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 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF 
 THE GREAT EARL OF CORK
 
 
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 THE LIFE AND LETTERS 
 OF THE GREAT 
 
 EARL OF CORK 
 
 BT 
 
 DOROTHEA TOWNSHEND 
 
 Author of 
 * LIFE AND LETTERS OF ENDYMION PORTER ' 
 
 ' God's Providence is my Inheritance.' 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 . P. T)UTTON <AND COMTANT 
 
 1904
 
 D/l 
 
 . 5- 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 MOST of us have been so long accustomed to think of Ireland 
 as ' the distressful country,' the land of ' old, unhappy far-off 
 things,' that we feel an incredulous surprise on hearing of a 
 man who actually won name and fame in Ireland, and whose 
 own fortune prospered while he shed prosperity around him. 
 
 By a happy chance we are able to become intimately 
 acquainted with this exceptional man. In the diary which 
 the piety of his descendants has treasured at Lismore, we can 
 read how Richard Boyle thanked God for enabling him to do 
 good works for the commonwealth, and prayed, ' God damn 
 Redmond Fitzgerald for turning pirate ' ; we can see the 
 kindly old man sending away an erring maidservant in his 
 own coach, though no feeling of Christian charity could make 
 him either forgive or forget the rough words of the Lord 
 Chancellor of Ireland, and the injuries of the Earl of Strafford. 
 We learn to smile at his hot temper, to aspire with his 
 ambitions, to grieve with his sorrows, till, when we close the 
 last page of the record of his life, we feel that we are bidding 
 farewell to a familiar and honoured friend, rather than to 
 a forgotten worthy, who loved and hated three hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 In his own day he was called the Great Earl of Cork as 
 invariably as though it were a part of his title ; now his very 
 name is forgotten, save when some Munster antiquary points 
 to a squalid hamlet or a desolate seashore, and tells that here 
 the Great Earl of Cork had his linen factories, yonder he 
 
 20G073B
 
 vi LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 mined for silver, and there stood his sheds for curing 
 pilchards, in the days when he had made the land to prosper. 
 
 In England he now is only known as the ancestor of 
 sundry noble families : the Duke of Devonshire descends 
 from his eldest son, and his third son is the ancestor of the 
 Earl of Cork and Orrery, and the Earl of Shannon. From 
 his eldest daughter is descended Lord Barrymore of Barry- 
 more ; from his second, Lord Digby of Geashill and of Sher- 
 borne ; and from the third, the Duke of Leinster. Save in 
 the pages of genealogists, the name of Richard Boyle is 
 unknown to the public, and the few historians who mention 
 him misrepresent his actions and misinterpret his designs. 
 There is but one exception ; Mr. Mahaffy, the editor of the 
 Calendar of Irish State Papers for 1629-32, gives Lord Cork 
 the credit for having been both a useful and an efficient public 
 servant. 
 
 The Great Earl of Cork was not born great; he achieved 
 greatness in the teeth of as many difficulties as ever faced a 
 hero of romance. He was but an obscure young lawyer, 
 ' without,' he says, ' a penny of certain income,' when the 
 great Elizabeth opened his prison doors, and swore that she 
 found him a man fit to be employed by herself, and that she 
 would so employ him. 
 
 When once he had the chance of showing what he could 
 do, Boyle's future was assured, and he served Elizabeth and 
 her two successors so faithfully, that when Cromwell sheathed 
 his sword after reconquering Ireland, he declared that had 
 there but been an Earl of Cork in every Irish Province, the 
 rebellion he had just crushed would never have broken out. 
 
 Boyle's good work in Ireland was still remembered in the 
 days of the Restoration. John Evelyn then wrote of him as 
 4 a person of wonderful sagacity in affairs, and no less probity,
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 by which he compassed a great estate, and great honours for 
 his posterity.' 
 
 But although Boyle did compass a great estate and great 
 honours, his ambition was not merely set on winning an Earl's 
 coronet ; he came to Munster resolved to show what the 
 English rule in Ireland ought to mean, and to convert a country 
 devastated by war and famine into a rich and contented por- 
 tion of the Queen's dominions. Under his fostering care, 
 comfortable farmhouses sprang up in the deserted valleys, 
 lonely sea-bays were changed into harbours crowded with 
 fishing-smacks and merchantmen, among the barren moun- 
 tains were seen the glow of his iron forges, his water-mills and 
 salmon wears were found on every stream. In the eastern 
 part of the Province he rebuilt the towns that had been 
 ruined in the Desmond wars, and among the impassable 
 western forests he founded the frontier towns of Bandon, 
 Clonakilty, Enniskeane, and Castletown, to hold the settled 
 country secure against the raids of the wild tribes of West 
 Carberry and Kerry. 
 
 The hard usage which Boyle has received at the hands of 
 modern historians is owing to their having merely reproduced 
 the accusations brought against him by certain of his enemies, 
 without troubling to inquire on what grounds these accusations 
 were founded. Boyle was too strongly marked a character to 
 go through life without making plenty of enemies ; unfortun- 
 ately one of the chief of these was the Earl of Strafford, and 
 whatever Strafford said of Boyle was believed and repeated 
 by Archbishop Laud. Considering that Strafford, when he 
 arrived in Ireland as Lord Deputy, made no secret of his 
 intentions of filling the King's purse from the coffers of the 
 Munster millionaire, the charges which he brought against the 
 millionaire as a means of extorting money should be estimated
 
 viii LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 at their real value. But neither Strafford nor Laud could 
 really forgive Boyle for being a survival from c the spacious 
 days of Great Elizabeth.' The churchmanship he had learned 
 in the sixteenth century pleased the Archbishop as little as the 
 Tudor system of governing Ireland satisfied Strafford. 
 
 The only people who had a real ground of complaint 
 against Boyle were the Irish Roman Catholics, for Boyle as a 
 statesman was not in advance of his age, and religious tolera- 
 tion had not then been invented. Even with all our modern 
 enlightenment, our rulers find it a difficult matter to deal 
 wisely with the customs and creeds of primitive subject races, 
 so we can hardly blame an Elizabethan ruler of Ireland for 
 having little patience with Irish habits, and little reverence for 
 Irish holy places, and honestly believing he was doing his best 
 for his new subjects by forcing English civilisation, language, 
 and religion on a nation that abhorred all three. 
 
 But Boyle's religious intolerance was not by any means so 
 far-reaching as has often been imagined. It was only with the 
 Romanist priests, and members of religious orders, that he had 
 any quarrel, and the severity with which he treated them was 
 rather political than religious, for priests and friars were always 
 believed to be emissaries from the Queen's enemies in Spain or 
 France. With the Roman Catholic gentry Boyle was always 
 on the best of terms. They feasted in his house, while they 
 jested on the duty of observing fast-days ; they even carried 
 practical jokes on their host so far as to inveigle him into 
 witnessing a popish wedding ; in fact, as true Irishmen, they 
 found in their difference of religious opinions only a fresh 
 reason for making merry. 
 
 But however much we may regret the severity of Boyle's 
 handling of the Romanist priests, there can be no doubt of 
 the wisdom as well as kindliness of his government of the
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 English whom he settled in Munster. It has been said that 
 the Elizabethan poor law introduced the principle of socialism 
 into England. There was something of the same feeling 
 always present in Boyle's mind. He expected his English 
 tenants to be as keen as he was himself for the service of the 
 commonwealth; the tradespeople were to be always on the 
 look-out for new manufactures, the farmers for improved 
 breeds of cattle, the trained bands to be drilled in readiness 
 to defend the settlements. In return he, their ruler, provided 
 them with grammar-schools for the children, with apprentice- 
 ships for the growing boys and girls, and with almshouses for 
 the sick and old. They should all do their duty to the State 
 with quiet minds, untroubled by anxiety for the future of 
 their children or fears for their own old age. 
 
 The position of the Earl of Cork in Munster was indeed 
 unique. English intruder though he was, he exercised a 
 patriarchal jurisdiction as complete as that of a Celtic chieftain ; 
 his neighbours of both creeds consulted him as an oracle, and 
 flew with pride on his errands ; their daughters refused to 
 marry till assured of the great Earl's approbation ; his tenants 
 carried their troubles to him with complete confidence in his 
 paternal interest ; the clergy obeyed him as they would have 
 done a bishop. Wealthy, good natured, and domineering, he 
 was the moving spring of all that was said and done in 
 Munster for well-nigh fifty years. 
 
 There appears, however, to be an undefined suspicion in 
 some minds that it was impossible that Cork could have 
 honestly come by such enormous wealth. These critics forget 
 that a new country gives the best chance to new men, and 
 fortunes may there be made by energy and industry without 
 needing the assistance of dishonesty. Boyle was so fortunate 
 as to come to Ireland when it was practically a new country ;
 
 x LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 he was one of the earliest to develop its natural resources, and 
 he reaped the reward of his industry and acuteness. His 
 undertakings indeed prospered so amazingly, and his rise was 
 so rapid, that he himself never considered it due to his own 
 efforts, but devoutly ascribed his good fortune to Divine 
 benevolence, and chose as his motto * God's providence is mine 
 inheritance.' But he was never troubled by any doubts of 
 the honesty of the ways his wealth was come by. When in 
 his will he gave the list of his lands, he set down after each 
 piece of property the price he had paid for it, or the amount 
 for which it had been mortgaged to him, and ends : ' Every 
 half-year God by his great mercy and bounty hath and doth 
 enable me, either by purchase, mortgage, or leases, to increase 
 my livelihood.' 
 
 Land purchase in a new and sparsely settled country was 
 naturally something of a speculation, and Boyle was always 
 shrewd enough to look out for good bargains. He was a 
 lawyer, and the letter of the law was sacred to him ; but so 
 long as the letter of the law was on his side, he never 
 hesitated nor scrupled, and held on to what he believed to be 
 his rights with the tenacity of a bulldog. 
 
 Yet, once the battle was won, he constantly discovered, 
 with English inconsistency, that he was very sorry for his 
 defeated antagonists, and, in his own words, * like a kind fool ' 
 tossed them a fair share of the prize he had clutched at so 
 savagely but a little time before. 
 
 The chief source of information about the Earl of Cork, 
 his life and surroundings, is Dr. Grosart's selection from the 
 Lismore Papers, in ten volumes, privately printed by per- 
 mission of the Duke of Devonshire from manuscripts 
 preserved at Lismore Castle. 
 
 The first five of these volumes contain the Earl of Cork's
 
 PREFACE xi 
 
 diary from the year 1 6 1 1 to his death. The other volumes, 
 which constitute the second series, contain letters to the Earl 
 from his family and friends, with, in many cases, drafts of 
 his replies. 
 
 Lord Cork also wrote a short autobiography of which he 
 was evidently proud, as manuscript copies of it appear to 
 have been circulated among his friends, and are found in many 
 collections, under the name of ' The Earl of Cork's True 
 Remembrances.' It carries his history up to the year 1632. 
 
 The autobiographies of his children, Robert Boyle, and 
 Mary, Countess of Warwick, the Life of Lord Orrery, by 
 Morrice, and the Lives of the Boyles, by Budgell ; the Carew 
 MSS., the Betham MSS., the Domestic State Papers and State 
 Papers for Ireland, Stafford's Letters, the Verney Memoirs, the 
 contemporary Pacata Hibernia, and the eighteenth-century 
 History of the County and City of Cork, by Dr. Charles Smith 
 (edit. 1893), with Caulfield's Council Book of Toughal, and 
 Dr. Hayman's Handbook, all help to fill any gaps left in the 
 diary, and offer such a wealth of material to the student that 
 the task of selection is well-nigh hopeless. 
 
 A sketch of the Great Earl's life and a series of beautiful 
 portraits of the Boyle family will be found in the Orrery 
 Papers, lately brought out by the Countess of Cork and 
 Orrery. Her volumes carry the history of the first Earl's 
 descendants to the end of the eighteenth century. 
 
 The spelling of the extracts from contemporary records in 
 the following pages has, in most cases, been modernised. The 
 Earl himself thought spelling a matter of so little importance 
 that he would spell the same word in half a dozen different 
 ways on a single page of his diary ; it therefore seems most 
 convenient to present his writings in a form that may let them 
 be easily read by the general public. Antiquarians have the
 
 xii LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 most important of the originals ready to their hand in 
 Dr. Grosart's folios. 
 
 I beg to return my best thanks to the Duke of Devonshire 
 for his kindness in permitting me to have portraits at Lismore 
 and Hardwick photographed ; to Lord Frederick Fitzgerald 
 for his leave to copy the portrait of Lord Kildare in possession 
 of the Duke of Leinster at Carton ; to Lord Barrymore for 
 permission to photograph the portrait of Lady Broghill at 
 Fota ; and to Lady Cork for allowing me to take the portraits 
 of the first Countess of Cork and the. first Earl of Orrery 
 from her Orrery Papers. I have also to thank Mr. James 
 Penrose for his help in arranging for copying the Lismore 
 pictures. 
 
 I wish also to express my sincere gratitude to the Earl of 
 Shannon for the loan of books, and to Dr. Copinger for the 
 loan of manuscript copies of the Earl of Cork's will and of 
 his septpartite conveyance of property. Among many generous 
 helpers in my work I have especially to thank the Rev. E. 
 Barry, P.P., Mr. James Coleman, Mr. Denham Franklin, 
 and Mr. C. M. Tennison for much useful archaeological and 
 genealogical information. 
 
 I have also to thank Mr. J. H. Ingram for the information, 
 given while these sheets are passing through the press, that 
 Richard Boyle was educated at the King's School, Canterbury, 
 entering it in 1580. His brother John had entered it in 
 1578.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE, . . ... . . . v 
 
 I. FORTUNE MY FOE, . . . . . i 
 
 ii. TACATA HIBERNIA; . . . . . is 
 
 III. A NEW MUNSTER, . ' 36 
 
 IV. A FAMILY PARTY, 47 
 
 V. A MUNSTER RULER, 70 
 
 VI. AT THE COURT OF THE BRITISH SOLOMON, . -. 84 
 
 VII. IN A SEAPORT TOWN, . '. . . . 99 
 
 VIII. A MUNSTER MANSION, 126 
 
 IX. MARRIAGES OF CONVENIENCE, . . . .143 
 
 X. VANITY FAIR, . . . . . .160 
 
 XI. THE LORD JUSTICE, . . . . 177 
 
 XII. THE GREAT LORD DEPUTY, . . . '. 195 
 
 XIII. THE LORD JUSTICE'S SONS-IN-LAW, . . 215 
 
 XIV. THE REIGN OF THOROUGH, . . . .236 
 XV. MY LORD DUNGARVAN, . . .248 
 
 XVI. THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL, . . 262 
 
 XVII. A HAVEN OF REFUGE, . . . .288 
 
 xiii
 
 xiv LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XVIII. ETON GENTLEMEN, ... .306 
 
 XIX. SAVOY WEDDINGS, .... -329 
 
 XX. THE OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT, . .351 
 
 XXI. GATHERING CLOUDS, ... .369 
 
 XXII. THE EARL'S SONS, 388 
 
 XXIII. AT BAY, 412 
 
 XXIV. RESTORATION, 443 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 I. THE BOYLE ESTATES IN MUNSTER, . . .455 
 
 II. SEPTPARTITE INDENTURE, 468 
 
 III. WILL OF THE EARL OF CORK, . . . .470 
 
 INDEX, 509
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 RICHARD BOYLE, FIRST EARL OF CORK. (FROM THE PORTRAIT IN 
 
 POSSESSION OF THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE AT HARDWICK), Frontispiece 
 
 AT PAGE 
 
 KATHERINE FENTON, SECOND WIFE OF THE FIRST EARL 
 OF CORK. (FROM THE PORTRAIT OWNED BY THE EARL OF 
 CORK AND ORRERY AT MARSTON BIGGOTT), 33 
 
 TOMB ERECTED BY THE EARL OF CORK IN ST. PATRICK'S 
 
 CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN, 209 
 
 (The upper figure is Dean Weston, Chancellor of Ireland. Below 
 him kneel Sir Geoffrey and Lady Fenton. Next are recumbent figures 
 of the Earl and Countess of Cork, with their four elder sons kneeling. 
 At the base kneel six of their daughters, with a small effigy of the 
 youngest son, Robert, between them.) 
 
 Photograph by W. Lawrence and Son, Dublin. 
 GEORGE, SIXTEENTH EARL OF KILDARE. (FROM THE PORTRAIT 
 
 OWNED BY THE DUKE OF LEINSTER AT CARTON), . : . 215 
 
 Photograph by W. Lawrence and Son, Dublin. 
 ROGER, BARON BROGHILL, AFTERWARDS EARL OF ORRERY. 
 
 (FROM THE PORTRAIT AT MARSTON BlGGOTT), . . . .232 
 
 RICHARD, VISCOUNT DUNGARVAN, AFTERWARDS EARL OF 
 CORK AND BURLINGTON. (FROM THE VANDYKE PORTRAIT 
 
 OWNED BY THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE AT LlSMORE), . . . 248 
 
 Photograph by Guy, Cork.
 
 xvi LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 AT PAGE 
 
 ELIZABETH, VISCOUNTESS DUNGARVAN, AFTERWARDS 
 COUNTESS OF CORK AND BURLINGTON, DAUGHTER 
 AND CO-HEIR OF HENRY CLIFFORD, EARL OF CUMBERLAND. 
 (FROM THE VANDYKE PORTRAIT AT LISMORE), .... 256 
 
 Photograph by Guy, Cork. 
 
 ROBERT BOYLE. (FROM THE VANDYKE PORTRAIT AT LISMORE), . 306 
 Photograph by Guy, Cork. 
 
 MARGARET, LADY BROGHILL, DAUGHTER OF THEOPHILUS 
 HOWARD, EARL OF SUFFOLK. (FROM THE LELY PORTRAIT OWNED 
 BY LORD BARRYMORE AT FOTA), 349 
 
 Photograph by Guy, Cork. 
 TOMB OF THE FIRST EARL OF CORK, AT YOUGHAL, WITH 
 
 RECUMBENT FIGURE OF HIMSELF, HIS FIRST AND SECOND WIVES 
 KNEELING AT HEAD AND FOOT ; ALSO RECUMBENT FIGURE OF 
 
 LADY FENTON, 44z 
 
 MAP, 507
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FORTUNE MY FOE 
 15881599 
 
 * Fortune my foe, why dost thou frown on me, 
 And will thy favours never greater be ? 
 Wilt thou, I say, for ever breed me pain, 
 And wilt thou not restore my joys again ? ' 
 
 Old Song : Bag ford Collects, 
 
 IT was midsummer eve in the year 1588. On the Devon coasts 
 anxious eyes were straining to see the sails of the Spanish 
 Armada, black against the sunset ; and away in Ireland the 
 Lord Deputy was watching with even keener anxiety, lest any 
 of the Irish chieftains whom he had threatened or bribed into 
 submission should raise the flag of rebellion and welcome the 
 Spanish invaders into the country. 
 
 On that ominous midsummer eve, a young Englishman 
 landed in Dublin, coming, as he said, ' to seek his fortune in 
 a foreign land.' Foreign indeed were the sights that met eyes 
 used only to the peaceful hop-gardens of Kent and the vener- 
 able courts of Cambridge. The walls of Dublin were manned, 
 as in time of war, with sentries watching lest Irish freebooters 
 should carry their raids up to the very gates of the capital, and 
 out through the gates were marching the stiff ranks of English 
 pikemen, despatched to struggle through bogs and woodlands 
 in chase of the agile Irish kerns who scorned their clumsy 
 antagonists. High before the stranger as he landed towered
 
 2 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 the purple mountains that girdle Dublin Bay, whose glens and 
 moorlands were battle-grounds whence sometimes the English 
 soldiers brought back Irish heads to blacken on the walls of 
 Dublin Castle, and whence sometimes they never returned at 
 all, swallowed up in the labyrinth of greenwood that kept the 
 secret of their fate too well. 
 
 Even within the protecting walls of Dublin, the crowd 
 must have struck the newcomer as strangely foreign : the in- 
 evitable old Irish beggar-women, minstrels, and jesters loiter- 
 ing wrapped in their great mantles, with their tangled hair 
 half hiding their keen Celtic faces minstrels or spies, who 
 knows which they were, probably both, and thieves and mur- 
 derers to boot, for they carried long skeens hidden under 
 those convenient cloaks. A stranger had need to walk warily 
 in Dublin in the days of Queen Bess. 
 
 But these loitering rogues were not the only Irishmen he 
 saw as he passed along the narrow streets ; many gallant 
 figures he would meet, wearing English ruffs and jaunty little 
 English cloaks, nobles and gentlemen who had been educated 
 in England, and seemed Englishmen but for a touch of loftier 
 pride and a gleam of wilder wit than were to be met with even 
 in Elizabeth's court : poor and proud, many of them come to 
 Dublin to see if they could raise money on the lands of their 
 forefathers, or bribe some government official to wink at their 
 annexing the lands of their neighbours. 
 
 And these government officials, what a picturesque com- 
 pany they made, headed by burly, overbearing Lord 
 Deputy Perrot, who men whispered had too much the 
 disposition and the face of King Harry the Eighth to have 
 come by the likeness by chance. Then there was the Secretary 
 of State, Sir Geoffrey Fenton, who had seen the massacre of 
 the Spaniards at Smerwick Bay, and who nowadays lightened
 
 FORTUNE MY FOE 3 
 
 his political labours by translating Italian novels and discussing 
 couplets with Ludovic Bryskett, the friend and tutor of Philip 
 Sidney. And to Bryskett's cottage, just outside the city walls, 
 came often Edmund Spenser, riding up from his Munster 
 hermitage to compare sonnets with his host and talk over the 
 plan of the Faery ^ueen with Sir Geoffrey, and perhaps to tell 
 tales of his wild Irish neighbours to the veteran St. Leger, who 
 lived hard by. 
 
