chief of the civil administration, but also commander of the forces. ”

“ The Prince saw and interpreted his glance; and making me a sign to advance, he introduced me to his ally as Louis Count de l'Orme, only son of the noble house of Bigorre, and first gentleman of his bedchamber. The Duke bowed low, and, with what I judged rather an unnecessary ostentation of politeness, welcomed me to Sedan; while the Count, with a smile that seemed to imply that he read clearly what was passing in his friend's mind, said in a low tone, "Do not be afraid, Bouillon: if he is not for you, he is not against you." ”

“ They considered Prince Harry as the lawful representative of their dear King Corny, and actually offered up prayers for his coming again to reign over them.
To those who think that the mind is a kingdom of yet more consequence than even that of the Black Islands, it may be agreeable to hear that Ormond continued to enjoy the empire which he had gained over himself; and to maintain that high character, which in spite of his neglected education, and of all the adverse circumstances to which he was early exposed, he had formed for himself by resolute energy. ”

“ In 1651 he was sent by Ormonde to Brussels, by way of Jersey and Paris, to negotiate with Charles III, duke of Lorraine, for assistance to the Irish loyalists. ‘A bold and forward undertaker,’ as Carte styles him, he suggested to the duke the marriage of his illegitimate daughter by Beatrice de Cusance, countess Cantecroix, to the Duke of York. ”

“ Thinkest thou that thy stay, undictated by love, the mere fruit of compassion, would afford me pleasure or crown my wishes? No. I am not so dastardly a wretch. There was something in thy power to bestow, but thy will accords not with thy power. I merit not the boon, and thou refusest it. I am content."
Here Ormond fixed more significant eyes upon her. "Poor Constantia!" he continued. "Shall I warn thee of the danger that awaits thee? For what end? To elude it is impossible. It will come, and thou, perhaps, wilt be unhappy. Foresight that enables not to shun, only precreates, the evil. ”

“ Lord Berkeley succeeded Robarts; and the earl of Essex, Berkeley. At last, in the year 1677 Charles cast his eye again upon Ormond, whom he had so long neglected; and sent him over lieutenant to Ireland. “I have done every thing,” said the king, “to disoblige that man; but it is not in my power to make him my enemy.” Ormond, during his disgrace, had never joined the malecontents, nor encouraged those clamors which, with too much reason, but often for bad purposes, were raised against the king’s measures. He even thought it his duty regularly, though with dignity, to pay his court at Whitehall ”