Earl of Ormonde

“ The Marquis of Ormonde having been informed that certain statements, little complimentary to the reputation of Queen Elizabeth, and equally discreditable to the name of his ancestor, Thomas, Earl of Ormonde, have appeared in "Notes and Queries," wherein it is stated "that the Ormonde family possess documents which afford proof of this," begs to assure the editor of the journal in question, that the Ormonde collection of papers, &c. contains nothing that bears the slightest reference to the very calumnious attack on the character of good Queen Bess. ”

“ Earl John dying in Palestine, his brother Thomas succeeded him, and continued Sir Edmund in the custody of the Irish estates. Sir Edmund by will granted to his son Piers the same power as he had himself held, but it does not appear that this curious bequest was acknowledged either by the Earl of Ormonde or by the people of Kilkenny and Tipperary. Sir James Ormonde, as he is called, a bastard son of the fifth Earl, became the real chief of the Butlers, and is often called Earl by Irish writers; the rules of legitimate descent being then very lightly regarded in 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 ”

“ A new Earl of Desmond.
The palatinate of Tipperary.
Interference with property was not limited to the ancient Irish, but was extended by James to the greatest and most loyal of the Anglo-Norman families. The tenth Earl of Ormonde, known as Black Thomas, who played so great a part in Elizabeth’s time, had been blind ever since the King’s accession. During these years his chief care was to keep the estates and the title together, and he took every possible precaution both by will and deed. ”

“ More than one of the earls of Ormonde had the name of a scholar, while of the 6th earl, master of every European tongue and ambassador to many courts, Edward IV. is said to have declared that were good breeding and liberal qualities lost to the world they might be found again in John, earl of Ormonde. The earls were often absent from Ireland on errands of war or peace. James, the 5th earl, had the English earldom of Wiltshire given him in 1449 for his Lancastrian zeal. ”

“ His plan for ending the Desmond rebellion was to put the Earl’s pardon and restoration altogether out of the question, and to receive to mercy and service all those chiefs who were actuated more by fear of him than by disaffection to the Government, such as Lord Fitzmaurice, MacDonough of Duhallow, Patrick Condon, and the White Knight. 700 men in garrison would do the rest. The Earl of Ormonde was to be chiefly relied on for bringing back the still rebellious chiefs to their allegiance. ”

“ He was buried at Douglas in the family vault in St. Bride's Church. By his first wife Ormonde became the father of one son, James, who succeeded his grandfather as Marquis of Douglas. By Lady Jane Wemyss he had a daughter who became the fourth wife of Alexander, first viscount Kingstoun, and two sons, the elder of whom, Archibald [q. v.] , succeeded him in his title, and in 1661 obtained a new patent creating him Earl of Forfar. The widow of the first Earl of Ormonde, who outlived him sixty years, was married in 1659 to George, fourteenth earl of Sutherland, whom she also survived. ”

“ An attempt by Ormonde to induce the Irish catholics also to carry out the articles of the cessation and furnish the king with an army was entirely futile. Meanwhile the king called for Lord Leicester's resignation, and made Ormonde lord-lieutenant by a commission which he received in January 1643-4. In pursuance of his instructions he vigorously forwarded the expedition of the Irish forces, prepared by the Earl of Antrim, to assist Montrose in Scotland; and to prevent a renewal of the war gave favourable terms to the catholics. ”

“ Ormonde indeed did not lack ability; but he was absent, and likely to be absent, and his work could not be done by deputy. He summed up the qualifications of the other great lords in a few pithy sentences. ‘The Earl of Desmond, a man both void of judgment to govern and will to be ruled. The Earl of Clancare I suppose willing enough to be ruled, but wanteth force and credit to rule. The Earl of Thomond, the most [Pg 115] imperfect of all the rest; hath neither wit of himself to govern, nor grace or capacity to learn of others. ”

“ They formed an inner circle, with common sympathies at once in their memories and in their aims, and unassailed as yet by the coarse profligacy, the vulgar buffoonery, and the ignoble selfishness that were soon to become dominant in Charles's Court. Such were Ormonde, now Lord Steward, whose loyalty was as untarnished as his position was above the assaults of slander and envy, and whose unbroken friendship was a powerful buttress to Hyde, and warded off the slights to which his own more humble birth might have subjected him. ”

“ He was brought up at the English court with a view to alienating his sympathies from Ireland, and was the first of his family to adopt protestantism. He was knighted on Edward VI's accession in 1547. After Edward's death in 1553, the priests spread a false report that the young earl had been murdered in England, and the Irish on his estates, which were then managed by English officials, rose in revolt. In 1554 Ormonde set foot in Ireland amid great rejoicings on the part of the native population, and from the first attempted to act as mediator between the native Irish and their English rulers. ”

“ He may have accompanied Ormonde to Ireland in 1677; in any case, he was appointed about 1681 to the office of recorder of Londonderry, and in 1682 he issued from a Dublin press his ‘Poem. To his excellence Richard, Earl of Arran, lord deputy of Ireland.’ Two years later he dedicated to Ormonde ‘A Discourse of Monarchy, more particularly of the Imperial Crowns of England, Scotland, and Ireland ... as it relates to the Succession of His Royal Highness James, Duke of York,’ London, 8vo. ”

“ The “great earl,” as he was called, supported Ormonde in his desire to unite the English royalists with the more moderate Roman Catholics on the basis of religious toleration under the authority of the sovereign, against the papal scheme advocated by Rinuccini, and in opposition to the parliamentary and Puritan policy. ”