 The keen eye of the young newcomer, Richard Boyle, 
 must have watched the shifting pageant of Dublin life with 
 some anxiety, for his purse held but twenty-seven pounds, 
 three shillings, and at home in England were two sisters who 
 depended on him ; so it behoved him to catch Dame Fortune 
 by the forelock, if he and they were not to starve together. 
 
 Poor though he might be, his father, Roger Boyle, came of 
 a good old family, settled in Herefordshire since the days of 
 the Conqueror, and most of the west country squires called 
 them cousin. 1 But Roger Boyle had been a younger son, and 
 bound to earn his living, so he had travelled eastward and 
 settled at Preston near Faversham in Kent, and there he had 
 found a bride, Joan, daughter of Robert Naylor of Canter- 
 bury, and two sons and two daughters were born to them. 
 The second son, Richard, afterwards to be so famous, was born 
 in Canterbury the 3rd of October 1566. He was but a child 
 of ten when Roger Boyle died, leaving his widow little in the 
 world but her four children, and yet a third son to be born soon 
 after the father had been laid in his grave in Preston church. 2 
 
 In spite of her small means, the widowed Mrs. Boyle 
 managed to send her eldest son, John, to Benn't, or Corpus 
 
 1 Humphry de Binvile of Pixeley, Ledbury ; Domesday Book $ Grosart, Lismore 
 Papers, znd series, vol. v. ; Robinson, Mansions of Herefordshire, p. 94. 
 
 2 Hugh, died in the wars in foreign parts unmarried.
 
 4 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Christ! College, Cambridge; and in 1583 when her second 
 boy Richard was seventeen and had learned all the grammar 
 a neighbouring clergyman could teach him, he succeeded in 
 gaining a scholarship at the same college. 
 
 From Cambridge the elder Boyle took holy orders, and 
 Richard was admitted to the Middle Temple, where the Chief 
 Baron of the Exchequer, Sir Richard Manwood, made him his 
 clerk. 
 
 But Richard soon found that neither wealth nor fame were 
 to be gained by drudging at a copying desk, and when his 
 mother's death loosed the only tie that held him to England, 
 he determined in his own words ' to travel into foreign 
 kingdoms and to gain learning, knowledge, and experience, 
 abroad in the world.' 
 
 Never has a new country been opened but young English- 
 men have been the first to explore its resources. A hundred 
 years ago they sailed to the East Indies to shake the Pagoda 
 tree ; to-day they rush to Klondyke or Rhodesia ; in the 
 seventeenth century they started for Ireland. 
 
 For the Ireland in which Boyle had landed was practically 
 a new country, and he knew that there was plenty of work 
 awaiting a pushing young lawyer. The English settlers there 
 were busy suing out their Government grants of land or 
 arranging purchases from the original owners, and when the 
 strong hand of the Government prevented the native chieftains 
 from deciding their differences by hard knocks, they were 
 ready enough to use the English law to ruin each other. 
 
 A part of the island was already occupied by a civilised 
 population who lived in good houses and tilled the soil and 
 engaged to some extent in trade and manufactures, and in 
 these counties English settlers, and Irish nobles who had been 
 educated in England, owned stately castles, and lived much
 
 FORTUNE MY FOE 5 
 
 the same life as ordinary English gentlemen. But these 
 enclosed lands embraced but a small portion of Ireland ; the 
 best part of the country was still covered with primaeval 
 forests, rich in furred beasts and wild honey and valuable 
 timber, or stretched away in unenclosed plains of the greenest 
 pastures in the world, where the cattle of a few half-naked 
 herdsmen ranged at liberty. The Anglicised Irish were few ; 
 the greater number of the small chieftains had little more 
 breeding than the wild tribesmen who boasted to be of their 
 kin and to share their rights over the lands of the clan. 
 Outside civilisation had just penetrated so far as to show these 
 chieftains, that when they could not snatch wealth by the 
 strong hand, or accept it as a bribe, they had an excellent 
 opportunity of making money by selling or mortgaging the 
 lands which too often were not theirs at all, but the property 
 of the tribe at large. Besides these lands offered for sale, the 
 estates forfeited during the frequent rebellions could be pur- 
 chased on easy terms from the Government, and Richard 
 Boyle guessed that he might become a landed squire like his 
 forefathers without needing a very long purse to help him. 
 
 The new country, it is true, could not rival the Kentish 
 hop-gardens, or the Herefordshire orchards, but it boasted 
 rivers rich in salmon and in pearls, seas teeming with fish, and 
 mountains stored with gold and silver, copper and lead ; not, 
 indeed, to be had for the picking up, but only waiting for the 
 right man to come and develop them. 
 
 But although it might be a land of plenty, Ireland was 
 certainly not one of peace. The English settlers had thought 
 it quite a simple matter to decide the fate of those whose 
 forefathers had owned the land : if they were wise, and 
 submissive, the new possessors were ready to have them well 
 dressed in English clothes and taught the English religion and
 
 6 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 made decent and comfortable in English fashion ; if they 
 were so unaccountable as not to appreciate such opportunities 
 for improvement they must go, vanishing as many another 
 noble race has done before the march of an alien civilisation. 
 
 But the native population were neither disposed to alter 
 nor to vanish, and the whole country, when Boyle entered it, 
 was simmering with rebellion. No sooner was an explosion 
 smothered on one hand than it broke out on another. The 
 only distinctly visible leader was the Earl of Tyrone, but any 
 day any chieftain might be found at the head of an Irish 
 rising. English and Irish soldiers alike were half naked and 
 half starved ; and while the wild Irish flayed and mutilated 
 their captives, the English racked their prisoners in Dublin 
 Castle or hung them alive in chains. There was, it seems, but 
 one voice that ventured to protest that massacres were not 
 diplomacy. Sir Geoffrey Fenton told the Queen and Council 
 plainly that affairs in Ireland could not be ' carried on in just 
 rule and frame ' if there were ' too great an antipathy and 
 dissimilitude of humour between a people and their governor.' 1 
 It is well to remember the name of the one humane statesman 
 in Ireland, for Sir Geoffrey was destined in after times to be 
 Richard Boyle's most beloved and trusted counsellor. 
 
 Into this new country came Richard Boyle, a good-looking 
 young fellow of twenty-two, something of a fop in his dress, 
 after the fashion of young men of his time : wearing a new 
 suit of Milan fustian, laced and slashed with taffety, a rapier 
 and dagger by his side, on his wrist a gold bracelet that was 
 worth ten pounds, and two rings on his fingers ; one, a 
 diamond given him by his mother on her deathbed, which he 
 called his lucky ring, and afterwards bequeathed as an heir- 
 loom in his family ; the other a great gold ring given him as a 
 
 1 Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors, iii. 97, 158.
 
 FORTUNE MY FOE 7 
 
 parting present by his godfather, Richard Boyle of Maisemore, 
 emblazoned with the Boyle arms in gules and argent on a 
 crystal. Further wealth he had none but the money in his 
 purse, and, he tells us, ' competent linen and necessaries, two 
 cloaks, a doublet cut upon taffety, and a pair of black velvet 
 breeches.' l To quote his own v/ords again, ' I was but a 
 younger son and a private gentleman ' when ' it pleased the 
 Almighty by His Divine providence to take me, as I may say 
 justly, by the hand, and lead me into Ireland.' 
 
 Probably before settling down to look for work in Dublin, 
 the young man made an expedition into County Meath, for 
 there, in a splendid mansion that in old days had been the 
 Abbey of Mellifont, lived Sir Edward Moore, a gallant 
 Kentish gentleman who had been granted Irish estates in 
 reward for his good services, and whose advice had first 
 turned Richard Boyle's thoughts to Ireland. There Boyle 
 made acquaintance with many fine folks and struck up a 
 special friendship with young Lady Moore, Sir Edward's 
 daughter-in-law. 
 
 On his return to Dublin he found yet another Kentish 
 fellow-countryman, Anthony St. Leger, descended from a 
 former Lord Deputy St. Leger, at whose house he met Sir 
 Anthony's kinsman, the gallant Warham St. Leger, after- 
 wards Lord President of Munster ; so even at his first landing 
 Boyle was not a complete stranger in a new country. 
 
 But at first he had to make his living as best he could, 
 taking odd jobs of copying out memorials, or drawing up 
 cases for more fortunate lawyers ; but before long, his talent 
 and industry made their mark, and he gained the post of 
 Deputy to the Excheator General of Ireland, John Crofton. 
 
 It was indeed a prize for the young man to obtain a 
 
 1 True Remembrances.
 
 8 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 settled position as a Government official, but the work Boyle 
 had to do was not of a sort to increase his popularity. 
 
 The office of the Excheator was to investigate and enforce 
 the feudal claims of the Crown on forfeited lands, lapsed 
 titles, and wardships, and it was natural that those who lost 
 by these demands should be ready to accuse the Excheator's 
 clerk of tyranny and exaction, and hint that those who fared 
 better did so by having bribed Mr. Boyle to stand their 
 friend. They also quickly suggested that Boyle could not 
 have risen in the world so fast simply from his own merits, 
 and that he must have brought forged letters to introduce 
 him to Dublin patrons. Boyle's family friendship with Sir 
 Edward Moore was a very simple answer to this accusation, 
 and he was so little disturbed by the tattle of Dublin gossips, 
 that he decided to make his home in Ireland, and sent over for 
 his sisters to come and join him. The young ladies, however, 
 did not remain long in Dublin ; whether by the good services 
 of St. Leger and Spenser, or by the power of their own 
 charms, they soon found husbands, gentlemen of good pro- 
 perty in the rich south-east corner of Ireland, Mary marry- 
 ing Richard Smyth or Smith of Ballynetra, and Elizabeth, 
 Pierce Power of Lisfinnon Castle. 
 
 Not far from the married homes of the Boyle girls lay the 
 lands that had been granted to Edmund Spenser, and we 
 cannot doubt that it was at Ballynetra or at Lisfinnon that the 
 poet first saw a golden-haired Elizabeth Boyle who came over 
 from her home in Hereford to visit her cousins. There he 
 wooed her with sonnets, and on the sands of Youghal he 
 wrote her name, and at last, in the old cathedral of Cork, 
 she became his wife, and he dedicated to her that glorious 
 Epithalamium to which we cannot but still fancy ' the woods 
 of Mullah answer and their echoes ring.'
 
 FORTUNE MY FOE 9 
 
 But these were Munster pastorals : away in Dublin Richard 
 Boyle's history was less romantic. 
 
 The varied pieces of work that had fallen into his hands 
 had given him clues to a great many secrets of politicians and 
 underhand dealings of their followers, and guilty consciences 
 began to fear that he knew too much for the safety of some 
 people in power. He afterwards admitted quite candidly, 
 that although he had made a collection of papers showing what 
 great abuse and deceits were done her Majesty by a principal 
 officer in the kingdom, he had no intention of making them 
 public. It would have been absurd for a poor and unknown 
 man to start a crusade on behalf of official purity, but when he 
 was attacked he let out a good deal in self-defence that his 
 enemies would have wished to keep concealed. 
 
 However, in 1592 it seemed an easy matter enough to 
 crush this upstart young lawyer who knew too much for the 
 peace of mind of his betters, and Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam 
 threw him into prison on a charge of embezzling records. 
 When questioned, Boyle said simply he thought the Deputy 
 had some other purpose ; and certainly the accusation gave 
 a convenient pretext for rummaging through Boyle's private 
 papers, the search being committed to a man named Crosbie, 
 who soon afterwards appeared in open rebellion against the 
 English. When this very respectable agent had secured the 
 documents incriminating his employers, Boyle was let out of 
 prison on bail, but he was soon after rearrested on a variety of 
 charges, ranging from having stolen a horse nine years before 
 to being in the pay of the King of Spain ! 
 
 He gives his own version of these proceedings in his 'True 
 Remembrances. He says, ' When God had blessed me with 
 a reasonable fortune and estate, Sir Henry Wallop, Sir Robert 
 Gardiner, Chief Justice of the King, and Sir R. Bingham,
 
 io LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Chief Commissioner of Connaught, being displeased at some 
 purchase I made in the province, all joined together by their 
 lies, complaining against me to Queen Elizabeth.' 
 
 He was accused of having kept a wardship in his own 
 hands ; to which he answered that the ward was granted to 
 him in reward for his services, and was killed in rebellion 
 before he had profited ^10 by him. It was further said that 
 about 1594, one Rawson had failed to get his grant of land 
 passed to him till he had paid such heavy bribes to Boyle that 
 he found it cheaper to sell all the lands to Boyle outright 
 for a very low price, and that when the council in England 
 sent two letters to inquire into the case, Boyle bribed the 
 messenger, Deane, with an annuity, to tear up the letters, and 
 further gave Rawson a gold hat-band and eighteen gold and 
 pearl buttons as a pledge that he would pay him ^100 to con- 
 ceal the matter ; of which 100 he afterwards cozened Rawson. 
 Boyle replied that Rawson had been discontented with certain 
 lands granted to him, and had sold them to him in the ordinary 
 way of business. It was true that letters from the English 
 council had been destroyed, but the deed was done by Sir 
 R. Gardiner's follower Deane, who was then encouraged by 
 Sir Henry Wallop to join with Rawson in laying the blame 
 on Boyle and blackmailing him, till friends urged Boyle to 
 pay them their demands and get leave to go home in peace. 
 
 The peace he bought was not worth much. He was soon 
 after thrown into prison for alleged contempt of court in not 
 having entered his appearance in the council-book, and three 
 other several times he was imprisoned on equally frivolous 
 charges. 
 
 All these accusations and counter-accusations are pro- 
 foundly uninteresting. Few people would care to ask with 
 how much mud one obscure person spattered another obscure
 
 FORTUNE MY FOE 11 
 
 person in the year 1592, were it not that some modern 
 historians have implied that Boyle's early career was blackened 
 by many unspecified crimes, and it is therefore well to rake 
 up the old dust-heap for once and see how shabby and how 
 unsupported the accusations against him were. 
 
 They say 'Love laughs at locksmiths.' Certain it is that 
 in spite of imprisonment and examinations, Boyle found liberty 
 and leisure enough during these troubled years to woo and 
 win a wife for himself, and to gain a larger estate by love than 
 he ever did by law. There was a certain Mr. Apsley or 
 Annesley people were quite indifferent in those days as to 
 how names were spelt, and apparently as to how they were 
 pronounced ; this gentleman, however his name was spelt, was 
 a wealthy landowner in Limerick, and had two daughters, who, 
 on the drowning of his only son, became co-heiresses of their 
 father's estates. It was said by gossips that young Apsley had 
 drowned himself, and that the suicide's property should have 
 escheated to the Queen as his feudal superior, had not Boyle 
 made himself useful to the Apsleys by concealing the real 
 manner of the young man's death ; but as the English council 
 afterwards heard this charge, and laid no claim to the estates, 
 it is probably only another of the lies that were invented to 
 discredit Boyle. 
 
 One of Mr. Apsley's daughters had carried the estates of 
 the Hospital or Preceptory of Awney, a foundation of the 
 Knights of St. John in County Limerick, into the family of 
 Sir Valentine Browne, one of the commissioners for settling 
 Munster land grants. 1 The other daughter, Joan, the heiress 
 
 1 There are differing accounts of the first owners of Hospital. Miss Hickson says 
 the family of Brown were of old Anglo-Irish descent and hereditary wardens of 
 Awney, and a Brown heiress brought the estates to Sir Thomas Browne, whose son 
 John married Barbara, niece of Richard Boyle. Ireland in Seventeenth Century, ii. 96.
 
 12 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 of Galbally, it is said, was ' charmed by Mr. Boyle's conversa- 
 tion, and although her fortune was vastly superior to his, her 
 indulgent father suffered them to marry.' l This marriage, 
 as Boyle wrote, ' was the beginning of his fortune.' Her lands 
 of Galbally were worth five hundred a year, and he suddenly 
 found himself a well-to-do country gentleman, and connected 
 with half the great people of Munster. 
 
 Yet fortune was still his foe : this gleam of prosperity was 
 but a rift in the clouds. He married in 1595, and had one 
 short year of married happiness ; then his young wife was laid 
 in Buttevant church with her dead baby beside her. 
 
 Joan bequeathed all her property to her husband, but he 
 had only obtained this time of comparative freedom by leaving 
 bail for his return to Dublin, and on her death he was obliged 
 to surrender himself there. He was at once committed to 
 prison, where he remained till Burgh the Lord Deputy died, 
 when the Council said Boyle's fate was no business of theirs, 
 and he therefore assumed there was no reason for his remaining 
 in jail any longer, and so departed home ! 
 
 He tells us that he had by that time realised that his only 
 chance of peace would be to go into England and justify 
 himself at headquarters ; but his plans for the future were taken 
 out of his hands, for in October 1698 'the general rebellion 
 of Munster broke out, all my lands were wasted as I could 
 say I had not one penny of certain revenue left me, to the 
 unspeakable danger and hazard of my life, yet God preserved 
 me, as I recovered Dingle and got shipping there which trans- 
 ported me to Bristol.' 
 
 The outburst of the rebellion, strange to say, seems to 
 have been quite unexpected and found the English of Munster 
 totally unprepared to defend themselves ; although they were 
 
 i Birch.
 
 FORTUNE MY FOE 13 
 
 quite aware that the Deputy was put to it to hold his own in 
 Ulster against the Earl of Tyrone, and that the Munster Irish 
 whose estates had been forfeited in former wars were only 
 waiting their chance to rise and recover their property. This 
 chance came suddenly. The English army in the north 
 suffered a crushing defeat, and Bagnal its leader was slain. 
 Instantly Leinster sprang to arms, the south followed suit, and 
 ' the English settlement of Munster melted away like a 
 dream/ l Spenser and his wife escaped with their bare lives 
 from the flames of Kilcolman Castle, but one child perished in 
 the fire, and all their worldly wealth was lost. When every one 
 fled, bail or no bail, Boyle naturally fled too. It is really 
 laughable to find such an escape spoken of as ' breaking bail,' 
 and if Boyle was a malefactor it is certainly odd that he should 
 have chosen the Queen's court as his place of refuge ! 
 
 When the Munster refugees reached England, they had 
 to turn where they could for a living. The storm was so 
 sudden that even those with money laid by, or with rich and 
 powerful friends, were unprovided for their immediate needs, 
 and Spenser died, if not absolutely of want, yet in the ex- 
 tremity of poverty. Even Boyle's courage failed. It seemed 
 vain to fight longer against fortune : his wife was dead, her 
 lands lost, there was nothing to call him back to Ireland, and 
 he had made up his mind to return to his old drudgery as a 
 clerk of the Temple, when his happy star brought him into 
 the company of an old acquaintance of his undergraduate days, 
 Anthony Bacon, and Bacon knew where a man from Ireland 
 would be welcome, and introduced him to the Earl of Essex. 
 Essex was at this time at the topmost height of court and 
 popular favour ; he had wrung from the Queen her consent 
 to his expedition to Ireland as ' general of our gracious 
 
 1 Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudor s, iii. 304.
 
 i 4 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Empress,' and was now in the full tide of preparation. Lack 
 of confidence in himself was never one of Essex's failings, yet 
 even he was ready to hear the experiences of a shrewd man 
 just back from that distressful country, and Boyle never forgot 
 how * his lordship very nobly received me.' Essex at once 
 gave him work to do in * issuing out his patent and commis- 
 sion for the government of Ireland,' and Boyle's Dublin 
 enemies saw with dismay that the storms they had hoped 
 would swamp him had only driven him to a safe harbourage 
 in Essex House. 
 
 ' Sir Henry Wallop,' Boyle writes, ' being conscious in his 
 heart that I had sundry papers and collections of Michael 
 Kettlewell's, his late under-treasurer, which might discover a 
 great deal of wrong and abuse done to the Queen in his late 
 accounts' (it seems that Crosbie had not secured all the 
 dangerous documents when he ransacked Boyle's papers), ' and 
 suspecting if I were countenanced by the Earl of Essex that I 
 would bring these things to light, although I vow to God until 
 I was provoked I had no thought of it, yet he, to utterly 
 suppress me, renewed his former complaints against me.' 
 
 So just when Boyle was beginning to draw breath from his 
 misfortunes, he was once more suddenly attacked and conveyed 
 close prisoner 1 to the Gatehouse and all his papers seized. 
 There in prison he remained till the Earl of Essex was gone to 
 Ireland, and for two months after ; and now Wallop could 
 not doubt that he had Boyle at his mercy ! Essex was safe 
 out of the way, and Boyle's friends, witnesses, and relations, 
 all were far across the sea, either reduced to poverty or fighting 
 for their lives against the rebels. 
 
 But Boyle's courage and resource were not yet at an end : 
 he was fighting with his back against the wall, and driven from 
 one great person to another, he boldly appealed to the highest,
 
 FORTUNE MY FOE 15 
 
 * and with much suit I obtained the favour of her sacred 
 Majesty to be present at my answers.' 
 
 The old accusations were now all brought up against him 
 anew, and so ingeniously arranged, as to make it to the 
 Queen's interest to decide against the prisoner. If he were 
 proved guilty, it might be possible for the crown to be the 
 richer by fines to the amount of 2700, and the best part of 
 the Apsley estates. For lack of his papers and his witnesses 
 it was only possible for Boyle to meet many of the counts by 
 a simple denial ; but he made his denial boldly and forcibly 
 enough to be heard, and carried the war into the enemy's 
 country by declaring he could reveal embezzlements by the 
 treasurer 1 that would advantage her Majesty 40,000 ! And 
 ' if ever,' he ended, * I had or corruptly received of Harry 
 Chamberlain any horse, let me be hanged, and if ever I com- 
 pounded to make a benefit by granting any of her Majesty's 
 lands, I am content to be hanged, drawn and quartered.' 2 
 
 Did the great Queen's thoughts fly back to the day 
 when, young and friendless, she wrote on the window at 
 
 Woodstock : 
 
 Much accused by me, 
 Can nothing proved be, 
 Quoth Elysabeth prisoner. 
 
 Perhaps some memory of those days may have returned to 
 awake sympathy for the prisoner who was holding his own 
 against the world, with nothing but his wit and courage to 
 back him. At any rate when Boyle ended his appeal, having, 
 he declares, ' fully answered and cleared all their objections 
 and delivered such full and evident justifications for my own 
 acquittal,' the Queen swore a royal oath, ' By God's death, 
 
 1 Sir H. Wallop. 
 
 2 Betham MSS., quoted in Ware's History of Ireland, i. 618, also Add. MSS., 19,832, 
 f. 6 . . ia.
 
 1 6 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 these are but inventions against this young man, and all his 
 sufferings are for being able to do us service, and these com- 
 plaints urged to forestall him therein, but WE find him a man 
 fit to be employed by ourselves, and WE will employ him in 
 our service, and Wallop and his adherents shall know that it 
 shall not be in the power of any of them to wrong him, neither 
 shall Wallop be our treasurer any longer.' 'And hereupon,' 
 continues Boyle, ' directed her speech to her Lords in her 
 Council these presents, and commanded them presently to 
 give her the names of six men out of whom she might choose 
 one to be Treasurer of Ireland, her election falling upon 
 Sir George Carew of Cockington. And the Queen arose 
 from Council and gave order not only for my present enlarge- 
 ment, but also discharging all my charges and fees during my 
 restraints, and gave me her royal hand to kiss, which I did 
 heartily, humbly thanking God for that great deliverance.' 
 
 Can anything be more romantic since the days of Aventine 
 and the Fair One with the Golden Locks ! And, as the 
 proper end in a fairy tale, the handsome hero, delivered from 
 prison, was commanded to come to court. ' And it was not 
 many days before her Highness was pleased to bestow upon me 
 the offer of Clerk of the Council of Munster, and to recom- 
 mend me over to Sir George Carew.' 
 
 Boyle's rise was so sudden and unexpected that it cannot 
 be wondered that he devoutly believed that Providence had 
 indeed taken him by the hand. Not one misfortune had he 
 sustained that had not really worked for his good. If he had 
 succeeded at the Temple, he would have lived the life of an 
 ordinary London lawyer, but his failure sent him to Ireland : 
 there he might have settled down as a comfortable country 
 gentleman but for the rebellion that drove him to England ; 
 and in England he might have been forgotten but for the
 
 FORTUNE MY FOE 17 
 
 persecution of his enemies obliging him to appeal to the 
 Queen. Even the imprisonment that prevented him following 
 Essex to Ireland also prevented his sharing Essex's fall, and 
 kept him in England till he could begin his new career under 
 the patronage of a much safer friend than Essex, the wise 
 and valiant George Carew, a courtier who knew how to keep 
 the Queen's favour to the day of her death, and a soldier 
 whose stubborn courage wearied out even the spirits of Irish 
 insurgents.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 'PACATA HIBERNIA' 
 1599 I ^ I 
 
 ' Were now the general of our gracious Empress 
 (As in good time he may) from Ireland coming 
 Bringing rebellion broached on his sword . . .' 
 
 Henry V.> Act v. 
 
 WHEN Boyle landed in Kerry as Clerk to the Munster 
 Council, he was no richer in coined money than when he 
 fled to England at the outbreak of the rebellion. But he had 
 arrived in England as a fugitive, a ruined landowner, and a 
 prisoner who had broken bail ; he returned to Ireland buoyed 
 up by the hopes and ambitions of the men who were resolved 
 to create a new Munster. The history of the way in which 
 they pacified Ireland was told by Carew himself in his Pacata 
 Hibernia? and although there are but two allusions to Boyle 
 by name in that brilliant narrative, it makes us realise, as no 
 other book but the Faery >ueen can do, in what sort of times 
 Boyle lived, what manner of men were his comrades, and 
 under what teacher he learned the art of government. 
 
 This Munster war was but a fresh outbreak of the flames 
 that had been smouldering there since the time of the great 
 Desmond rebellion, and now had wakened to fresh life at 
 the call of Tyrone and Red Hugh O'Donnell from Ulster. 
 
 1 Pacata Hibernia was published under the name of Carew's son, Sir Thomas 
 Stafford, but Boyle always speaks of it as Carew's book. 
 18
 
 'PACATA HIBERNIA' 19 
 
 The English had hoped that Munster was pacified, when, 
 sixteen years before, the luckless old Earl of Desmond had 
 been run to ground by the English in a herdsman's hut, and 
 his silver head struck off and sent to blacken on London 
 Bridge. His only son, young James Fitzgerald, could see it 
 plain enough from the window of the prison in the Tower 
 where he was kept caged from his childhood. The poor boy 
 was the Queen's godson, and as the true representative of the 
 great Desmond name was a valuable piece of property, so the 
 Queen saw that he was carefully educated, though he was as 
 carefully kept a prisoner. 
 
 But away in Munster the Desmond clan cared little for 
 the death of one earl or the imprisonment of his heir ; a fresh 
 head of the family was found in ' the Sugan Earl,' as he was 
 derisively called, ' the Earl of Straw,' who had neither money 
 nor wit, and was but a straw-puppet for the wily Earl of 
 Tyrone to use as he chose. Yet against this puppet the 
 resources of the English in Ireland were taxed to the utter- 
 most, for behind him stood a greater than Tyrone the 
 shadowy form of Philip of Spain. ' Spain,' said a candid 
 Spanish captain to one of Carew's officers, ' Spain owes Eng- 
 land something for encouraging the rebels in the Netherlands. 
 Ireland matters little to us, but we like to pay our debts.' 
 
 In July 1599 Carew, the Lord President of Munster, 'my 
 faithful George,' as the Queen called him, was threatening the 
 Irish fortress of Carrigfoyle in Kerry; and there Richard Boyle 
 joined him, and did not come empty-handed, for he writes : 
 * I bought of Sir Walter Ralegh his ship called the Pilgrim, 
 with which I took a freight of ammunition and victuals, and 
 came in her myself by long seas.' 
 
 At Carrigfoyle Boyle took the oath of his office, and was, 
 he says, ' made Justice and Quorum through the Province.
 
 20 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 And this was my second rise that God gave me to my fortune. 
 As Clerk to the Council I attended my Lord President in all 
 his employments.' 
 
 Very varied employments these were, and although Boyle 
 was too prudent to record his share in them, we may be 
 assured that he helped Carew to choose the russet jerkins 
 which enabled his soldiers to steal over the hillsides unobserved 
 by their keen-sighted enemy; that he was present at the secret 
 meetings, and wrote the secret letters by which Carew sowed 
 dissension between the jealous Irish chieftains ; that he drafted 
 the terms of negotiation with the Spanish invaders and rode 
 near the Lord President when he surveyed the fortifications of 
 Dunboy and was nearly carried off by a cannon-ball. Boyle 
 had not, however, the glory of entering on his duties at the 
 storm of a fortress, for strictly speaking the Lord President 
 did not lay siege to Carrigfoyle at all. Its keeper was wise 
 enough to take warning by the storm of the Castle of Glyn, 
 five miles off, and surrendering his post, was richly rewarded, 
 and kept his oath till a convenient opportunity arrived for 
 breaking it. 
 
 And so the Munster campaign dragged on. The Irish 
 swore and were forsworn. They broke their word to Spain, 
 to England, to each other. They fought like heroes and lied 
 like Cretans, and still the grim figure of Carew moved for- 
 wards, negotiating, bribing, fighting, and at last annihilating, 
 without haste and without rest. And through the dripping 
 woods of oak and arbutus and yew, up glens knee-deep in 
 Osmunda fern and across moorlands knee-deep in heather or 
 in snow, the russet-clad English soldiers dragged their guns, 
 till one grey robber fortress after another surrendered or 
 was stormed, and now stands forgotten, an empty shell over- 
 looking an empty sea.
 
 'PACATA HIBERNIA' 21 
 
 And all this time, this same grim Lord President Carew 
 was writing back sentimental letters to her Majesty at Green- 
 wich. ' When I compare the felicities which other men enjoy, 
 with my unfortunate destiny to be deprived of the sight of 
 your royal person ... I live like one lost to himself and 
 wither out my days in torment of mind ! ' The rough draft 
 of this effusion among Carew's papers is even more ecstatic and 
 gives ' divine ' person instead of ' royal ' person ! 
 
 And the Queen answers : 'My faithful George, how joyed 
 we are that so good event hath followed so toilsome endeavour, 
 laborious cares and heedful travails you may guess, but we can 
 best witness, and do protest that your safety hath equalled 
 the most thereof,' and so on, epistle after epistle ! Ralegh 
 cynically comments on Elizabeth's tenderness : ' The Queen 
 thinks she wants George Carew. Let her have George 
 Carew ! ' 
 
 Indeed valentines are cold compared to such correspond- 
 ence, and yet these preposterous compliments do not strike 
 one as entirely insincere. During her long reign Elizabeth 
 had set herself to personify England with such success that 
 in addressing her Grace with religious fervour, her subjects 
 merely felt they were using the ordinary language of loyalty 
 and piety. Britannia had not then taken her place upon our 
 pennies. In the sixteenth century there was no need for a 
 helmeted lady with a trident to typify England, and poets 
 hymned the c Virgin throned by the West ' with a fervour 
 that in our less romantic days seems to verge on absurdity, 
 if not on impropriety, and felt no shame. 
 
 In the year 1600 the Queen determined to try if it would be 
 possible to make use of the feelings of loyalty usually cherished 
 by the Irish for their hereditary chieftains, to pacify the 
 unhappy country. Young James of Desmond was brought
 
 22 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 out of the Tower and received at Court, and then despatched 
 to Carew under the charge of a sober, discreet gentleman, 
 Captain Price, to see if a boy earl might not be as much to 
 the taste of the Munster Geraldines as an Earl of Straw 
 But although the poor bird was let out of his cage in pre- 
 tended liberty, Carew had him by a leash, and was given 
 absolute power by Cecil either to make him or mar him as 
 would be most to the English interest. Boyle had an 
 important part to play in this experiment, but he discreetly 
 left it to Carew to relate as much of the secret service 
 business as he thought well, and said no word himself of his 
 employments. 
 
 As soon as young Desmond arrived in Ireland Carew put 
 him under Boyle's care, and knowing that the Clerk of the 
 Council would keep a sharp watch on such an important 
 charge, ventured to let the young Earl leave the English 
 headquarters and travel into the disturbed districts to try his 
 fortunes among his own people. Boyle preserved no private 
 record of this journey. He reported only to Carew, and it is 
 only Carew's words that tell the story. 1 
 
 * The President, to make trial of the disposition and affec- 
 tion of the young Earl's kindred and followers, at his desire 
 consented that he should make a journey from Moyallo 2 into 
 the county of Limerick, accompanied with the Archbishop of 
 Cashell and Master Boyle, Clerk of the Council (a person 
 whom the Lord President did repose much trust and con- 
 fidence in, and with whom he then communicated and advised 
 about his most secret and serious affairs of government); and 
 to Master Boyle his lordship gave secret charge, as well to 
 observe the Earl's ways and secret carriage, as what men of 
 quality and others made their address to him : and with what 
 
 1 Pacata Hibernia, edit. 1633, p. 91. 2 Mallow.
 
 'PACATA HIBERNIA' 23 
 
 respects and behaviour they carried themselves towards the 
 Earl : who came to Kilmallock upon a Saturday in the evening, 
 and by the way and at their entry into the town there was a 
 mighty concourse of people insomuch as all the streets, doors 
 and windows, yea, the very gutters and tops of the houses, 
 were so filled with them, as if they came to see him that 
 God had sent to be that comfort and delight their souls and 
 hearts most desired, and they welcomed him with all the 
 expressions and signs of joy, every one throwing upon him 
 wheat and salt (an ancient ceremony used in that province 
 upon the election of their new mayors and officers as a 
 prediction of fulness, peace, and plenty). That night the 
 Earl was invited to supper at Sir George Thornton's, who 
 then kept his house in the town of Kilmallock, and altho' the 
 Earl had a guard of soldiers who made a lane from his 
 lodgings to Sir George Thornton's house, yet the confluence 
 of people that flocked thither to see him was so great as in 
 half an hour he could not make his passage thro' the crowd; 
 and after supper he had the like encounters at his return to 
 his lodging. The next day being Sunday the Earl went to 
 church to hear divine service, and all the way his country 
 people used loud and rude dehortations to keep him from 
 church, unto which he lent a deaf ear : but after service and 
 the sermon was ended, the Earl coming forth of the church 
 was railed at and spit upon by those that before his going to 
 church were so desirous to see and salute him : insomuch as 
 after that public expression of his religion the town was 
 cleared of that multitude of strangers, and the Earl from 
 henceforth might walk as quietly and freely in the town, as 
 little in effect followed or regarded as any other private 
 gentleman.' 
 
 That Sunday decided the future of the Queen's Earl. He
 
 24 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 had no inducements to remain in his native land, and having 
 been, Carew says, ' tenderly brought up in England, he did 
 not well agree with the manners and customs of Ireland ' (one 
 is thankful to hear the tender mercies of the Tower of London 
 had been so great) ; and being also bitterly disappointed at 
 ' seeing how much he was deceived in his hopes, he desired the 
 Lord President to give him leave to go into England, which 
 the President readily did,' being much disgusted that the poor 
 pawn had proved of no use in his game. James of Desmond 
 gladly turned his back on his native land, his intriguing 
 relations, and alienated clansmen ; but the doom of the 
 Geraldines was on him, and the only home he found in Eng- 
 land was under the English sod. Possibly the hardships of 
 his life in Ireland had been too great for the town-bred youth 
 to survive for many months, but most men believe that scene at 
 Kilmallock church was the deathblow of the last Desmond as 
 surely as if his clansmen had stabbed him with their daggers. 
 
 In reading the records of those times, it is startling to 
 discover that James of Desmond is not by any means the only 
 Elizabethan who died of a broken heart. We picture them 
 to ourselves as unscrupulous, reckless soldiers, as hard as iron, 
 and as insensible as a millstone ; and yet we find, among 
 many others, a Lord Deputy of Ireland, Burgh, who died of 
 grief at the loss of a foster-brother who had rescued him 
 in battle at the cost of his life ; Sir Thomas Norris, President 
 of Munster, who was believed to have died of disappointed 
 ambitions ; and, perhaps saddest of all, young Roger Hervey, 
 Carew's cousin and right-hand man, who died at Baltimore, 
 ' his heart being overwhelmed with an inundation of sorrow 
 and discontent ' at some blame laid on him by the Lord 
 Deputy for the mismanagement of his artillery. Do not 
 these passionate Renaissance figures breathe the very atmo-
 
 'P AC ATA HIBERNIA' 25 
 
 sphere of Shakespeare's plays ? Alas ! it was even whispered 
 that Measure for Measure had been played in real earnest 
 in Munster, and the Lord President had taken the part of 
 Angelo. 
 
 Fortunately Boyle was made of tougher fibre than his 
 contemporaries : he bent before the tempests that broke them, 
 and rose again triumphantly when the danger was past, and 
 all he had to do with tragedies was to pay actors to perform 
 them before him in the hall of his country house. 
 
 The Deputy and Carew had little time to regret the failure 
 of young Desmond to pacify Ireland, for a greater danger was 
 before them. In September 1601 tidings came that a Spanish 
 fleet was on the sea, and that Tyrone and Red Hugh 
 O'Donnell were hurrying from the north to join their foreign 
 allies. 
 
 The Spaniards established themselves at Kinsale, and the 
 English leaders gathered what forces they could, and, encamp- 
 ing on the landward side of the town, while Captain Button 
 guarded the entrance to the harbour, proceeded to besiege the 
 invaders, although the English troops died off like flies in 
 the wet Irish winter. Tyrone was an experienced soldier, and 
 was well satisfied to let ' General November ' fight his battles 
 for him ; but the climate suited the invaders as little as it did 
 the English. The fiery Spaniards despised Tyrone's waiting 
 game, and so persistently urged him to strike a decisive blow 
 that at last he was obliged to yield to their desires and, against 
 his own better judgment, offer battle to the deputy. 
 
 The Irish army was more hopeful than its general, and as 
 they advanced, the soldiers were chiefly busy in discussing 
 how they should dispose of the prisoners they were presently 
 to take. But they found too soon ,that the English, whom 
 they had imagined disabled by famine and sickness, were still
 
 26 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 very ready to fight, and had, as usually happened, been 
 warned by a traitor of the Irish intentions. Without waiting 
 for Tyrone's advance, the deputy's troops charged, led by 
 Lord Clanrickard and Marshal Wingfield. The Irish, unpre- 
 pared for their attack, resisted but for a short time, and then 
 turned and fled, many of them being so carried away by panic 
 that they did not even wait to strike a blow. 
 
 The Spanish veterans in Kinsale, hearing shot and seeing 
 banners advance, concluded that the Irish were on their way 
 to join them, and sallied forth to find, to their rage and disgust, 
 that their allies were fled, and the banners they had hailed 
 were but captured trophies in the hands of the English. 
 
 The Deputy's victory was decisive : the Spanish officers 
 accompanied their victors back to Cork, and found the com- 
 forts of civilisation and the society of their English enemies 
 infinitely more to their taste than siege fare and the company 
 of their Irish allies. 
 
 Mountjoy and Carew might rest on their laurels. Ireland 
 was at their feet, and her last ally was weary of her. Tyrone 
 led his troops back to the north, and Red Hugh sailed for 
 Spain with the flower of the Munster Irish, there to lay his 
 broken heart in an exile's grave. The general of the Spanish 
 forces returned home to be received by his King with such 
 coldness that his proud spirit could not survive the mortifica- 
 tion, and he also died, yet another brave man sacrificed to the 
 syren charms of the ' distressful country.' 
 
 The news of the surrender of Kinsale was sent off to 
 England without delay ; but Carew had no fancy to let the 
 deputy's messenger, Sir Harry Danvers, be the first herald of 
 victory. He himself must find a swifter envoy, and tell the 
 tidings in a more romantic fashion if he were to keep up his 
 character as Gloriana's lovelorn champion.
 
 'PACATA HIBERNIA' 27 
 
 He had not to seek far to find a fitting man to do his 
 errand. His clerk, Richard Boyle, needed no spur when he 
 knew his haste might * catch the skirts of happy chance.' 
 Even in these days of steam we could hardly better the speed 
 with which he crossed the Channel, rode post to London, and 
 was the proud bearer of the good news to the English Court. 
 
 He tells in his memoirs, ' I made speedy expedition to the 
 Court : for I left my Lord President at Shandon Castle near 
 Cork on the Monday morning about two of the clock, and 
 the next day being Tuesday I delivered my packet and supped 
 with Sir Robert Cecil at his house in the Strand.' 
 
 With the wind against him, Boyle might have waited three 
 weeks or three months at Cork ; but with a strong breeze in 
 his favour it was quite possible for him to embark at two in 
 the morning, and slip across the Channel to Bristol in twenty- 
 four hours. The harbour was full of swift sailing-ships that 
 were practised in making their best speed to escape pirates or 
 to do a little piracy themselves, and one of them might well 
 accomplish a feat which was equalled by the common sailing- 
 boat that carried Mrs. Delaney in 1754 in thirteen hours 
 from Chester to Ireland. Once arrived in England, relays of 
 horses were easily got ; Boyle would take the London road 
 from Bristol, and riding hard all the next day, might well 
 arrive in London by supper-time. 
 
 This feat was by no means unique. About fifty years 
 later the Duke of Ormond left London at four o'clock on a 
 Saturday morning, sailed from Bristol at eight o'clock on the 
 Sunday morning, reached Waterford in twenty-five hours, and 
 dined at his own house at Carrick at three o'clock on Monday 
 afternoon. 1 
 
 When Boyle did reach London little time for rest was 
 
 1 Carte. Ormond, \. 19.
 
 28 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 allowed him. Cecil kept him in discourse, he says, till two 
 o'clock in the morning, and woke him up at seven to attend 
 him to Court, ' where he presented me to her Majesty in her 
 bedchamber, who remembered me, calling me by my name, 
 and giving me her hand to kiss, telling me she was glad I was 
 the happy man to bring first news of the glorious victory.' 
 Boyle had ridden his race to good purpose ! 
 
 He continues : ' And after her Majesty had interrogated 
 me upon sundry questions very punctually, and that thereon I 
 had given her full satisfaction in every particular, she gave me 
 again her hand to kiss and commanded my despatch for Ire- 
 land, and so dismissed me with grace and favour.' How the 
 glamour lingered round the great Queen to the last, and how 
 well Carew selected his messenger ! 
 
 But Boyle's stay at Court, triumphant though it was, was 
 a short one. There was still work on hand for Carew and his 
 staff, and Boyle hurried back to find him preparing to reduce 
 the last Munster fortress, the far-famed castle of Dunboy. 
 But when the troops retired to their winter quarters in 
 October, Boyle was once more despatched to Court to act 
 as Carew's mouthpiece in the discussion of Irish affairs. The 
 letter he carried from the Munster Council stated that ' Boyle, 
 by his sufficiency and understanding of the country, is well 
 able to give satisfaction.' l The country might be considered 
 at peace, ' pacata HiberniaJ Carew proudly wrote : others 
 might sigh, ' They make a wilderness and call it peace.' 
 Munster had now to be re-peopled, re-organised, almost 
 re-discovered, and Carew understood that a shrewd man who 
 understood the local conditions might be very useful to the 
 English council. 
 