“ Bagwell, Ireland, ii. 254) . In 1574 the Earl of Ormonde made fresh allegations against his loyalty, and he was summoned to Dublin to answer before the council, where he successfully acquitted himself (Ham. Cal. ii. 23, 24, 31, 33; Carew, i. 472) . In 1576 he succeeded his father, who had long been impotent, as Baron of Upper Ossory, and two years afterwards had the satisfaction of killing the great rebel Rory Oge O'More (Collins, Sydney Letters, i. 264; Somers Tracts, i. 603) . ”

“ 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 James, the son and heir of Edmund, having married in 1327 Eleanor de Bohun, daughter of Humfrey, earl of Hereford and Essex, high constable of England, by a daughter of Edward I., was created an Irish earl on the 2nd of November 1328, with the title of Ormonde.
From the early years of the 14th century the Ormonde earls, generation by generation, were called to the chief government of Ireland as lords-keeper, lords-lieutenant, deputies or lords-justices, and unlike their hereditary enemies the Geraldines they kept a tradition of loyalty to the English crown and to English custom. ”

“ At Court Philip Sidney accused Ormonde of thwarting his father, and contemptuously held his tongue when the Earl addressed him. Ormonde refused to quarrel, saying magnanimously that the young man was bound to take his father’s part, and that he was endowed with many virtues. Indeed, nothing could be said against Ormonde but that he was a general defender of the Irish cause, like all the rest of his countrymen at Court. He hated Leicester and did not like Sidney; but, as the latter himself expressed it, ‘love and loving [Pg 333] offices’ are matters of favour, not of justice. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ Crown lands also must revert to the Crown, and had this source of revenue been duly husbanded, it might have supplied a means of dealing with many claims that proved a source of endless and insoluble difficulty. There were certain outstanding Royalists, like Ormonde, whose loyalty was so indisputable, and whose claims were so easy of proof, that restitution in their case was simple, and any resistance to it would have amounted to a confession of rebellion. ”

“ Lady Isabella was fated to cross Lady Ormonde’s path once more; the occurrence is a curious one, and is related in the life of Lord Broghill (afterwards better known as the Earl of Orrery) , who was at the time in high favour with Cromwell, and had pleaded Lady Ormonde’s cause to some purpose, with the autocrat, being deeply attached to that most noble lady and her husband. He had just returned from Ireland, where he had distinguished himself, when he was summoned to the Protector’s presence. ”

“ Instantly on the arrival of Fitzmaurice in July 1579 he went into rebellion. An adept in all the stratagems of Irish warfare, and personally brave in carrying his schemes into execution, he became, after the death of the 'arch traitor,' the unquestionable, though not nominal, head of the rebellion. It was against him, and not the Earl of Desmond, that Ormonde mainly directed his efforts. ”

“ Edward and Sir Edmund, Ormonde's brothers, used their power, as his representatives in Munster, with the utmost cruelty and injustice. In June 1569 Sir Edmund, who had a personal hatred of Sidney, in temporary concert with some members of the Desmond family, broke into open revolt against the lord deputy. Sidney asserted that Ormonde's presence was indispensable to the peace of South Ireland, and the earl returned home with the queen's permission. ”

“ In the dark days they had distrusted the feverish energy of younger men, whose record of loyalty was short, and who had sought to retrieve the lateness of their adherence to the Royalist cause by its restless zeal. Amongst these last, there were, indeed, many whose services could not be disparaged, such as young Lord Mordaunt, who had repeatedly risked his life in passing between England and the quarters of the exiled Court. But it was no selfish motive that prompted caution to men like Ormonde, Hertford, and Southampton. ”

“ Many of the older Royalists were dead, and those who had taken their place had no experience in public affairs, were unknown to one another, and were suspicious of those whose views in any way differed from their own. The most trustworthy were cautious, and, before they declared their adherence to any scheme, had made it a condition that their designs should be imparted only to Ormonde and Hyde. But negotiations could not be confined to them, without discouraging those whose zeal was undoubted. ”

“ After Ormonde's withdrawal to France he co-operated with the Earl of Clanricarde, and in 1650 was appointed general of all the forces in Leinster. Owing to his moderation he incurred the censure of the extreme party. ‘A man,’ says the author of the ‘Aphorismical Discovery,’ ‘that never gathered an army into the field since he was appointed general, nor any party did stick unto himself that did act worth 6d. ”

“ Ormonde then spoke of the Pope in contemptuous terms, whereupon Archer threatened him with his stick. At this signal, whether premeditated or not, the two parties became suddenly intermingled, and Melaghlin O’More pulled the Earl off his pony. Others, wrote Carew, and Thomond, ‘tried to seize us too. We had more hanging upon us than is credibly to be believed; but our horses were strong and by that means did break through them, tumbling down on all sides those that were before and behind us ”

“ The queen had sought to soothe him by naming him a privy councillor; and in 1703 he was appointed to the government of Ireland, which his father-in-law, Rochester, the queen's uncle, had just wrathfully resigned. Ormonde had a kind of ancestral claim to the lord-lieutenancy, and the history of his house was closely bound up with the protestant and loyal interest in Ireland. It is therefore not wonderful that he should have been enthusiastically received by the Irish parliament, which he opened 21 Sept. ”

“ The king now required all the Irish troops that could be spared for England, and in November, having first extracted from his officers an oath of loyalty to the king and the church, which only two of them, Monck being one, declined to take, Ormonde managed to send over some 5,000 men under Lord Byron, who did good service in Cheshire until routed by Fairfax, at Nantwich, in January 1644. At the same time, in obedience to special instructions, he exerted himself to keep the Scotch army from joining their fellows in Scotland. ”