 But Cecil knew the slippery ways of the world too well to 
 
 1 Carew MSS., Lambeth.
 
 'PACATA HIBERNIA' 29 
 
 give his confidence easily, and at first all the praise contained 
 in the letters of introduction did not prevent Elizabeth's 
 minister looking rather coldly on the plausible young lawyer. 
 Boyle had powerful enemies at Court, who only spared him 
 as long as luck was against him ; and in spite of his good 
 service in Ireland, he might have fared badly if his patron had 
 not happened to be one of the few men whom the suspicious 
 and lonely Cecil would trust. 
 
 The minister's affectionate letters to Carew, full of hints 
 and cautions and wise suggestions as to how her Majesty was 
 to be wheedled into doing what was wanted, give an extra- 
 ordinary idea of the tension at which people lived in sixteenth- 
 century England. Life seemed an endless game at dice. 
 Poverty, dishonour, death, seemed to merely wait on a chance 
 throw, while another chance might endow an unknown 
 adventurer with wealth, rank, and power, everything that 
 heart could desire in an age when desires were boundless. 
 Boyle's future still hung on a mere thread. 
 
 In one of Cecil's letters to Carew, after explaining his 
 latest diplomatic wiles with some pride, he made a passing 
 allusion to Carew's messenger. ' Boyle is accused by Crosby,' 
 he wrote, ' for I know not what of cozening and concealing ; 
 one barrel little better herring than the other. Let me know 
 therefore whether you would have him favoured or no. 
 Truly this fellow seems witty.' l 
 
 It was Crosbie who had rummaged through Boyle's papers 
 a dozen years earlier, and though he had failed that time, he 
 still hoped to find some fashion of ruining Boyle. Fortun- 
 ately his enmity was so unconcealed that his accusations were 
 rated at their true value. The Vice-Chamberlain, Sir John 
 Stanhope, wrote to Carew, ' for Boyle, there hath been great 
 
 1 Cal Carenu MSS. (1602), p. 364.
 
 30 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 working against him, and many means moved to put me in it, 
 by telling me you were weary of him and would give way to 
 any such course ; but I was loth to meddle in that kind with 
 any under your protection, and now he is come, am satisfied 
 not only to deal myself but to stop any other course against 
 him I shall hear of.' 
 
 But it was not easy now to win the Queen's favour by a 
 ready repartee or a graceful compliment. Elizabeth was 
 grown old and irritable, and impatient of the greedy and 
 time-serving fortune-hunters who filled her Court. She 
 remembered Boyle no longer as the messenger of Irish 
 victories, but as a shifty lawyer who had never thoroughly 
 cleared himself of a hundred and one petty accusations made 
 years before. Luckily Carew's influence was great, and Stan- 
 hope was ready to keep him informed of the intrigues of 
 Boyle's enemies. He wrote again on the I9th of November : 
 ' 1 received your kind letter by your officer, Mr. Boyle, who 
 hath been diversely assaulted here by such as would have 
 shadowed their private malice with pretext of the queen's 
 service, who indeed are hardly incensed against him. But 
 their clamours ceasing to pursue him by some good course 
 taken by himself and his friends, her Majesty, I think, will 
 easily both forget and let fall any hard conceit she had of him. 
 Myself was as much pressed as anybody to incense the Queen 
 against him, the rather because the examination of his causes 
 had been formerly referred to me. But the slight proof I then 
 saw produced against him and your assertion of the trial you 
 had made of him, made me unwilling to be made an instru- 
 ment to punish one who perhaps otherwise in sundry services 
 hath deserved well. 1 
 
 The great Cecil soon became really desirous to help 
 
 1 Col. Care<w MSS., p. 393.
 
 'PACATA HIBERNIA' 31 
 
 Carew's favourite and mollify the Queen. He wrote on 
 December 22, 1602: 'Although I have not heard more general 
 imputation thrown upon any man than there hath been 
 upon this bearer, yet when it came to the point, I saw no man 
 that could or would object any particular. Nevertheless, be- 
 cause it is not easy to put out of a prince's mind matter of 
 accusation till there be some purgation, I have offered the 
 Queen from him this much, that if any man shall hereafter 
 come forth to charge him, he shall be ready to answer upon 
 any warning. This did a little stay her, but it is true that 
 none of all this could have so much swayed her judgment if 
 it had wanted your testimony, of whose discretion she is so 
 well persuaded. I do, therefore, now return him to you, 
 better than he came in opinion of those that knew him not, 
 which is much I can tell you, in our world. And now for 
 myself, I must confess I have found him to be sufficient in all 
 things wherein he hath dealt, for your own particular, both 
 diligent and affectionate.' 
 
 If Boyle had succeeded in nothing else, to have won such 
 words of approbation from Cecil was enough to send him 
 home in triumph. But he had yet another success to score. 
 Before he left Ireland, Carew had determined to give him all 
 chances of making his fortune, and Boyle in his True 
 Remembrances tells the story of how the Lord President 
 ' propounded unto me the purchase of all Sir Walter Ralegh's 
 lands in Munster, offering me his best assistance for the com- 
 passing thereof, which he really performed, for upon my 
 departure for England, he wrote by me two letters, one to 
 Sir Robert Cecil, wherein he was pleased to magnify my 
 services and abilities, and concluded with a request that he 
 would make intercession with Sir Walter Ralegh to sell me 
 all his lands in Ireland, that were then altogether waste and
 
 32 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 desolate. To Sir Walter Ralegh he also wrote advising him 
 to sell me all his lands in Ireland here untenanted, and of no 
 value to him, mentioning withal that in his lordship's know- 
 ledge, his estates in Ireland never yielded him any benefit, but 
 contrarywise stood him in 200 yearly for the maintenance 
 and support of his titles. Whereupon there was a meeting 
 between Sir Robert Cecil, Sir Walter Ralegh, and myself, 
 when Sir Robert Cecil mediated and concluded the purchase 
 between us, and accordingly my assurances were perfected.' l 
 
 So having become the lord of forty-two thousand acres 
 of land, and having won permission for Carew to return to 
 England, Boyle, in January 1603, received his letters for the 
 Munster Council, and kissed the Queen's hand for the last 
 time : he never saw her again. Gladly he must have said 
 farewell to the fading glories of Elizabeth's court, and turned 
 his back on ' England and yesterday.' 
 
 And yet in after years it is not from Boyle that we hear 
 of Elizabeth's suspicions or caprices ; his memory only counted 
 over the times she had given him her gracious hand to kiss 
 and called him by his name, or dwelt on the glorious day 
 when she swore to his disconcerted enemies that she found 
 him very fitting for her service. 
 
 In Munster Carew welcomed Boyle with joy and bade him 
 ride with him on his parting journey to Dublin, that, having 
 provided his young friend with an estate, he might proceed to 
 find him a wife. Boyle describes very quaintly how Carew 
 * dealt mighty noble and father like with me, persuading me 
 that it was high time for me to take a wife, in the hope of 
 posterity to inherit my lands, advising me to make choice of 
 Sir Geoffrey Fenton's daughter, and that (if) I could affect her, 
 he would treat with her parents to have the match between us.' 
 
 1 See Care^w MSS. \. 452, and True Remembrances.
 
 
 Yv/ ////////
 
 'PACATA HIBERNIA' 33 
 
 Sir Geoffrey Fenton was, as we have seen, the man above 
 all others fitted to be a counsellor to Boyle in the new position 
 he had won in Munster, and in England also he could exercise 
 some influence, for he belonged to the Fentons of Fenton, 
 in Nottinghamshire, and his mother was a Beaumont of 
 Coleorton ; while through his wife, Alice Weston, he was 
 connected with the powerful Lord Treasurer of England, who 
 later rose to be Earl of Portland. 
 
 Before Carew sailed for England he saw Richard Boyle 
 contracted to Katherine Fenton on the 9th of March 1603. 
 Four months later the young people were married, and the 
 Lord Deputy knighted the bridegroom on his wedding day 
 at St. Mary's Abbey. Boyle himself records : 
 
 'The 25th of July I was married to my second wife, 
 Katherine Fenton, the only daughter of Sir Geoffrey Fenton, 
 principal Secretary of State and Privy Councillor in Ireland, 
 with whom I neither demanded any marriage portion, neither 
 had promise of any, it not being in my consideration ; yet her 
 father, after my marriage, gave me one thousand pounds in 
 gold with her. But that gift of his daughter unto me I must 
 ever thankfully acknowledge to Almighty God as the crown 
 of all his manifold blessings, for she was a most religious, 
 virtuous, loving and obedient wife unto me all the days of her 
 life, and the happy mother of all my hopeful children, who 
 with their posterity I beseech God to bless.' 
 
 In after years Lady Clancarty told a pretty story of her 
 grandfather Richard Boyle's first meeting with his future wife. 
 How Mr. Boyle, * coming to advise with Sir Geoffrey Fenton 
 and finding him engaged with another client, and seeing a 
 pretty child in her nurse's arms, entertained himself with them 
 till Sir Geoffrey came to him, making his excuse for making 
 him wait so long. Mr. Boyle pleasantly told him he had
 
 34 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 been courting a young lady for his wife. And so it fortuned 
 that sixteen years after it, Mr. Boyle made his addresses in 
 good earnest to her and married the young lady.' l 
 
 The story is none the less probable for being romantic. 
 It was however but fifteen years from Boyle's landing in 
 Ireland to his marriage, yet that was long enough to let the 
 pretty child grow into a young woman, and long enough also 
 to change a certain penniless Mr. Boyle into Sir Richard and 
 a Munster landowner. 
 
 For all Carew's proud boast that he had pacified Ireland, 
 life in Munster was seldom so peaceful as to be monotonous. 
 Scarcely had Boyle returned to Cork after his betrothal than 
 a messenger came riding south in all haste from the Lord 
 Deputy to bring the news of Queen Elizabeth's death, and to 
 proclaim the accession of King James. 
 
 Although the Clerk to the Council of Munster had not 
 yet begun to keep a formal diary, he wrote a humorous little 
 sketch of the opera comique proceedings that ensued. 2 For 
 the Mayor of Cork stoutly refused to proclaim the new king. 
 Some historians suggest that this outbreak of Cork indepen- 
 dence was due to the merchants' irritation at the debased 
 money forced on them by England, but according to the 
 Lismore Papers the mayor and recorder said nothing at all 
 about base coin, but a great deal about the poverty and 
 absurdities of the Scottish king, and the rights of the Spanish 
 Infanta to the crown, and * delivered many decidedly rebellious 
 speeches,' to which Mr. Boyle replied ' he marvelled they 
 should break out in such a passion,' and Recorder Mead 
 retorted that whether he himself broke out or not, many 
 thousand men were ready to do it. So when the Commis- 
 sioners from Dublin assembled at the High Cross with drums 
 
 1 Evelyn, Diary, iv. 412. 2 Lismore Papers, n. i. i.
 
 'PACATA HIBERNIA' 35 
 
 and trumpets to proclaim King James, they waited in vain for 
 the City Fathers, who at last sent a message that they had no 
 fancy for such haste in proclaiming the King of Scots ; they 
 knew well the very stage-players in England jeered at him 
 for being the poorest prince in Christendom, and Cork had 
 once before proclaimed a stranger, Perkin Warbeck, King of 
 England, and gained little by such precipitation ! And these 
 were no idle words : the citizens flew to arms, while the mayor 
 endeavoured to seize the forts that commanded the town. 
 The Commissioners could but send off for help to the Lord 
 Deputy and Wilmot the commander of the English army in 
 Munster, and proclaim the King as best they might from a 
 hill outside the city ; while inside the mob burned the Ten 
 Commandments and English Prayer Books out of the cathedral, 
 and carried a crucifix in solemn procession through the streets. 
 Then, having had their little holiday, and the Lord Deputy's 
 army drawing near, ' the mayor,' writes Boyle in his report, 
 ' cast about to make his peace,' and sent a formal complaint 
 that Sir Charles Wilmot had endeavoured to surprise the city 
 and * banish the crown of England,' and entreating as a loyal 
 subject for help against the English general's treasonable 
 designs ! The audacity of the message seems to have tickled 
 the Deputy, and finding, Boyle says, ' that Limerick and 
 Clonmell did not run into such joyous ways as Cork,' the 
 authorities were content with hanging a few of the noisiest 
 rioters and imprisoning Recorder Mead, who being then tried 
 by an Irish jury, was pronounced innocent, and retired to Italy 
 to live comfortably on a pension from the King of Spain, 
 while the clerk to the council rode off to Dublin to his 
 wedding, doubtless murmuring, like Browning's legate, ' I have 
 known four-and-twenty leaders of revolt.'
 
 CHAPTER III 
 A NEW MUNSTER 
 
 The small property has a tendency to fall into the great one, as the small 
 drop of water, as it runs down the pane of a carriage window, always joins the 
 larger. SCOTT. 
 
 WHEN Carew wrote that Ireland was pacified, he meant that 
 the old Munster, with its forests and bogs, its fairies and 
 saints, its wandering harpers and semi- regal chieftains, was to 
 be swept away, and a clean, prosperous, commonplace province 
 was to emerge, new created by English hands. This was the 
 intention of the conquerors, but something, call it fate or 
 romance or the genius of Ireland, was too strong for them ; 
 it was not Munster that changed, but the English settlers 
 who changed, and became, the most of them, Hibernis ipsis 
 Hiberniores, more Irish than the Irish. 
 
 However, with the cessation of war, forests were cleared, 
 towns were built, new industries sprang up, and trade flowed in 
 at new seaports, while Boyle's estates grew round the nucleus 
 of Ralegh's three seignories, till they reached from Dungarvon 
 on St. George's Channel to Dingle on the Atlantic. The 
 Munster gentry, impoverished by war, by confiscations, by 
 hospitality and the * Castle Rackrent ' style of living, which 
 was as common then as two centuries later, were, alas ! only 
 too ready to sell, and Boyle was always ready to buy. Equally 
 anxious to sell were the English settlers who had been tempted 
 over to people the desolated country, and grew weary of 
 
 3-5
 
 A NEW MUNSTER 37 
 
 waiting while the land commissioners discussed the validity of 
 titles and the dimensions of grants, and were often thankful 
 to fly back to England before starvation came upon them. 
 Court gentlemen, such as Ralegh and Grenville, who had 
 dreamt of dwelling in feudal state among their English settlers, 
 had pleasanter business on hand in England than the drudgery 
 of reclaiming the wilderness, and were ready to dispose of 
 their land grants to the first bidder. When Boyle could not 
 buy land outright, he was ready to acquire leases or mortgages ; 
 any expedient was welcome that would enable him to fill up 
 the gaps in the circle of his estates. 
 
 It has been the fashion among writers on Ireland to imply 
 that Boyle spirited away the lands of his neighbours by some 
 mysterious sort of double-dealing, but if they had taken the 
 trouble to look at Boyle's own records, they would have 
 discovered that no conjuring tricks were necessary to bring 
 land into the market when it was mortgaged three or four 
 deep, and that estates were hardly likely to command a high 
 price when the title-deeds were either missing, or strongly 
 suspected of being forged. 1 
 
 The most important purchase of land that Boyle ever 
 made was the property he bought from Ralegh. These 
 estates had involved their first owner in a clean loss of two 
 hundred pounds a year, and it was obvious that matters could 
 not mend while Ralegh lived in England, and left his Irish 
 speculations to be carried out by agents. His brilliant and 
 restless intellect could devise schemes enough to enrich fifty 
 Boyles, but he sickened of the drudgery necessary to realise 
 his own plans. The chance of finding wealth beyond the 
 dreams of avarice doubtless lay in Munster, as Dr. Johnson 
 said it lay in Thrale's brewery, but the fortune could be only 
 
 1 For details of land purchases, see Appendix.
 
 38 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 found if it was sought. Boyle indeed bought the land from 
 Ralegh, but to the land he brought his own far-seeing designs, 
 plodding business habits, wise expenditure, and careful thrift, 
 and he became a millionaire by as inevitable a law as that 
 water rises to its own level. 
 
 He signed the agreement with Ralegh on the yth of 
 December 1602, covenanting to pay the purchase-money in 
 three instalments, the first 500 at once, ^500 at Michaelmas 
 1603, and the last payment at Easter i6o4. a 
 
 But before the second payment was made Elizabeth was 
 dead and Ralegh's star had set. His estates were declared 
 forfeited, and as Boyle's purchase was only partly concluded, 
 it was not at all clear who was at the time the actual owner of 
 the property. Naturally, when there was any doubt, the 
 Crown would not lose the chance of making money, and the 
 king laid claim to the thousand pounds still due. 
 
 But Boyle was not inclined to leave Ralegh in the lurch 
 and pay his thousand pounds to the King, for him to grant 
 ' to some Scotchman,' as Ralegh bitterly put it. Sir John 
 Ramsey, afterwards Earl of Holder ness, offered to procure a 
 full discharge of the debt for five hundred marks down, but 
 Boyle, by going himself to London and spending 200, 
 whether in fees or in bribes, succeeded in gaining permission 
 to pay the money to Ralegh, which he said he gave to the 
 prisoner ' in his greatest extremity, at one entire payment, 
 before it was due.' In addition to the 200 expended in 
 London, Boyle said afterwards that he had to disburse ^3700 
 to clear entangled titles which Sir Walter, before selling the 
 estates, had bound himself to do for the purchaser. 2 
 
 1 Hayman's Guide to Toug/ial; Care^w MSS., i. 452. 
 
 2 Boyle to St. John; L. P., ii. z. 158-60. Boyle to Carew Raleigh; Smith, i. 85. 
 Cal. S. P. Ire., p. 175. See also King James's patent for all the Ralegh lands in 
 Ireland, dated 1604, May 10, now at Lismore.
 
 A NEW MONSTER 39 
 
 By extraordinary good fortune, this first property which 
 Boyle bought in Munster was the easiest of development. 
 Ralegh's grants lay where the river Blackwater opened a way 
 from the fertile inland country to the harbour of Youghal, 
 the seaport of Munster that lay nearest to England. In the 
 pleasant town of Youghal Ralegh had lived whenever he 
 visited his Irish estates, renting a pretty house in whose garden 
 is still shown the arbour where he smoked the first tobacco 
 brought into Ireland. 
 
 Before the days of Ralegh this house had been occupied 
 by the Warden of the College of Youghal. The College 
 was not a place of education, but had been founded, like 
 the collegiate churches that are still found in England, 
 to provide a body of clergy to officiate in the churches of 
 the neighbourhood, the Warden, eight fellows and eight 
 choirmen serving eight churches, and the College exercising 
 large Church patronage and enjoying a good revenue. It 
 is necessary to know something of the history of the 
 College, for it afterwards came into Boyle's hands, and 
 brought him more trouble than any other possession he ever 
 acquired. 
 
 When other religious houses were being dissolved in the 
 year 1597, the Warden of Youghal considered what he could 
 do to save at least some part of his livelihood, and is said to 
 have endeavoured to make friends for himself after the fashion 
 of the unjust steward in the parable. He gave a long lease of 
 the College and its lands to the Vice-President of Munster, in 
 return for an annuity to himself and the fellows. He seems, 
 however, to have made a very bad bargain, for the stipend 
 granted was only 6, 133. 4d. apiece! The pittance is so 
 small, that either Warden Baxter must have received a private 
 present to make the bargain worth his while, or the boasted
 
 40 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 wealth of the College must have been lost during the war that 
 had just ended. 
 
 After the vice-president, Sir Thomas Norris, died, the 
 College buildings in Youghal passed into Ralegh's hands, and 
 the Church patronage was granted by the Crown to Sir George 
 Carew. 1 Boyle when he succeeded Ralegh bought the advow- 
 sons from Carew, and in 1607 succeeded in recovering the 
 College tithes, which he applied to pay the salaries of the 
 masters of the free school he was building in Youghal. 
 
 The Warden's house was too small for Boyle's hospitable 
 housekeeping, and he decided to make his home in the ruined 
 college, and although for many years he was only a leasehold 
 tenant, he restored and rebuilt till he had converted the wreck 
 into a mansion worthy of a Munster magnate. 
 
 His prudent father-in-law, Sir Geoffrey Fenton, advised 
 him to take counsel's opinion as to the real owner of the 
 College before he spent 2000 on restoring it. He was told 
 that although the earliest lease granted by Warden Baxter to 
 Norris was probably sufficient, it would be no harm for him 
 to get a new lease from the existing representative of the 
 College, and in 1605 the Warden and fellows very readily 
 signed a new lease, relinquishing their rights to live in a ruin 
 and serve a dilapidated church, for an annuity of 20 to the 
 Warden and 10 each to the fellows. 
 
 But a few years later, Boyle tells us in his diary, the 
 Warden admitted sundry ' turbulent and contentious men ' 
 to be fellows of his nominal College, who neither resided in 
 Youghal nor did any duty there, and they disclaimed the 
 agreement ; on which Boyle, who knew very well what a Jaw- 
 
 1 Smith, Hist. Co. Cork,\. 56. Patent to Carew, dated Jan. 9, 1603. Boyle's patent, 
 1604. At which time Sir James Fullarton laid claim to the College as included in 
 a grant to him of Church lands, but Boyle bought him off.
 
 A NEW MUNSTER 41 
 
 suit meant and always compromised a claim when he could, 
 contented them by doubling their stipends and obtained new 
 Letters Patent from the King. 1 
 
 But all this time he was busy building. Two stately 
 quadrangles rose out of the ruins, one of them adorned by a 
 fountain. Behind the College, the hill that sheltered it from 
 the western gales was terraced into gardens ' extream pleasant,' 
 with steps leading up by a pergola roofed with lead to a 
 mossy well and a path running at the foot of the town wall 
 that is still called the Earl's Walk. From it he could look 
 down over the College courts, the spires and houses of the 
 town, and the long strand of Youghal, away to the estuary, 
 and watch his ships sailing in from the open sea beyond. 
 
 He did not spend all his thoughts on his own house : the 
 splendid church of Youghal was well-nigh as dilapidated as 
 the College, and he at once set to repairing it. The south 
 chapel, known as the Chantry of our Blessed Saviour, belonged 
 to the mayor and corporation of Youghal, and in 1 606 Boyle 
 purchased it from them to make it into a mortuary chapel for 
 his family. The tomb he set up in it was not finished till the 
 year 1619. It stands yet, splendid in many coloured marbles, 
 supporting four life-sized portrait effigies, as well as small 
 figures representing Boyle's children. Boyle is represented in 
 a complete suit of richly ornamented armour, coloured in gold 
 and russet, an earl's mantle of state hangs over his shoulders, 
 and in his hand he holds the purse of the Treasury of Ireland. 
 At his feet kneels his first wife Joan Appsley, dressed in a 
 richly brocaded purple gown ; at his head kneels Katherine 
 Fenton, his second wife, in the state robes of a countess. 
 Over each lady is an escutcheon of white marble impaling the 
 Boyle arms, party per bend crenelle argent and gules, with, 
 
 1 1610. Haym an's Youghal.
 
 4 2 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 for Appsley, barry of six argent and gules with a canton 
 ermine in dexter corner, and for Fenton, argent a cross azure 
 between four fleurs-de-lis sable. 1 At the top of the tomb lies 
 the statue of Lady Fenton, in the rufF of Elizabethan days 
 and a large straw hat. 
 
 The monument records the names of the seven younger 
 children of the Earl of Cork, the names and arms of his 
 sons-in-law, of his brother, Bishop John Boyle of Cork, and 
 his sisters, Elizabeth Smyth and Mary Power. 
 
 When Boyle restored the Chantry at Youghal, he was 
 careful also to restore the tomb of the first builders of the 
 aisle and add the inscription 
 
 HERE LIETH ANCIENTLY ENTERRED THE BODDIES OF RICHARD 
 BENNET AND ELLIS BARRY HIS WYFE THE FIRST FOUNDERS OF 
 THIS CHAPEL WHICH BEING DEMOLISHED IN TIME OF REBELLIO 
 AND THEIR TOMBE DEFACED WAS REEDEFIED BY RICHARD 
 LORD BOYLE BARRON OF YOUGHALL WHO FOR REVIVINGE THE 
 MEMORY OF THEM REPAIRED THEIR TOMBE AND HAD THESE THEIR 
 PICTVRES CVT IN STONE PLACED THEREON IN ANO DNI. 1619. 
 
 Leaving Youghal, we must travel up the Blackwater to 
 reach the place which Boyle chose to be his stateliest home 
 in Munster. At Lismore the rude buildings of a primitive 
 university had once clustered round the missionary church of 
 St. Carthagh. The Danes, the wild Irish chieftains, and 
 Norman barons had plundered and burnt Lismore again 
 and again, and finally, in the days of the Desmonds the war 
 had left the castle and cathedral mere heaps of ruins, and so 
 they remained till they were purchased by Boyle from Ralegh. 2 
 Then the castle and its chapel were rebuilt, and plans made 
 for restoring the cathedral and building a free school with 
 lodgings for schoolmaster and usher, and almshouses for old 
 
 1 Hayman's Youghal. 
 
 2 See Pardon of Intrusion to Sir R. Boyle, dated March 1607.
 
 A NEW MUNSTER 43 
 
 decayed soldiers. In 1638 Boyle mentions paying the 
 quarter's stipend to his Lismore almsmen and ordering 
 frieze gowns for them all, and for three poor widows, besides 
 paying the schoolmaster's salary. But the sorrows and 
 anxieties that came upon him in those years appear to have 
 delayed the building work, as in his last will, when he 
 insured the endowment of the charities, he says the materials 
 for the almshouses were collected, but only the foundations 
 laid. 
 
 Lismore Cathedral, like the College of Youghal, had once 
 owned the patronage of many surrounding vicarages, but the 
 war that had destroyed the cathedral had left most of the 
 churches in ruins, and the visitation of 1588 reported that, 
 among others, Tallow had neither income nor vicar. Boyle 
 restored the church of Tallow, and had it, he says, ' galleried 
 round, which church I intend to bestow on the town,' and in 
 1631 he re-endowed it as a vicarage, at the same time as 
 three other neighbouring curacies which had also lost their 
 property during the wars. 
 
 The ruined town of Tallow had also to be rebuilt, and 
 Carrigaline, on Cork Harbour, was greatly enlarged, but the 
 new towns, of which Boyle was justly proud, were all built 
 among the virgin forests of the west. 
 
 When Carew's army was marching against the western 
 Irish, he found that ' a garron could not travel through those 
 forests at more than six miles a day,' and the troops had to 
 skirt the coast to find open ground to march over. Boyle at 
 once saw the importance of the ford across the Bandon River, 
 half-way between Cork and Bantry, and he bought an estate 
 from the first settler, Captain Nuce, for 500, and added 
 other lands as he could get them, and laid the foundations of 
 his best-loved town on the bright salmon stream, and built
 
 44 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 the famous Bandon Bridge with its six arches and quaint 
 wooden balustrade. 1 
 
 In after years Boyle wrote to Secretary Coke with pride 
 and a little pardonable exaggeration, as if he had been the 
 earliest settler in those woodland glades. * All that are judicial 
 and have carefully viewed both and compared every part of 
 them together do confidently affirm that the circuit of my new 
 town of Bandon is more in compass than that of Londonderry, 
 that my walls are stronger, thicker, and higher than theirs, 
 only they have a strong rampier within, that Bandon Bridge 
 wanteth. 2 ... In my town there is built a strong bridge over 
 the river, two large session-houses, two market-houses, with 
 two fair churches, which churches are so filled every Sabbath 
 day with neat, orderly, religious people as it would comfort any 
 good heart to see the change and behold such assemblies. No 
 popish recusant or unconforming novellist being admitted to 
 live in all the town.' The 'unconforming novellist' does not 
 mean a romance writer, but a member of one of the new 
 eccentric sects into which the Puritans were splitting up. 
 Boyle's letter goes on : ' The place where Bandon Bridge is 
 situated is upon a great district of country and was within the 
 last twenty years a mere waste bog and wood, serving as a 
 harbour and retreat for woodkerns, rebels, thieves and wolves, 
 and yet now, God be praised, is as civil a plantation as most 
 in England.' 3 
 
 Perhaps her inland position may be one reason why Bandon 
 has not maintained her equality with her northern sister, 
 
 1 See Bennett's BanJon, p. 5; also Lismore Papers, ist Series, Nov. 1618, May 
 1619, July 1624., June 1630-1, for purchases from Becher and Gookin. 
 
 2 Parts of the thirty-feet high town wall still remain. A bastion abuts on the 
 river and another portion enclos-es Ballymodan Churchyard. R. Day in Cork Arch. 
 Journ., 1902. 
 
 3 Smith, i. 215.
 
 A NEW MUNSTER 45 
 
 Londonderry, but for a while she held her own bravely, and 
 her linen manufactures and her bellicose Protestantism were 
 quite equal to those of the Londoner's settlement. Bandon 
 men are said in a local legend to have carried their objection 
 to Popish Recusants so far as to write up on their town gate 
 
 1 Jew, Turk or Atheist 
 May enter here, but not a papist.' 
 
 One morning a grim and apt rejoinder was found under the 
 Protestant inscription 
 
 * Whoever wrote this wrote it well, 
 The same is written on the gates of hell.' 
 
 Even Bandon men could not get the better of their Celtic 
 neighbours when the war was one of wits. 
 
 When Boyle passed to westward of Bandon, and built 
 Clonakilty, he hoped it might become the capital and seaport 
 of that part of County Cork, and it was incorporated so early 
 as 1613 under a mayor or sovereign and a recorder. Boyle 
 built a large church for the town, and its linen trade made it 
 more or less of a commercial centre, but it never justified its 
 founder's expectations. It does not appear to have been 
 fortified, and Boyle's interest and pride in it never equalled 
 his feeling for Bandon. One of the solitary mentions of the 
 town in the Diary is in 1620, when Boyle wrote : 'This day 
 I perfected my deed to Humphry Jobson, his wife Margaret 
 and William Jobson their cursed son, of the town and plough 
 lands of Clonakilty for their three lives, reserving to me certain 
 lands and tenements after twelve years are expired.' 
 
 Enniskeane, and Castletown Kinneagh, away inland among 
 the mountains near the source of the Bandon river, are now 
 mere villages, but no doubt at the time when Boyle founded
 
 46 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 them he proposed that the triangle of English settlements, 
 Enniskeane, Castletown, and Bandon, should act as a line of 
 defence against that wild western country, where the peasants 
 still point to the narrow chasm of the Leap River and say : 
 ' Beyond the Leap, beyond the law.'
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A FAMILY PARTY 
 1603 1632 
 
 ... his mother 
 
 Watches his steps with the eyes of the gods ; and his wife and his children 
 Move him to plan and to do in the farm and the camp and the country. 
 
 KINGSLEY, Andromeda. 
 
 SIR RICHARD BOYLE and his bride made their first home at 
 Youghal, and set about rebuilding the ruined college house 
 and transforming it into a mansion worthy of the ambitions 
 which were taking shape in Boyle's dreams. 
 
 Sir Richard's diary chronicles the purchase of fine furniture 
 for the great house : a piece of tapestry for the long chamber 
 cost ^55 ; one bedstead was green and gold, another was 
 parcel gilt with a quilt and curtains of tawny taffety, another 
 bed was blue, and yet another had valances of black velvet. 
 But there was thrift with all this grandeur, and Sir Richard 
 gave ' the outside of a skarlett gown to make a counterpane 
 suitable to my skarlett bedd.' 
 
 Sir Richard and Lady Boyle's own appearance must have 
 been quite as gorgeous as that of their house : the list of 
 splendid clothes sent over by Mr. Dobson, the London tailor, 
 in 1604 and 1607 fairly dazzles the imagination. 
 
 ' His worship ' had a doublet and Gascony hose of satin at 
 145. 6d. a yard, well stiffened out with canvas and lined with 
 murray-coloured * tafeta sarsenet.' Sir Richard's tastes were,
 
 48 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 however, more rich than gaudy, and his cloak, although 
 trimmed with silver fringe and buttons, was only marble 
 coloured, lined with russet. 
 
 It was my lady who had many bright-coloured dresses. Mr. 
 Dobson sent her a petticoat made of seven and a half yards of 
 carnation velvet lined with four and a half yards of green say, 
 and ' trimmed round seven times with silver lace and fringe.' 
 This amazing garment cost ^"8, us. She also had an orange 
 tawny petticoat trimmed with silver lace and lined with green 
 baize, and also a ' bodes of whitt stitcht taffita ' that cost a 
 pound, and was well stiffened with ninepenny worth of whale- 
 bone. These smart clothes were packed in a hamper, and 
 another gown in a trunk that was charged extra, nine shillings. 
 We can hardly believe that almost three hundred years have 
 passed since those trunks arrived when we read the tailor's 
 letter. We all know that tailor's excuses so well. ' I under- 
 stand/ he writes in 1608, 'that you doe mislyke the fashion 
 of the sleeve, but I do assure you it is the special fashion that 
 men of your sorte do wear.' ' For my lady's kirtle sleeves 
 and stomacher perhaps shee may think that I forgott myself 
 that I did not lace the kirtle in silk and have lace at the skirte 
 as well as I did the bodeys and sleeves, butt I did it because 
 she may weare that kirtle with any other gowne or that gowne 
 with any other kirtle. My wyfe hathe sent my lady a little 
 fallinge band to weare with her standing collar under her ruffe 
 band, only to showe her the fashion.' 
 
 But on the whole Lady Boyle inclined to the same sober 
 colours as suited her husband, tawny, murray-coloured, and 
 black. One ' new years guift ' that he gave her consisted of 
 a ' murray-coloured satin petticoat that is embroidered, and an 
 apron, that cost altogether ^14.' One of her black velvet 
 gowns was given to her by a tenant as a fine for renewing a
 
 A FAMILY PARTY 49 
 
 lease. Lady Boyle appears to have had her own purse, and 
 did her own borrowing and lending among her cousins, 
 although her careful husband kept the accounts for her in 
 his diary. 
 
 Ready as Sir Richard's friends were to oblige him, one of 
 them, Mr. Rowley, rebelled in very masculine fashion at being 
 asked to select clothes for the family. His letter is quite 
 pathetic in his vehemence. ' I have sent you by my brother- 
 in-law, Mr. William Gilby, all such things as you desired me 
 to buy for you except the cloak, which sort one tells me is 
 out of fashion and needless here or in Ireland, all of which I 
 have with as great care provided as if they had been for 
 myself, assuring you that neither for myself nor any other I 
 will not for more than I will speak it, undergo the like again ! 
 Because they be full of trouble and things for the most part 
 out of my knowledge, so that I am enforced to trust them who 
 will be sure to deceive the wariest. [Lady Boyle] in her last 
 wrote for a fan which I will shortly send her, but now they 
 are not to be gotten at any rate by reason of my L. of 
 Salisbury's installation, and other occasions. The. sum these 
 things amount to is 90 is. 4 d. My brother is a meer 
 stranger in the country, and has come to dwell at Castle 
 Haven which I have bought. I am in good hope to draw a 
 good store of merchants to Munster.' 
 
 Among the English merchants who were encouraged by 
 Boyle to come over to Munster was his goldsmith cousin, 
 Barsie, of Plymouth. But Irish goldsmiths were still skilful 
 with the deftness and artistic feeling handed down from the 
 prehistoric days of the Tara Brooch, and the gold collars of 
 the legendary heroes ; Boyle did not need to send to London 
 for his wife's jewellery, but writes in his diary that ' I delivered 
 to Mr. Ross to be made into a Jewell for my wife, thirty small 
 
 D
 
 50 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 diamonds and twenty-eight small rubies, which were set in a 
 feather of gold, and at that time I delivered him thirty Orient 
 pearls to be holed and six Irish pearls, which she wears in a 
 necklace.' 
 
 There was no lack of festivities at which to show these 
 brave clothes and jewels ; weddings and christenings come 
 thick in the records. Boyle's English cousins soon flocked 
 over to share his rising fortunes, and Lady Fenton, who had 
 been twice married, brought a tribe of relations to swell the 
 family circle. She was the daughter of Sir Richard Weston, 
 Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and of good English descent, but 
 her first marriage was with Hugh O'Grady, Bishop of Meath, 
 ' a very honest zealous man,' Sir Henry Sidney called him, and 
 a member of an old Irish family. By her second marriage Lady 
 Fenton had but one son, William Fenton, who was much 
 younger than Boyle, and seems to have always looked up to 
 his brother-in-law with affectionate deference. He married an 
 Irish heiress, Margrett ' neen ' Morris Gibbon, 1 who was a 
 ward of the Earl of Thomond. William Fenton bought the 
 wardship of his bride for 1000, selling his manor of Clontarf 
 and his house in Dublin to Boyle to raise the money, and was 
 married at the College of Youghal in 1614 by Mr. Sneswell, 
 the preacher. 
 
 Old Lady Fenton was to Boyle the most delightful 
 mother-in-law possible, and took him to her heart as though 
 he had indeed been her son. After Sir Geoffrey's death, she 
 made her home in Munster, adoring her grandchildren, riding 
 on visits with her daughter, helping Sir Richard to arrange 
 his furniture, and laying wagers with him over his new apple- 
 trees, till she died full of years and honour in 1632. She was 
 
 1 ' Neen ' was the feminine mark of descent in Ireland. A son would have been 
 Mac or O'Gibbon, unless the Norman form of Fitzgibbon was adopted.
 
 A FAMILY PARTY 51 
 
 buried in Youghal church, where her effigy in a large hat 
 crowns the imposing structure that Boyle erected over his 
 family vault. 
 
 A son and heir was born to Sir Richard Boyle in the 
 College House on the first of August 1606, and was christened 
 Roger, in memory of the Boyle grandfather who died long 
 years before in Kent. His godparents were his father's old 
 companion in arms, Sir Allen Apsley, his uncle Sir Thomas 
 Browne, and his grandmother Lady Fenton. 
 
 The following year a sister came to keep him company, 
 and on Palm Sunday was named Alice after her grandmother. 
 In all, Boyle was the proud father of seven sons and eight 
 daughters, of whom almost all lived to grow up. It may be 
 more convenient to give a list of them together. 
 
 Roger, born 1606. Died 1616. 
 
 Alice, born 1607. Married David, ist Earl of Barry- 
 more. Died 1668. 
 
 Sarah, born 1609. Married first Sir Thomas Moore, 
 secondly Robert, Baron Digby of Geashill. Died 1633. 
 
 Letitia or Lettice, born 1610. Married George Goring. 
 Died 1642. 
 
 Joan, born 1611. Married George, i6th Earl of Kildare. 
 
 Richard, 2nd Earl of Cork, ist Earl of Burlington, known 
 during his father's life as Viscount Dungarvon, born 
 1612. Married Elizabeth, eldest of the two daughters 
 and co-heirs of Henry, Lord Clifford, Earl of Cumber- 
 land. Died January 15, 1678. 
 
 Katherine, born 1614. Married Arthur Jones, afterwards 
 Viscount Ranelagh. Died 1691. 
 
 Dorothy, born 1617. Married first Sir Arthur Loftus, 
 secondly Mr. Talbot. Died 1668.
 
 52 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Lewis, Viscount Kinalmeaky, born 1619. Married 
 Elizabeth Fielding, daughter of the Earl of Denbigh. 
 Killed at the battle of Liscarrol 1642. 
 
 Roger, Baron Broghill, afterwards Earl of Orrery, born 
 1621. Married Margaret Howard, third daughter of 
 the Earl of Suffolk. Died 1679. 
 
 Francis, afterwards Earl of Shannon, born 1623. Married 
 Elizabeth, daughter of Sir R. Killigrew, Vice-Chamber- 
 lain to Queen Henrietta Maria. 
 
 Mary, born 1624. Married Charles Rich, afterwards 
 Earl of Warwick. Died 1678. 
 
 Robert, born 1627. Died 1691. 
 
 Also Geoffrey and Margaret, died infants. 
 
 In recording the birth of his children, Sir Richard was 
 always careful to note under what planet their lives began, and 
 the exact hour of the twenty-four. Horoscopes and nativities 
 were calculated with care in those times it would be interest- 
 ing to know if any of the astrologers chanced to prophesy 
 truth concerning the varied careers of Boyle's children. 
 
 After giving the full list of his sons and daughters in his 
 True Remembrances, Boyle concludes : 
 
 'The Great God of Heaven I do humbly and heartily 
 beseech to bless all these my children, whom he hath in his 
 mercy so generously bestowed upon me, with long and 
 religious lives, and that they may be fruitful in virtuous 
 children and good works, and continue to their lives' end loyal 
 and dutiful subjects to the King's Majesty and his heirs, and 
 approve themselves good patriots and members of his common- 
 wealth, which is the prayer and charge of me their father in 
 the 67th year of my age, 1632.' 
 
 In 1613 Sir Richard was sworn Privy Councillor for
 
 A FAMILY PARTY 53 
 
 Ireland. He had been Privy Councillor for Munster since 
 1606. 
 
 He had now plenty to occupy him both in Dublin and 
 Munster, and to his hurried journeys up and down Ireland 
 we owe the few letters that are preserved from Lady Boyle. 
 Good as her handwriting was, she was not much of a letter 
 writer and had her little jokes about the bad spelling which 
 shocked her accomplished husband. Yet my lady's spelling is 
 no worse than that of most people of her day, and a great deal 
 better than that of her lord and master in his diary. The 
 little letters she wrote on the rare occasions when they were 
 separated, are so sweet and womanly, that we must almost 
 regret that the husband and wife were so seldom apart that 
 very few of these love-letters were written. As Lady Boyle 
 made such a point of her spelling, it would be ungracious to 
 modernise it. 
 
 LADY BOYLE TO HER HUSBAND, 1604. 
 
 4 MY OWNE GOOD SELF, I had ouste set pen to my paper 
 to writ you a challinges of unkindnes for not writing unto mee, 
 but when I remembered the foundatan of your good nature, 
 from which all kindness doth floue unto me, I withdrew my 
 hand, and do contenneally pray that my desearves maye never 
 be any cause for you to restren your wonted loue to mee, and 
 will by God's help strive as much aganct any thought which 
 may hinder the meres of your loue tourward mee as the 
 strength of my weake capassiti can attane unto. It doth much 
 glad mee to heare from you, but I protest there is nothing in 
 the world that would more reioys mee then to see you. And 
 thearfore good sweet heart, for the time that I am depriued of 
 your company which I hope will be but shart, let me heare from 
 you, and let mee know sartynly in your next letter when you
 
 54 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 will come downe, and so being in hast I rest from Dublin the 
 X. of April your assued louing wife, Kathrn Boyle. I sent to 
 Mr. Leger for the mony and he brought me forti ninepences, 
 but I would not receve them. I pray you commend me 
 to my sister Smeeth and my brother, my ungel James, 
 Mr. Wally and his wife, my cosen Seggorson [Seckerstone ?], 
 my brother William, my cosen Richard Boyle, and all my 
 friends. I pray you remember my cosen Morgel his 
 money.' 
 
 (Probably the ninepences were some of the base money 
 which was to be recoined. Carew wrote about this time to tell 
 Boyle that silver Horn pennies were not current in England.) 
 
 LADY BOYLE TO HER HUSBAND, 1609, Dublin, March 18. 
 
 ' MY OWNE GOOD SELF, I know it will much amuce you to 
 see me so forword in writeing for you weare wount to impute 
 my slackenes in writting for a gret faute unto mee. But 
 becase I am not emploded in commonwelth bisness as you are 
 which I will axcept for a excuse although I thought that all 
 the bisness in the world would not have made you to forget 
 your poure scab I have '"ntten these fu lines as my aturneiese 
 to soliced a answore. so knoing that there needes no matter of 
 seremony betune us I will comprehend all in this owne word 
 that I loue you, for which thinge I hope I needs not to make 
 my pen the mesinger of my heart to assure you of it, and 
 so I reste and will remain your ever loving wife Kathern 
 Boyle. 
 
 * This letter was of my owne speling and threfore I pray 
 you all the imperfections that are in it rather wink at them 
 then loke intoo. My cosen Apsli [Apsley] hath sent me a 
 hogcet of whit wine which wee wil drink for his and your 
 sakes. Sir John Douddol was heare and made great brages
 
 A FAMILY PARTY 55 
 
 that he would complain of you for sewing l for him, and pray 
 you to remember him, for my father hath undertaken to get 
 anything of my Lord debetui [Deputy] that you will spi out 
 for him in Mounster. I hope you will bestow Ardmour upon 
 him for his good servis. I pray you commend me to all my 
 good friends in Mounster/ 
 
 This letter doubtless refers to certain Ralegh lands at 
 Ardmore, which an army officer, Sir John Dowdall, held, and 
 refused to surrender. But the stout Sir John was not a rich 
 man and was the father of twenty-four children, so Boyle had 
 only to exercise a little patience, and in 1614 he was able to 
 buy Sir John out, and remain on friendly terms with him in 
 spite of his ' brages.' 
 
 Boyle chronicled all his journeys to and fro with care, 
 saying, * I began my journey in the name of God and lay the 
 night I left Lismore at Clonmell, the next at Gowran, the next 
 at Kilcullen, and the next in Dublin.' He must almost have 
 lived on horseback in those days, but Lady Boyle also had her 
 little jaunts to tell of, and how, after being in Cork for the 
 christening of Bishop Boyle's little Katherine, she and Lady 
 Fenton rode on to Bandon, returning to Cork next day. 
 Her next letters are dated fourteen years later, but they begin 
 as before, ' My own good self.' Added years, and sorrows, 
 and joys only knit this married pair the closer together. 
 She now had married daughters to send news of, and an earl 
 for a son-in-law, and her letter is addressed, ' To my best 
 beloved the Earl of Cork this to be delivered.' The Boyle 
 fortunes had flourished. 
 
 1 Doubtless ' sueing.'
 
 56 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 THE COUNTESS OF CORK. TO THE EARL, 1 Oct. 1623. 
 
 ' MY OWN GOOD SELF, hearing of this bearer by chance I 
 thought it fit to let you know that my daughters Barry and 
 Lettice I thank God are I hope now past the worst. The rest 
 of the children are, blessed be God for it, in good health. 
 The Lord preserve both them and us so still. John Pyne is 
 now very dangerously ill of the small- pox in the house. He 
 is so unruly that I much fear his recovery. I have here 
 enclosed sent you a letter I had from Crosby touching Dick. 
 I sent him word to keep the child from cold, and to get 
 Mr. Goden to teach him at my Lady Parson's house till your 
 return home. [Dick was now eleven, probably it was fear of 
 infection of small-pox that kept him off at Lady Parson's 
 house at Youghal.] So praying the Almighty to send you a 
 safe and speedy return home, and to bless us with a joyful 
 meeting in all health and happiness, I rest as by my duty I am 
 bound, yours to command till I die. 
 
 KATHERIN CORKE. 
 
 My mother commends her love to you. 
 
 Lismore, this 22 of October, late at night. 
 
 These later letters are dated from Lismore Castle, for 
 Youghal was not long the only residence of the Boyles in 
 Munster. The ' Dick ' alluded to is the second son, named 
 Richard after his father. He was born at Youghal in 1612. 
 His christening must have been sufficiently dignified, for the 
 great Earl of Thomond rode over to stand godfather, with 
 Sir Richard Aldworth of Newmarket, who had married a 
 distant cousin of the Boyles. The godmother was a niece of 
 Sir Geoffrey Fenton's who had married Sir Laurence Parsons, 
 
 i L. P., ii. 3 , 75 .
 
 A FAMILY PARTY 57 
 
 Boyle's trusty friend, and his right-hand man in most matters 
 of business and politics. He was at one time attorney-general 
 of Munster, and was also receiver of Youghal, where he rented 
 Sir Walter Ralegh's house from Boyle. There was a good 
 joke against him one Christmas when he brought a handsome 
 present to Sir Richard of three dozen buttons of goldsmith's 
 work, and behold the ' buttons were japes that proved but 
 copper gilt and enamel ' ! Boyle wrote it all down in his diary, 
 and we may be sure Sir Laurence was not easily allowed to 
 forget it. 
 
 The Jack Pyne whom Lady Cork spoke of as having 
 small-pox was the son of one of Ralegh's original Devon 
 settlers, the man who was a thorn in the side of Ralegh, of 
 Boyle, and of every ruler of Munster, till long years after 
 Boyle's son Broghill threw him into prison to answer for 
 betraying his countrymen to the native Irish. But Jack Pyne 
 did not live to see that day. Lady Cork writes again to her 
 husband : 
 
 * MY OWN GOOD SELF, I have received your letter on 
 Friday night at supper which was both pleasing and joyful 
 to me, pleasing because it came from you, joyful because it 
 assured me of your health and safety, for which I heartily pray 
 God long and happily to continue and increase. Jack Pyne 
 departed this life the 23rd of this month, about nine o'clock 
 in the morning, and was buried the next day at Mogeely 
 church by his mother, for so his father desired. I have hear 
 enclosed sent you some letters which myself and Mr. Whalley 
 have received for you. My mother with my Lord Barry and 
 the children who, thanks be to God, are in good health, 
 remember their love and duty to you. So entreating you to 
 believe that there is nothing in this world 1 more desire to
 
 58 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 enjoy than your company at home which I protest shall be 
 very welcome to me, in haste I rest your obedient wife, 
 
 KATHERIN CORK. 
 
 Lirmort, this 26th of Oct. 1623. 
 
 That year there were great changes in the Boyle household. 
 Sir Richard strongly disapproved of children being brought 
 up at home, as he believed the inevitable petting would weaken 
 both their minds and bodies. We know from his youngest 
 son Robert's autobiography, that the babies were put out to 
 nurse and cradled after the country fashion in a ' pendulous 
 satchell.' It is quaint to imagine the future Earls and Barons 
 hanging like Indian papooses to the beams of an Irish cabin, 
 but the plan seems to have succeeded. Even when they out- 
 grew their swinging cradles, they were not allowed to remain 
 long at home. Alice, the eldest daughter, was but eight years 
 old when she was despatched to Cork to be brought up under 
 the care of the wife l of Sir Randall Clayton of St. Domenic's 
 Abbey, Cork. Other little sisters followed Alice in their turn ; 
 and good Lady Clayton, who had no children of her own, 
 took them all to her heart, while the girls loved her as a second 
 mother. 
 
 But the journey from home of little Roger, the eldest son, 
 was a far longer one. His father wrote in his diary, ' May 
 1613. I sent my eldest son, Roger Boyle, whom I beseech 
 God to bless and prosper, from Youghal to my brother John 
 Boyle into England, and with him William Supple my ward, 
 under the charge of my servant, George Annesley, to whom I 
 gave ;io, and other ^4 to bear the children's charges from 
 the seaside to my brother's home.' 
 
 1 Anne, daughter of Paul Herring of Exeter.
 
 A FAMILY PARTY 59 
 
 John Boyle was now a prebendary of Lichfield and lived 
 at Stan more ; he was a poor parson with a large family of boys 
 and girls, and eked out his living by working a farm ; but he 
 was a kindly, warm-hearted man, who doubtless did his best 
 to make the little strangers feel at home. The following year 
 Sir Richard Boyle was in England on political business and 
 came to Stanmore to stand godfather to his niece Barbara 
 Boyle, to whom he brought ' a double guylt bowle with a 
 cover which cost me j sterling.' He considered that Roger 
 and Will were now ready for a plunge into a wider world, 
 and took them away with him to Deptford, where they 
 were to attend a day-school, and board with their kinsman, 
 Mr. Christopher Browne of Sayscourt. 
 
 Hard as old Lady Fenton found it to part with her eldest 
 grandson, * my jewel Hodge,' as Sir Geoffrey called him, it 
 was a great pleasure to her to know he was in the care of the 
 Brownes, and she wrote her approval of the plan in her own 
 outspoken, warm-hearted fashion. Mrs. Browne was Sir 
 Geoffrey's sister-in-law, the widow of his eldest brother, 
 Captain Edward Fenton, who had sailed with Drake and 
 Frobisher, a very valiant and accomplished gentleman, but 
 choleric withal, for he clapped Captain John Hawkins into 
 irons on a certain voyage, and further threatened to stab him, 
 by which Captain Fenton lost court favour and had to retire 
 into private life. He lies now, peaceful enough, in Deptford 
 Church under a wonderful geographical monument erected 
 to his memory by Richard Boyle. His widow, Thomasine 
 Gonson, married as her second husband Mr. Christopher 
 Browne, and was mother of the ambassador Sir Richard 
 Browne, and grandmother of Mrs. Evelyn, who brought the 
 Browne estates of Sayscourt to her horticultural husband 
 John Evelyn.
 
 60 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Under the care of his kind great-aunt little Hodge 
 began his school life and carried it bravely in Deptford. 
 Mr. Browne's account-book tells of all that was provided for 
 the schoolboy : his winter dress was a baize (or thick flannel) 
 gown faced with fur, and for high days he had an ash-coloured 
 satin doublet, hose, and stockings, with silk garters and roses 
 to match, an ash-coloured, embroidered girdle, and a cloak of 
 the same colour trimmed with poppins or squirrel's fur. 
 A smart little silver-grey figure he must have been with his 
 satin suit set off by a taffeta pickadel or ruff, and carrying his 
 little sword in a green scarf. He wore out five pair of shoes 
 in a year, and his book of French verbs cost sixpence. 
 
 The following Christmas his father sent Hodge and his 
 cousin Dick Browne an angel of gold each as a token. These 
 beautiful coins, stamped with a figure of the Archangel Michael, 
 were Sir Richard's favourite presents to his children and grand- 
 children. Hodge did not forget his Irish friends, and wrote 
 more elegant epistles than did his mother. The great Earl of 
 Thomond was so well pleased with one of these schoolboy 
 letters that he must have carried it over to Youghal, for it 
 is preserved among the Boyle papers. 
 
 The little gentleman of nine writes with all the grace of 
 an accomplished courtier : 
 
 RIGHT HONOURABLE, I hope your Lordship will not 
 impute it to negligence that I have omitted to salute your 
 honour with my first letter, it not seeming reasonable to 
 commit that tender of my humble service to writing, which 
 your Lordship being then so neere I was rather in dutie bound 
 to performe by my personall attendance upon the same. So 
 hoping in your honors favourable pardon, in prayer to 
 Allmighty God for the continuance of your Lordship's health,
 
 A FAMILY PARTY 61 
 
 I rest, desiring to become your Lordship's more worthie 
 servant and soldier, ROGER BOYLE. 
 
 If it were not too much presumption to (trouble) your 
 honor with the recomendaons humble duty to my most 
 deare Father, my Mother and grandmother, I know, coming 
 from your Lordship it would find much the better acceptance. 
 
 May 1615. 
 
 But this fair promise was to fade all too soon., Six months 
 later came a letter from Mr. Ball of London, the godfather of 
 Sir Richard's second boy, which the mourning father endorsed, 
 * signifying the moste sorrowfull news of the too soon and ever 
 to be lamented death of my son Hodge Boyle.' 
 
 Mr. Ball writes very kindly, saying the little fellow had 
 been a child of good disposition, and Mr. and Mrs. Browne 
 took great pains and watched day and night over him, * but 
 all availd not, for his time was come and there is no doubt 
 he is with God.' 
 
 Mr. Browne naturally wrote more warmly of his little 
 charge : 
 
 ' When I consider so many towardly parts in him, so am I 
 very much afflicted with the thought of mine own evil hap and 
 misfortune, that in my house under my tuition it should so 
 befall him.' Mr. Browne adds : ' His frugality may appear in 
 this, that his sorrowful aunt hath yet remaining in a purse in 
 gifts and tokens sent him, which he called his stock, above the 
 sum of forty shillings.' Mr. Browne tells that a physician 
 and apothecary were fetched by boat from London to attend 
 on the child, and encloses the bill for the strange medicines 
 with which they dosed him, cordial powders of unicorns' horns 
 and bezoar stone, and then comes the account for the funeral
 
 62 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 expenses, the white gloves given to his schoolfellows and sent 
 to his cousins, John Boyle's children, the scutcheons and the 
 black cloth that draped the pulpit, and the wine and ' confected 
 stuffs ' for the banquet. 
 
 As soon as Hodge fell ill, Mr. Browne sent for Dr. John 
 Boyle, who started at once to visit his little nephew, but met 
 yet another messenger on the way urging him to hasten. 
 The long letter which he wrote to Youghal when all was over 
 must have carried some comfort to the sorrowing parents. 
 He says : 
 
 ' I found the child in body much weakened, and in 
 countenance altered strangely, yet talking with him and finding 
 his sense, speech, and memory all quick and ready, I conceived 
 hopes, as we are apt to hope what we wish, of his recovery and 
 health. . . . After supper coming up to him again I found 
 his speech and memory still perfect ; his devotion strange, 
 breaking into his prayers of his own accord ; and only this 
 cause of doubt more than before, a thicker and weaker drawing 
 of his breath. In this he continued till ten o'clock at night, 
 and then breathing out powerful comfort till he had power to 
 breathe no longer, commended by many zealous prayers to 
 God, under my hands, without the least resistance to death, 
 sweet soul, he made a blessed exchange of this frail and sinful 
 life, so dying as I never beheld infant more sweetly to fall 
 asleep, than he easily and without pang or pain yielded him- 
 self to eternal rest. 
 
 * The physician is a gentleman very worthy, learned, and 
 honest, and one that attended your child with his whole art, 
 care, and carefulness. And for the care of Mrs. Browne, it 
 was such and so singular, as being sickly herself, yet she 
 continually attended him in her own person, lodged him ever- 
 more in her own chamber, and so nearly and dearly tended
 
 A FAMILY PARTY 63 
 
 him as never was mother more careful. It was strange to me 
 to see such affection in strangers, and gave me undoubted 
 assurances as of the child's sweet and winning behaviour as of 
 their singular good and loving natures. For pretty Hodge, 
 sweet soul, he hath left earth but gained heaven : he is gone 
 from his native father, but gone on high to the Father of us 
 all ; he is pulled from his mother's joy, but tenderly kept in 
 the Lord's arms ; he is missing in his grandmother's bed, but 
 blessedly reposed in Abraham's bosom. But I intended a 
 letter, not a volume ; fearing therefore to seem tedious I 
 take leave, and leave you all to the God of peace and of all 
 true consolation, who comfort you daily with the grace of His 
 Spirit, and prepare you more and more to the glory of His 
 kingdom.' 
 
 Little Roger was buried in Deptford church near his 
 great-uncle, Captain Edward Fenton ; and when his father 
 was in England in 1628 a tomb was erected over him with 
 an epitaph, 1 touching in spite of its dog Latin : 
 
 H. S. E. Rogerus Boyle, Richardi comitis 
 
 Coreagiensis Filius primogenitus qui in 
 
 Hibernia natus in Cantis solo Patris natali 
 
 Denatus, dum hie Ingenii cultum capescit 
 
 Puer eximiae Indolis, praecocitatem ingenii 
 
 Funere luit immature Sic luculenti Ter- 
 
 reni Patrimonii factus exhaeres, coelestem 
 
 crevit hereditatem. 2 
 
 Dr. John Boyle travelled to Ireland the year after his 
 
 1 ' Roger Boyle, eldest son of Richard, Earl of Cork, born in Ireland, died in 
 Kent, his father's native land, where he was being educated. He was a boy of 
 singularly brilliant parts, and he paid for the precocity of his intellect by an early 
 death. Thus he lost the succession to a rich patrimony upon earth and obtained an 
 inheritance in heaven.' 
 
 2 Lodge's Peerage, Archdale's edit.
 
 64 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 nephew's death. The poor doctor's luck seems to have been 
 as persistently bad as that of his brother Sir Richard was good ; 
 he could not even pay a visit to Youghal without being 
 stopped by pirates on the way. Fortunately the pirates of 
 the Irish seas were not all of the Teach and Blackbeard sort ; 
 they did a little trading when the piracy business was slack ; 
 and when they did stop a ship, they took their toll as 
 genteelly as a Hounslow Heath highwayman would have 
 done. So good Dr. John was quit for his fright and the 
 loss of eight pounds in gold, which his brother made up to 
 him on his arrival at Youghal. He could indeed ill afford 
 the loss of eight pounds, for he had a hard struggle to live, 
 and never would have been a doctor of divinity if Sir Richard 
 had not paid his university fees, and sent him ' two brace 
 of buck for his doctor's feast.' The open-hearted Irish 
 hospitality made his visit at Youghal a memorable holiday 
 time for him, and his gratitude to Lady Fenton is positively 
 touching. He wrote to her when he reached home again : 
 
 ' Scarce anything in Ireland gave mee greater content than 
 that, being of no neer alliance but in myself a meer stranger, 
 unknown, unseen, undeserving, I was yet received of your 
 Ladiship as a very worthy guest and accepted though most 
 unworthy for your adopted son. And your ladiship's good- 
 ness cannot be confined within those narrow boundes of Ire- 
 land but . . . followeth mee even to my owne house . . . and 
 not mee alone, which am but that half of myself which you 
 saw there, but my wife also the other half which I left at 
 home and accordingly you have sent for me cassock and 
 stockings, a covering from top to toe, and for her a large fine 
 mantell, a couvering from the head to the heel. What is this, 
 good Madam, but to cover all over and to compass round 
 about with your favour, inwardly, outwardly, with fervent
 
 A FAMILY PARTY 65 
 
 affeccon, with warm garments at home, here, there, every- 
 where, to have in mind and to do good. God, the fountain 
 of all good, make to flow unto you daily the full current 
 of His grace.' 
 
 No doubt Lady Fenton and Sir Richard had many a 
 consultation over his brother's affairs. Sir Richard could not 
 be happy till he had the best part of his relations imported to 
 Ireland and settled around him, and it was clear that his 
 first business ought to be to get Dr. John a good Irish ap- 
 pointment. Just at this time the see of Cork became vacant, 
 and the Boyles and all their friends strained every nerve 
 to get him the bishopric. Accordingly his name was laid 
 before the King, and he himself journeyed to court in the 
 autumn of 1617 to see what fortune he might win there. He 
 wrote in November to report his adventures to his brother, 
 and his experience gives rather a shocking view of the way 
 Church patronage was exercised in the days of good King 
 James. All began well : he arrived without mishap at the 
 royal hunting-box of Royston, and the great Earl of Buck- 
 ingham himself laid his name before the King, and James 
 promised his favourite that Boyle should have the place, but 
 first he ' would hear of his sufficiency.' So far so good : fair 
 words and excellent intentions were never wanting to the 
 British Solomon, and Dr. Boyle preached at Huntingdon with 
 approval and applause enough, ' but the King came not, the old 
 pain in his great toe was no little hindrance.' Yet the prince 
 was there, 'and told the King that one Dr. Boyle had preached, 
 and that the sermon was well boiled and concocted thoroughly, 
 and the Bishops of Winchester and Durham also added their 
 testimony,' and there the matter ended ! Nothing more 
 was said of Dr. John's appointment, and one of the King's 
 chaplains applied for the place. So Dr. John, observing that
 
 66 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 ' promising in general to be thankful did nothing but hinder 
 my suit,' decided to make himself friends with the unrighteous 
 mammon, and went to a great lady and offered her a hundred 
 pieces for her help ! Whereon the great lady her name is 
 not given, but she was connected in some way with Lady Boyle 
 was very civil and even affectionate, but explained that she 
 did nothing for nothing, and she must have five hundred 
 pieces, or not a word on the doctor's behalf. Poor doctor ! 
 He says sadly, * I told you before of a kiss ; was not that kiss 
 bitter sweet ? And I protested against the new term pieces ; 
 had it not been better for me if we had kept the old word 
 pounds ? ' Was this a jest on the relative value of coins, or 
 did he imply that the great lady, like Shylock, demanded her 
 pound of flesh ? He explains no more, but tells that 
 Mr. Browne of Deptford encouraged him to persist, and even 
 offered to go security if Dr. Boyle had to borrow the money. 
 And apparently the great lady got her money and did her 
 business, for Sir Randall Clayton, being at court, wrote on the 
 28th of November to convey the joyful news that 'Dr. Boyle 
 is now Lord Bishop.' Sir Richard of course paid all the fees 
 necessary for his brother's institution, writing to Mr. Browne 
 to advance .210, which was repaid the following May. 
 
 The new bishop was not able to enter upon his functions 
 for nearly a year after his appointment ; he waited till summer 
 was over that he might get in his hay crop and dispose of his 
 farm. He arrived in the autumn of 1618 with his wife and 
 children, and bringing with him, in the good-natured Boyle 
 fashion, the family of Mr. Hall, ' of long time preacher under 
 me/ whom he hoped to provide for in Ireland. He wrote to 
 urge Sir Richard to come to him as soon as possible, as he was 
 overwhelmed with the complications of the revenues and rents 
 of the see, and was also anxious as soon as possible to unite the
 
 A FAMILY PARTY 67 
 
 see of Cloyne with Cork, as Cloyne, the ' five mark see ' as it 
 was called, was too miserably poor to be held by any man 
 alone. He succeeded in this endeavour, but it is the only act 
 that marked his term of office. Good fortune had come to 
 him too late ; his health was broken by the struggle with 
 poverty, and after two years he died. Sir Richard writes 
 sadly in his diary for July 1620 : ' My eldest and only brother, 
 Dr. John Boyle, was brought dead from Cork and interred in 
 my vault in my new chapel at Youghal. God grant him 
 and me a joyful resurrection.' 
 
 Naturally, the care of Bishop Boyle's widow and children 
 fell upon his brother. Sir Richard was equal to any amount 
 of arranging and matchmaking, and they were all provided for 
 in due time. It was hardly possible for a woman to remain 
 long a widow in a time when the struggle for life was so 
 unscrupulous, and Sir Richard, as the head of the family, only 
 waited two years before he found a new husband for Mrs. 
 Boyle, and chronicled with due solemnity: 'January 1622. 
 My brother the late Bishop of Cork's widow was by me given 
 in marriage to Sir William Hull, and married together in the 
 study at Youghal by Mr. Goodwin.' This was a suitable and 
 excellent match. Sir William Hull was a very great gentle- 
 man indeed : he was Vice- Admiral of Munster, and was now 
 settled in the far west of Cork at Learn Con Castle, near 
 Crookhaven. The fisheries there were worked by Sir William, 
 in partnership with Boyle, and they frequently joined in other 
 speculations. 
 
 Sir William was a widower, and it was not very long before 
 there was a second link between the families, for his daughter 
 Mary married her stepmother's son, Edward Boyle, and Sir 
 Richard settled on them some of the lands forfeited by Teague 
 O'Mahony in the Desmond rebellion.
 
 68 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Meanwhile Sir Richard's own family was increasing. On 
 April 10, 1616, he heads an entry in his diary, 'Laus Deo,' 
 and chronicles the birth of his third son. At this time a fine 
 English gentleman, Sir Thomas Somerset, was staying at the 
 College House, busy courting a great lady of the neighbour- 
 hood, and he was so grateful for Sir Richard's services in his 
 suit that, when he returned to England, he sent his own 
 servant all the way over to Youghal expressly to bring a 
 covered double-gilt standing-cup as a christening gift for the 
 baby, Geoffrey. 
 
 There is a tradition still preserved in Youghal that Geoffrey 
 Boyle was drowned in the well at the end of the Earl's Walk, 
 in the College gardens ; but a letter from Mr. Whalley, the 
 steward and land-agent, in January 1617, telling of the child's 
 death, disposes of this tradition, unless indeed it had been let 
 drop into the spring, and so caught a cold of which it died. 
 Mr. Whalley says : 'It may please your lordship, the 
 Almighty God, in His great mercy to your lordship's younger 
 son, hath been pleased, about two of the clock this afternoon, 
 to give an end to his affliction, wherein the Lord hath showed 
 His exceeding great love to the child in regard of the extremity 
 of his misery endured with unexpected strength and quietness. 
 The ladies have religiously given him up to the Lord who, 
 without all doubt, hath received him into His bosom.' * God 
 make me patient and thankful to His Divine Majesty,' adds 
 the bereaved father after the entry of the date in his diary.
 
 A FAMILY PARTY 69 
 
 NOTE ON CHAPTER V. 
 
 The children of Dr. John Boyle, Bishop of Cork, and 
 his wife, Elizabeth, daughter and co-heir of Matthew Lucy, 
 were : 
 
 1. John, married Anne 
 
 2. Edward, married Mary Hull. 
 
 3. Barbara, married Sir John Browne of the Hospital 
 
 or Commandery of Awney. 
 
 4. Mary, married Stephen Crow. 
 
 5. Kate, married William, son of Sir Robert Tynt. 
 
 The Earl of Cork's sister, Mary Boyle, married Sir 
 Richard Smyth of Ballynetra, and had : 
 
 1. Sir Percy Smyth, married ist Mary Mead; 2nd 
 
 Isabella Ussher. 
 
 2. Boyle Smyth, died unmarried. 
 
 3. Katherine, married 1622 Fitzedmund Supple. 
 
 4. Dorothy, married ist Rev. T. Burt ; 2nd Arthur, 
 
 son of Mr. W. Freke of Sareen, Hants. 
 
 5. Alice, married ist W. Wiseman of Bandon; 2nd 
 
 Redmond Roche. Mr. Wiseman was son of 
 S. Wiseman and Katherine, eldest daughter of the 
 poet Spenser. 
 
 The Earl's other sister, Elizabeth Boyle, married Pierce 
 Power of Lisfinny Castle, and had : 
 
 1. Roger, usually called Hodge. 
 
 2. Richard.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A MUNSTER RULER 
 
 * Keep ye the law, be swift in all obedience, 
 Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford ; 
 Make ye sure to each his own, 
 That he reap where he hath sown. 
 
 By the peace among the people let men know ye serve the Lord.' 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING. 
 
 WHEN Boyle settled down at Youghal as a married man, he 
 began the real work of his life. His ambition was not merely 
 to found a family, and to make himself the richest man in 
 Ireland : he was determined to make Munster a prosperous 
 member of the British Commonwealth. 
 
 There are few exciting episodes in the story of steady 
 industry by which he gradually became the ruling power in 
 Munster. Only those who know the tact and energy needful 
 to reorganise society and administer justice in a newly con- 
 quered country can appreciate the qualities which enabled 
 Boyle to change the ravaged province into a land of peace 
 and plenty. 
 
 In spite of Carew's victories, the life of a resident 
 magistrate in Ireland was not quite that of an English justice 
 of the peace ; his duties rather resembled those of a sheriff in 
 Arizona in the days of Apache Indians and cattle thieves. 
 One time comes the curt entry in the diary, * Leg wounded, 
 and robbed at Whitchurch ' ; and when he reported to Cecil 
 that the country was tending daily more to stability, he had 
 
 70
 
 A MUNSTER RULER 71 
 
 to admit, that the O' Mores and O'Connors had only refrained 
 from the open warpath that they might make * nightly stealths 
 on their neighbours' flocks and herds,' ' from which,' he 
 adds, ' these frontiers have not been free even in peaceable 
 times.' 
 
 His neighbour, Sir Richard Aldworth of Newmarket, 
 wrote him l an account of his judicial labours that reads like 
 a page from one of Lever's Irish novels. Aldworth had been 
 in the neighbourhood of Youghal without calling to visit 
 Boyle, and he wrote to explain that all his time had been 
 occupied by the riots of the M'Carthies. Donough McCarthy 
 had carried off fifty cattle belonging to his uncle, by order of 
 the Court of Wards, as he alleged. The uncle procured a 
 replevin, got himself and his friends sworn in as special 
 bailiffs, and carried off sixty cows in return not however 
 from Donough, but from ' divers poor people who had 
 nothing to do with the matter.' The Celtic ingenuity 
 that procured orders from the Court of Wards, and the 
 authority of writs, as a cloak for raiding, gave Aldworth 
 plenty to do, and he lamented that his wings were so clipped 
 by those in authority that he had only his own servants to 
 help him to enforce justice. But as his very name counted 
 for a good deal, he had to bustle about the country, and 
 leave Lady Aldworth to support his dignity when he was 
 from home. He wrote that he was now hurrying back with 
 her to Newmarket, as, if he were too long away, ' it would be 
 rumoured all over Kerry that I had quit the place, which 
 would breed such an uproar as would not easily be satisfied.' 
 In December he wrote again in high spirits at having 
 returned * from my extreme foul journey out of Kerry, where 
 I have begun the reformation of the Irish habit, and executed 
 
 1 L. P., 1624.
 
 72 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 by martial law Teige O'Dullany, the Leinster rebel.' Some 
 kerns of County Limerick, who had fought with Sir Valentine 
 Brown's servants, had escaped him, almost miraculously, and 
 no one would betray who had helped them to get out of the 
 country, but otherwise all was extraordinarily quiet for winter- 
 time, only twenty-one cows stolen near Mallow, ' which cows 
 were driven hard all night, and being very closely pursued, 
 were recovered in the morning, tired, and placed in a glen, 
 near an ancient suspected place in Barret's country.' 
 
 Boyle himself had to do some of the cattle-thief hunting, 
 for his estates bordered on Condon's country, where the 
 Condon clan held that stolen beef tasted sweetest. Sir 
 Richard Aldworth had discovered this nest of thieves, but left 
 them for Boyle to deal with, who wrote to the Lord Deputy 
 from Lismore to tell how last night with six servants he had 
 hunted Mr. Patrick Condon, and followed so hard as to oblige 
 him to forsake his horse and swim over the ' great river of 
 the Bryde,' and how pursuing him from place to place all 
 night long, they caught him after a twenty-mile chase, and 
 sent him off under a strong guard to Cork jail. 1 
 
 Sometimes there were cattle thieves to punish, sometimes 
 there were pirates to hang, sometimes too voluble an Irishman 
 had to be admonished to ' restrain his tongue and depart the 
 country ' ; but whatever the assize list might be, the coming 
 of the judges always filled Lord Cork's household with 
 delightful bustle. He was proud to escort them round to his 
 settlements, and spent five pounds on entertaining them at the 
 first assizes ever held at Tallow. The judges' dinner at 
 Youghal was more sumptuous still, as the Earl of Thomond 
 contributed a monumental pasty made of a whole * fatt stagg 
 baked ' for their entertainment. 
 
 1 L. P., Boyle to St. John, 1618.
 
 A MUNSTER RULER 73 
 
 This was all very dignified and regular, but at the petty 
 sessions the crimes and the punishments were delightfully 
 unlike the conventional calendars of English magistrates' 
 meetings. Not only had interpreters to attend, to translate 
 for the native Irish, but the punishments were often carefully 
 chosen to suit the crime. There is an account in 1624 of 
 how Boyle's ward, Will Supple, was assaulted by Jack Strong- 
 man (a most appropriate name), who ' gave him a sudden 
 stroke with a cudgel, and maimed him.' So Lord Cork, in 
 consultation with Lord Barry, Sir John Leeke, and Sir 
 William Fenton, had the culprit ' into the study at Youghal, 
 where kneeling, he delivered his sword and a cudgel to 
 W. Supple to strike him if he pleased, and also a written and 
 sealed acknowledgment of his fault ! ' 
 
 One of the most startling breaches of the peace recorded 
 in the diary was committed by a lady, and a very great lady 
 too, Lady Ellen Fitzgerald of Dromany, aunt of young Lady 
 Fenton. 'It was on St. Valentine's day, 1622,' writes Lord 
 Cork, ' that she went out with thirty armed men, and took 
 Garret Fitzjohn prisoner, and carried him to the castle of 
 Dromany, and terrified and threatened his uncle Tom.' As 
 these gentlemen were Fitzgeralds, perhaps Lady Ellen con- 
 sidered she was exercising family or feudal jurisdiction ; but 
 the authorities did not agree with her, and a pursuivant was 
 sent to Dromany to call her ladyship to order. ' But,' writes 
 Cork, 'he was not suffered to come within the gates. So 
 I gave the pursuivant half a piece. But the last of the 
 month the fat sergeant-at-arms came with warrant for her and 
 the rest of her riotous servants.' The fat sergeant seems also 
 to have succeeded in getting Garret out of prison, for in 
 September of the same year Cork was helping him and his 
 uncle Tom in their ploughing ' by reason of their poverty,'
 
 74 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 lending them eight horses. Four years later Lord Cork 
 writes : ' I first gave Garret Fitzjohn's second son of 
 Camphire, two cows, and after distrained them for my 
 rent of O'Kill, and now as a help I bestow on him other 
 two cows * ; an interesting example of how Boyle's ingenuity 
 solved the Irish rent difficulty. 
 
 The domestic squabbles of the M'Carthies and Fitzgeralds 
 did not however seriously disturb the comfort of the dwellers 
 in Munster ; on the whole the province seemed settling down 
 into the quiet prosperity of an English county ; but Carew's 
 anxieties were awakened by the very progress of which the 
 Munster rulers were so proud. He feared that the native 
 Irish, in becoming more civilised, better educated, and better 
 trained in arms, were not becoming more reconciled to the 
 English rule, but only the more efficient enemies. There 
 were fewer breaches of the peace because, forgetting their old 
 feuds, they were uniting in enmity to England, and the long 
 cessation of war had but left time for those idle younger sons 
 to grow up, whom Spenser had found neither able to live 
 quietly themselves, nor suffer their dependants to live quietly 
 either, and who were now, it was rumoured, in constant com- 
 munication with the exiled Irishmen in Spain. 1 
 
 In 1 607 Sir Geoffrey Fenton wrote to warn Boyle of * the 
 daungers which the tyme doth threaten on all sides,' and 
 advises * you do so carrie your owne Tennents and followers, 
 as they beinge furnished with armour and weapons may be 
 hable to stand upon a firm keeping ' ; and busy as he was 
 over his multifarious occupations, Boyle never lost sight of the 
 importance of keeping his tenants well armed and drilled. 
 He was a proud man when he had the opportunity of showing 
 
 1 In 1624 Friar Florence M'Carthy, Superior of the Monastery of Timoleague, 
 warned the deputy of Spanish intrigues in the west of Cork.
 
 A MUNSTER RULER 75 
 
 English visitors the result of his patient years of work. In 
 1622 Sir Thomas Penruddock, Sir Henry Boucher, and 
 Dr. Price were travelling through Munster as commissioners 
 to inquire into the condition of the Irish army, and Boyle 
 welcomed them at Bandon Bridge and mustered his tenants 
 before them, 65 horsemen and 564 foot, all English well 
 horsed and armed, besides their leaders and officers. After 
 the muster the Provost of Bandon entertained the great 
 men at a banquet, and then they rode towards Kinsale, 
 when * Dr. Pryce's horse, by the discharge of a piece in his 
 face, cast the doctor down, who had so dangerous a fall as 
 he was a quarter of an hour senseless, and his memory was 
 so for all that night. But the next day I thank my God he 
 recovered and went to Cork, and the other two commissioners 
 to Kinsale, and I defrayed all their charges at Bandon, 8.' 
 A few days later the commissioners saw Boyle's Tallow tenants 
 mustered, 720 foot and 215 horse, all English, well horsed 
 and armed, and ' we dined at Tallow,' says Boyle, ' which 
 cost me jii.' 
 
 The feudal tenures by which Boyle's tenants held their 
 farms, not only bound them to appear in arms at the call of 
 their lord, but laid them open to many forfeitures and fines 
 which a harsh landlord could so enforce as to nearly beggar his 
 peasantry. Considering what almost unlimited power a feudal 
 superior had, it is interesting to see how Lord Cork exercised 
 his rights, and to find, * I gave Hooper of Killeigh's wife all 
 her household stuffs that were forfeited by her husband's 
 flying for clipping money, and kept myself one cow, six beeves, 
 two garrons, and two colts.' c I gave Mr. Kendall's man the 
 hackney Mr. Piercy rode over the ford of Lismore when he 
 was drowned.' * Gave unto George Wood, whose father 
 drowned himself within the manor of Inniskeane, all his
 
 76 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 father's goods, cattle, leases, and debts, reserving only certain 
 English cows.' 
 
 Many a time did the Earl admit that he had been ' a kind 
 fool ' to his tenants, as when he agreed to abate five shillings 
 out of the Easter rent of ' the King of Drunkards,' and he 
 seems to have resigned himself patiently to the tenant of the 
 Youghal fish-curing house being two years in arrears. That 
 same year a nice little letter from Cornelius Gaggry of 
 Tircullen shows that one tenant at least appreciated his kind 
 heart : 
 
 ' HONOURABLE SIR, At my last being in Youghal, when 
 you told me you would be at Tallagh the next Wednesday, 
 I did forget to desire you to take my poor house in your 
 way, whereby my wife might provide a dish of broth for you 
 after coming from the cold mountain, and after your hard fit 
 of sickness in the weakest and hardest time of all the year.' 
 
 And again in 1635, Lord Cork writes that in his journey 
 to Dublin, ' I lay at Kilkenny at my servant Edward Dean's, 
 who would take no money for my diet and horse meat.' 
 
 In 1616 Mrs. Mary Bates of Clonakilty writes to him at 
 Bandon Bridge, quite composedly explaining that she cannot 
 pay her rent, * for I presumed on your love, and layd yt out in 
 Kerry upon cows : my husband was promised mony yesterday 
 at the bridge to pay the rent, but being disappointed, he was 
 ashamed to look you in the face, for which I am much 
 grieved ; but I beseech you to excuse us both till Michaelmas, 
 and then your whole rent shall be ready.' And in the post- 
 script, ' my husband doth teyer himself with dicthing [ditching] 
 the bogs and will not be ruled, for which I pray your 
 lordship chide him.' 
 
 Mrs. Bates wrote a beautiful hand, and was probably a
 
 A MUNSTER RULER 77 
 
 gentlewoman and friend of the Earl, but another letter from 
 a widowed Mrs. Forest shows he was kind to all conditions. 
 She thanks him for having saved the mill that her husband 
 had mortgaged by lending them ^100, and repays the money 
 with ' a wedow's might [mite], which is only thanks for your 
 great kindness.' l Even when he was over in England his 
 tenants trusted to the effects of an interview, and Mrs. Taylor 
 of Bandon travelled all the way to Dorset to ' bemoan the 
 poverty of herself and her seven children.' She had stood 
 security for a man named Ticknor, one of the Earl's debtors, 
 and brought the twenty pounds due with her, in gold. Of 
 course the Earl's heart melted at the sight of a widow from his 
 beloved Bandon Bridge, ' and I forgave her her four years' 
 rent, and gave her back the twenty pieces.' 
 
 To the end of his life Boyle had to be the active guardian 
 of the safety of his tenants. When Charles the First was king, 
 Boyle writes with satisfaction that he had succeeded in getting 
 the King's pardon ' for my good friend and tenant, Mr. Robert 
 Mead of Broghill, who in Queen Elizabeth's time had killed 
 one George Mead ; for which he was outlawed and his goods 
 granted to one of his Highness' servants, which grant was void 
 in law, as he had none of those goods when the fact was com- 
 mitted. I gave 200 to procure his pardon, and fees ^48, 6s.' 
 Evidently the crime, if crime it was, had been forgotten, till 
 some hungry courtier raked up the story of nearly fifty years 
 back, and threatened ruin to an old man. 
 
 Lord Cork knew, that, docile and well-meaning as his eldest 
 son had always proved himself, this 'young courtier of the King' 
 must be often away in England, and could not enter into the 
 difficulties of Munster farmers in the friendly gossiping fashion 
 of an old man who had lived all his days among them. He 
 
 i L. P., ii. 2. 58.
 
 78 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 therefore in his will enjoined on him very solemnly, * that he 
 be a favourable and friendly landlord to all his English tenants, 
 and not to take any advantage or forfeiture of any of the 
 leases I have made, for non-payment of rent at the precise day 
 or place, or upon any conditions or provisions contained in 
 these leases, except they shall prove false, treacherous, 
 unthankful, injurious, or highly abusive unto him, but to be 
 comfortable, forbearing, encouraging and helpful unto such 
 as are honestly inclined, whereby they may find the less loss 
 of me, as being supplied with his favour, countenance, and 
 goodness towards them.' 
 
 For the training and edification of his tenants Lord Cork 
 was careful to build and endow grammar-schools at Youghal, 
 Bandon, and Lismore, and restore the old churches or build 
 new ones in the towns and villages scattered over his estates. 
 Indeed, he was not only the chief landowner, merchant, and 
 manufacturer in Munster, but, like his Majesty King James, 
 he appears to have been head of Church as well as State. 
 When the parson of Tallagh delayed so long in Youghal on a 
 certain Sunday in 1625, that he did not reach home in time 
 to preach his sermon, it was to Lord Cork and not to the 
 bishop that he made his excuses. But for some reason or 
 other, the great man seems to have been especially interested 
 in the religious condition of Tallow ; he provided an allowance 
 of wine to refresh the gentlemen who came to hear the 
 Wednesday's lecture, and paid for the dinner of the preacher ; 
 the vicar of Tallow was usually one of his chaplains, and 
 occupied a house at the nominal rent of two fat turkeys a year. 
 
 Boyle was very kind to the Munster clergy after his own 
 fashion, although it was a fashion that found little favour in 
 the eyes of Archbishop Laud, who had no fancy for lectures 
 and sermons.
 
 A MUNSTER RULER 79 
 
 There are constant notes among the Lismore accounts of 
 money given to poor preachers 10 to the preacher at 
 Bandon Bridge, twenty shillings to another, and ten pounds 
 rent forgiven to the preacher at Mallow, and eleven shillings 
 given to Mr. Lowther the preacher for his lectures at Youghal. 
 When Mr. Lancaster, one of the fellows of Youghal College, 
 came in 1616 to beg the Earl for preferment, he was given 
 his travelling expenses, and in 1619 the Earl agreed to give 
 him ' as Parson and Vicar of Ardmore ' a free gift of half the 
 tithe fish, which formerly had been a due of the dissolved 
 St. Molana's Abbey, to which Ardmore had belonged. 
 
 It was indeed necessary for the gentry to bestir themselves, 
 for the long wars had left the Church in Ireland in a deplor- 
 able condition. Church lands were devastated or alienated, 
 and church buildings were burnt down, and the stipends 
 were often reduced to such a mere pittance that it was hardly 
 possible to tempt reputable clergymen to accept them. 
 English University men were not disposed to cross the sea, 
 and risk poverty and the discomforts of life in a new country 
 to minister to the English settlers, while the needs of the 
 native Irish were not even considered ; their own priests were 
 banished, and the newcomers could not speak their language. 
 Spenser describes these poor peasants as lapsing into a sort of 
 heathenism, their religion consisting only of pilgrimages to 
 holy wells or ruined shrines, where they recited half-forgotten 
 prayers whose meaning they had never known. 
 
 One of the first rays of the dawn of more enlightened days 
 came in a letter from Boyle to Sir Robert Cecil in I6O2, 1 
 introducing Mr. Daniell, a worthy preacher of God's word, 
 who had translated the New Testament into Irish, and desired 
 to dedicate the work to his sacred Majesty. Mr. Daniell, he 
 
 i L. P., ii. i.
 
 8o LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 wrote, was a natural born subject in Ireland and had studied 
 in Cambridge, and had since planted a church at Galway, ' so 
 the tyme of his mynistery there hath brought on those 
 barbarous people in some measure to taste the sweetness of 
 God's word.' l 
 
 When the children of Lord Cork's tenants had completed 
 their education at his free schools, he did not by any means 
 relax his supervision over them ; he was continually giving 
 money to apprentice destitute girls and boys. He was also 
 determined that older people should not remain idle for want 
 of work, and was in the habit of lending money to tradesmen 
 on condition that they should employ destitute people ; and 
 when the first employer was able to repay the loan, it was lent 
 to another tradesman on the same terms. The Earl lent in 
 1635 a hundred pounds gratis 'to Mr. Page, a clothier near 
 Kilmacke, to put the poor people in those parts to work,' 
 and twenty-five pounds to Cook, the clothier at Cappoquin, 
 ' to set forward clothing,' obviously cloth- weaving. Sixteen 
 pounds which he had lent gratis for the poor of Dublin was 
 lent again to Mr. Walter Bird, the sovereign of Clonakilty, 
 to enable him to ' set the peace of the town in spinning,' 
 which seems to imply that it was the ladies of Clonakilty who 
 were most active in breaches of the peace. Certainly from 
 the petty sessions reports towards the end of that century 2 
 Clonakilty seems to have been a lively little town, in which 
 the wives were generally to the front when the dignified 
 members of the grand jury took out cross summonses against 
 each other for assault, and one burgess ' did beat, batter, 
 bloodshed and continually strike * the other ! 
 
 1 Mr. Daniell only finished the translation begun by Bishop Karney of Orrery 
 and Archbishop Donellan. The New Testament was printed in 1603 with a 
 dedication to King James. 
 
 2 Cork Arch. Journ. t 1896, 321.
 
 A MUNSTER RULER 81 
 
 But in spite of the little skirmishes on market-days, the 
 Earl's efforts were successful in establishing spinning and weav- 
 ing at Clonakilty ; so lately as 1839 there were four hundred 
 linen-looms at work there, and the weekly sales of yarn were 
 often to the value of a thousand pounds. 
 
 When Lord Cork wrote in his diary that he had sent 
 James the Pedlar to the almshouses at Youghal with five 
 pounds a year, and given him ten shillings for his journey 
 from Dublin, he also noted that he twice gave twenty shillings 
 to poor old widows that were beggar-women in Dublin, that 
 they might buy them wool and fall to work and beg no more ; 
 and further that he had found a poor Munster girl begging 
 in the streets of Dublin, and given ' the bone-lace woman' ten 
 shillings to apparel the girl and teach her to make bone-lace ; 
 so, old and young, the ' knitters in the sun, and the free maids 
 that weave their lace with bones,' all had cause to bless the 
 good-natured, domineering ruler of Munster. 
 
 When Boyle had provided for the spiritual and temporal 
 needs of his own towns, his work for the province was not by 
 any means over. He knew well that the quickest way to 
 civilise a country is to make the ways of communication 
 safe and easy, and when he planned the building of a bridge 
 over one of the Munster rivers he always wrote down in 
 his diary : ' God bless me in this good work for the 
 Commonwealth.' 
 
 It was indeed little use to have cleared away the impene- 
 trable forests, and hunted down highwaymen and wolves, when 
 rivers could only be crossed by dangerous fords and frail ferry- 
 boats. The great man's own journeys were often interrupted 
 by floods, and when his whole family was on its way to 
 Dublin to welcome the bride of Lord Dungarvan, his coach 
 was upset in crossing the ford on the Four-mile Water near 
 
 F
 
 82 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Castle Connagh, and the youngest son, little Robert, had a 
 narrow escape from drowning. The horses were swept away, 
 and if one of the gentlemen in attendance had not ridden back 
 and picked the child, in spite of his terrified struggles, out of 
 the overturned carriage, the wedding festivities would have 
 been turned to mourning. 1 
 
 This ford at Four-mile Water was one of the most 
 important to which Cork turned his attention, and he ordered 
 John Lodden, 'a free mason' of Bandon, to build a stone 
 bridge there over this dangerous stream, ' and it being a work 
 of charity, I am to pay him a hundred pounds.' But in a very 
 few months comes the melancholy entry, ' Saw my new bridge 
 which John Lodden deceitfully built, carried away by the 
 flood.' The Earl of Cork's last days on earth were haunted 
 by that broken bridge, and he left careful directions in his 
 will as to the course to be taken by his heir with John 
 Lodden, who, ' having given his bond of two hundred 
 pounds that he would perfect and perform the work strongly 
 and substantially,' had ' built the said bridge falsely and 
 deceitfully, with ill stones, gravel, lime and mortar.' The 
 Earl therefore bequeathed a legacy of 120 for the building, 
 and, in confidence that the civil war would soon end, expressed 
 the hope that the mayor and corporation of Clonmel, * after 
 they shall be returned to their loyalty,' would undertake the 
 carriage of the materials. * And howsoever that the said John 
 Lodden hath failed in this work and the trust that I reposed 
 in him through too much negligence or avarice,' the Earl 
 desired that he should be employed in rebuilding the bridge, 
 that he might retrieve his character. 
 
 But the blame of disasters did not always lie with the 
 bridge-builders, for one autumn night's rain often changed 
 
 1 See Autobiog. of Robert Boyl.
 
 A MUNSTER RULER 83 
 
 the sparkling Munster salmon rivers into resistless torrents. 
 One September storm swept both Mallow and Cappoquin 
 bridges down the Blackwater, and the eight hundred tons of 
 choice timber that Boyle had put into Fermoy bridge did not 
 enable it to stand against that flood. Experience showed that 
 it needed solid lime and stone to bridle those torrents, so in 
 his last will Boyle directed that the picturesque wooden bridge 
 that he had erected at Bandon should be replaced by one of 
 strong stone, with the Boyle arms carved upon the balustrade 
 at either end.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 AT THE COURT OF THE BRITISH SOLOMON 
 1613 1628 
 
 ' Many will entreat the favour of the prince ; and every man is a friend to 
 him that giveth gifts. Proverbs xix. 6.' 
 
 THE organised plan of resistance to England, which Carew saw 
 growing up among the Irish Romanists, gave its first signs of 
 active life in the Parliament of 1613-14. 
 
 King James's government already realised that in the new 
 Parliament they would have no longer to deal with isolated 
 discontented chieftains, but with a united national party that 
 included noblemen, freeholders, and burgesses. Better educa- 
 tion, as Carew had noticed, was making the Romanists more 
 intelligent adherents to their own creed, while either from 
 natural feeling of opposition, or from the individualism 
 inherent in the doctrines of the Reformation, the English 
 were tending towards what we may roughly call Puritanism, 
 although it had little in common with the revolutionary 
 Puritanism of the Civil Wars, but rather resembled what 
 would to-day be called ' Low Church.' To the good Erastian 
 settlers in Ireland conformity with the Church of England 
 was as obvious a duty for a loyal subject as obedience to the 
 king ; the Romanists therefore saw their time had come for 
 making a stand for their own legal existence, and strained 
 every nerve to secure a majority in the coming session. 
 
 S4 

 
 AT THE COURT OF THE BRITISH SOLOMON 85 
 
 The government in Dublin, on the other hand, numbered 
 over its probable supporters with great anxiety, and called in 
 Carew to give the benefit of his old experience. He advised 
 them to keep out peers such as Lord Barry and Lord Roche, 
 who were under the thumbs of their confessors, and even 
 carried their clergy with them to the Parliament House to give 
 them counsel ; three other Munster peers, he recommended, 
 should be obliged to give their proxies to assured Protestants, 
 and the heirs of Thomond and Audley l should be called up 
 to make the majority in the Lords secure. 2 To make 
 matters safe in the Commons for the government party, it 
 was decided to incorporate several of the newly-built towns, 
 among them Clonakilty, where Boyle had already settled a 
 hundred English families, and his favourite Bandon Bridge, 
 which was given two members. A Youghal man sat for 
 Clonakilty, Boyle himself represented Lismore, and his kins- 
 man, Laurence Parsons, was member for Tallow. With all 
 the names and formalities of a modern Parliament, that Dublin 
 assemblage was wonderfully unlike anything we see nowa- 
 days. The members for the Commons were paid regular 
 salaries, the Youghal City Council voted that the burgesses 
 who represented them should receive ten shillings a day for 
 their expenses, 3 and in 1615 Boyle notes that he had given five 
 pounds in part payment of the knights of the shire for their 
 Parliament wages out of the lands in his liberties. 4 
 
 But the payment of members was the least remarkable part 
 of this remarkable Parliament. The scene that followed its 
 
 1 If Carew was not ill-informed in believing Lord Audley to be a Protestant, the 
 young man certainly became a Romanist shortly after, as his difference of faith 
 prevented his marriage with one of Lord Cork's daughters. 
 
 2 Cal. Care<w MSS., 1611, p. 98. 
 
 3 Caulfield, Council Book of Youghal, 22, 38. 
 
 4 L. P., \. i. 68.
 
 86 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 opening on the 8th of May was more worthy of Donnybrook 
 Fair than of the supreme council of the nation. Careful as 
 the Government had been to pack the House, it was no match 
 for the Irish minority. The Protestants proposed Sir John 
 Davis, an intelligent practical lawyer, to be Speaker of the 
 House, and on a division being called, filed out into the lobby 
 according to custom. The Romanist party, being thus left 
 in possession of the House, closed the doors and promptly 
 enthroned their own candidate, Sir John Everard, in the 
 Speaker's chair ! The unsuspecting Protestants, startled by 
 their opponents' triumphant shouts, 'An Everard, an Everard ! ' 
 rushed back into the House, and a free fight followed. Boyle, 
 his old friend William Crofton, Barnaby Brien, Lord Thomond's 
 son, Adam Loftus, and Edward Moore of Bandon, according 
 to their own account, ' laid their hands gently on Sir John 
 Everard,' and, no doubt with all possible courtesy, seated 
 Sir John Davis on his lap ! l 
 
 After such an outbreak, nothing was possible but to 
 suspend the session and refer to England, and both sides 
 hurried over without leave or licence to lay their cases before 
 the King. 
 
 His Highness, though ill pleased by such tumultuous deputa- 
 tions, received them, and delivered to them a very long and 
 very learned speech, which the Lord Deputy succeeded in recol- 
 lecting, ' and put it into writing and showed it to the King, 
 who approved of it for the nearest collection that ever was 
 made of any speech of his.' As quite one-third of the speech 
 was occupied by encomiums of the Lord Deputy himself, his 
 integrity and sufficiency, the report was doubtless a labour 
 of love. 
 
 The Lord Chancellor of Ireland wrote to Boyle, who had 
 
 1 Cat. Care-tu MSS,, 1613.
 
 AT THE COURT OF THE BRITISH SOLOMON 87 
 
 not formed one of the deputation, that ' if Solomon were alive 
 and had had that subject to handle, he could not possibly have 
 exceeded his Majesty's speech ! ' And then the British Solomon 
 gave judgment, and committed all the Deputy's opponents to 
 separate jails, binding over the peers in ^2000 not again to 
 depart their country without royal licence. 
 
 The packed Parliament had proved a failure, and although 
 the Irish had shown unexpected aptitude for political organisa- 
 tion, their advance in civilisation went no further, and the 
 Lord Deputy was at his wits' end to discover some way of 
 weaning them from their habits of harvesting their crops by 
 burning the straw instead of threshing the grain out of it, and 
 of tying their ploughs to their horses' tails instead of harness- 
 ing the poor beasts in civilised fashion. The Irish fiercely 
 resisted any interference with these cherished customs, and it 
 appeared to the Deputy and Sir John Davis that, as example is 
 better than precept, the settlement of English farmers among 
 them was the best hope of teaching the Irish less primitive 
 methods of husbandry. 
 
 It was admitted that the Munster settlement, with the 
 exception of the grants which Boyle had acquired, had not 
 been a success, but the settlement now planned in Ulster 
 was to be quite different, and vastly superior to the old 
 Elizabethan colony. 
 
 The design, as was usual with King James, was admirable. 
 Any landowners who might unfortunately be dispossessed of 
 their property were to be properly compensated, a certain 
 proportion of land was to be set aside to support churches 
 and schools, and the Ulster chieftains were to be won over 
 to friendliness by free permission to exercise the Romish 
 religion and to fill their households, in defiance of sumptuary 
 laws, with their clansmen and retainers. So much for the
 
 88 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 theory ; unfortunately it was carried into practice by com- 
 missioners, whose first care was to fill their own pockets, and 
 who then diverted attention from their misappropriations by 
 laying claim to lands as crown property without the slightest 
 foundation for the demand. 
 
 But while the plans were being matured, the King took an 
 immense amount of trouble over them, and consulted all the 
 experts he could hear of. Among others, Richard Boyle 
 received his Majesty's commands to repair to court. A journey 
 to England was no small matter, and Sir Richard made his will 
 and set his affairs in order before embarking at Youghal. 
 He left Youghal on the 5th of August 1613, and arrived, as 
 he wrote, ' God be praised, safely at Tenby, the yth day in the 
 evening, and rode the next day, being Sunday, towards 
 London, and came thither the 2Oth of August.' 
 
 Boyle was personally unknown to King James, but young 
 Sir William Fenton was in England, and being already a 
 courtier of some experience, had warned his brother-in-law 
 that gifts were as essential a part of the introduction to the 
 British Solomon as ever they had been in the days of the 
 Queen of Sheba ; so Boyle had already paved his way to 
 court by a present. The most acceptable offering in those 
 days, whether to king or esquire, was a good hawk, and 
 Boyle's eyries on the Blasket rocks, at Crook Haven, and in 
 O'Leary's country, supplied him with many a cast of merlins 
 or goshawks to despatch to his friends. In the July before 
 this visit to England, Boyle had sent his servant, John 
 Watt, to England with five pounds in his purse to present 
 his Majesty with a right royal present, a cast or pair of 
 goshawks, a cast of tercels of goshawks, a cast of falcons, 
 a cast of tercel gentles, and a cast of merlins. Fenton had 
 described the arrival of these precious hawks in a letter that
 
 AT THE COURT OF THE BRITISH SOLOMON 89 
 
 reads like an extract from 'The Fortunes of Nigel. The court 
 was then at Bath, and when John Watt arrived with the birds, 
 ' the King came down into the yard in his pantables to see 
 them, who liked so well of them, after he had seen them, and 
 felt them all severally on John's fist, that he swore by his soul 
 he never saw a finer present of hawks nor better brought 
 in his life.' 
 
 Doubtless the falcons had been excellent advocates for 
 Boyle at court, but he now brought with him also weighty 
 letters of introduction. Sir Francis Annesley, who afterwards 
 as Lord Mountmorris quarrelled with every one from Falkland 
 to StrafFord, was at this time a good friend of Boyle's, and 
 wrote of him to Sir Humphrey May, ' I protest if his estate 
 were six times as much as it is, I should think him very 
 deserving of it, for he employs the fruit of it altogether to 
 the strengthening and beautifying of the commonwealth.' 
 Ridgeway, the Lord Chancellor, also wrote to the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, describing Boyle's ' preferment of the public 
 good to his private profit,' and the excellence of his plantations. 
 ' If other undertakers may be induced to follow the like course, 
 his Majesty's charges might be abated and the kingdom well 
 secured against foreign attempts.' The Lord Chancellor also 
 wrote to the Earl of Northumberland recommending Boyle as 
 the one of all the Munster undertakers who had laid the best 
 foundation of a civil plantation of English tenants, and could 
 bring into the field ' a colony of four or five hundred foot and 
 sixty horse, all mere English, which live together in as civil 
 and orderly a fashion as in any part of England.' 
 
 It was many years since Boyle had been in England, but 
 happily for him, not only was young Fenton there to welcome 
 him, but the good friend who had forwarded his fortunes 
 under Elizabeth was still a favourite under the new monarch.
 
 90 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Sir George Carew was now Earl of Totnes and Chamberlain to 
 Queen Anne of Denmark, and was as ready as in the old days 
 to do a good turn to Boyle. And with Carew was his son, 
 Sir Thomas Stafford, who was perhaps the nearest and dearest 
 friend that Boyle ever had. 
 
 Boyle therefore had the support of two accomplished 
 courtiers in England, and at home in Ireland he had a 
 shrewd, almost too shrewd, friend, Sir Laurence Parsons, who 
 sent after him a letter of advice about the management of 
 the Ulster affairs, which is as complete a guide to the wiles 
 of diplomacy as any tiro could desire. He begins with 
 a number of useful hints on legal points, telling Boyle on 
 which of the Ulster estates it would be most difficult to 
 assert the royal claims, as the King would have in some cases 
 to bring an action against each petty freeholder. O'Rourk's 
 country must not be overlooked, * for it is a den of thieves, 
 and will never give either Connaught or Ulster peace till 
 it is planted with English settlers ' ; but then he winds up 
 with personal matters, reminding Boyle that it always pays 
 to talk of the papists, and he must not forget to say that 
 if he gives way for a plantation to be made in Wexford 
 [where apparently he had property], it is only because of his 
 great love for the Lord Deputy and not for any personal 
 advantage. 
 
 The court was still at the Bath, as it was called, when 
 Boyle arrived in London, and by Fenton's advice he followed 
 it west. But for some reason or other he was not given an 
 audience at Bath, and after spending a week there, went on to 
 Bristol, where he always had much business to do with the 
 merchants who received his iron and pipestaves. 
 
 On the first of October he was back in London and had 
 ' a long and gracious conference with the King's Majesty at 

 
 AT THE COURT OF THE BRITISH SOLOMON 91 
 
 Hampton Court,' and a month later at Royston he had an 
 hour's gracious and private conference with the King in his 
 bedchamber * concerning Ireland and the government thereof, 
 where after his Highness had delivered me many speeches of 
 great grace and comfort, he gave order to Sir Humphrey May 
 to make his warrant to the Lord Deputy to have me sworn 
 one of his Privy Council of Ireland.' 
 
 Having given his information and received his reward, 
 Boyle saw no reason why he should loiter in England when 
 a hundred different reasons were calling him back to Ireland ; 
 so after, as we have already seen, 1 settling his son, little Hodge, 
 at Deptford school, he started for Dublin, travelling by 
 Daventry and Stone, and embarking on the I2th of February 
 1614 from Hillbree Island, at the mouth of the Dee. The 
 winds were contrary and he was driven back, but on the I4th 
 he put to sea again and reached Dublin in safety on the I5th, 
 when ' I delivered his Majesty's letters to the Lord Deputy, 
 and was that afternoon sworn a Privy Councillor of Ireland.' 
 
 But for all Boyle's sharp wit and smooth tongue, he was 
 too busy a man to play the courtier with real zest, and Sir 
 Thomas Stafford wrote soon after his return home to warn 
 him that his departure from England had been too sudden, 
 and he had better write to those lords of the council f in whose 
 favour you suppose yourself to be interested,' to apologise for 
 not having taken leave of them. 
 
 Boyle, we cannot doubt, made suitable apologies and sent 
 suitable presents to appease the great men's injured feelings ; 
 he was rather an adept in writing pretty notes of compliment, 
 though he hated wasting time in paying visits. Perhaps as 
 ' music hath charms,' the present of an Irish harp about this 
 time to the Lord Keeper may have had its effect ; at any rate 
 
 1 See ante, p. 59.
 
 92 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Boyle's fortunes suffered no check. In 1614 he was granted 
 an annuity of 365 as governor of Lough Foil, 1 and on 
 Michaelmas Day 1616 he was 'created Lord Boyle, Baron 
 of Youghal, in the King's Chamber of Presence within the 
 Castle of Dublin,' Lord Louth, Lord Moore, and Lord 
 Killeen assisting the Lord Deputy in the investiture. It was 
 an expensive luxury to be made a baron, and ' th'expense 
 in this jorney was ^340.' The grant recites Boyle's services 
 in very noble terms. 2 
 
 1616. 6 Sept. Grant to SIR RICHARD BOYLE, knt., and 
 his heirs-male, of the title and dignity of LORD BOYLE, BARON 
 OF YOUGHAL, in consideration of his having planted a colony 
 in the south of Munster near Yoghall, and for his exertions 
 in various arduous public employments. 
 
 'Whereas the King's Majesty is the fount and source no 
 less of honour than of justice, and honour is naught save 
 Merit's guerdon, distributed by Justice's right hand to well- 
 deserving men : and whereas, among other grades of honour, 
 the style and grade of BARON hath in it so much of splendour 
 and dignity, that men when promoted to this honour, may 
 justly be counted and considered the gems and brilliants of the 
 Crown, and the pillars of the royal throne : and moreover, 
 whereas Our beloved and faithful Privy Councillor, SIR 
 RICHARD BOYLE, knt., who is sprung of an ancient and noble 
 family, hath deserved exceedingly well of Us and Our realm, 
 in Our kingdom of Ireland, in this respect chiefly, because he 
 hath introduced into the maritime parts of Our Province of 
 Munster, and particularly in the neighbourhood of Yoghall, 
 (districts by most wicked traitors almost wholly wasted and 
 
 1 Smith, ii. 59. 
 
 2 Translation of Latin original given in Hayman's Handbook to Youghal.
 
 AT THE COURT OF THE BRITISH SOLOMON 93 
 
 depopulated) a very excellent Colony, consisting of veteran 
 soldiers, and many other persons, brought by himself out of 
 England, who profess civilised life and pure religion : and 
 because at and over divers localities, he hath erected at his 
 own charges sundry castles and forts fitted and adapted for 
 Our service ; which colony, castles, and forts are the great 
 security, gain, and adornment of said Province, so that the 
 whole of that district is become, through the diligence and 
 prudence of the said RICHARD, more civilised and opulent, 
 and more obedient to laws, human and divine : and whereas 
 the said SIR RICHARD BOYLE, knt., hath proved himself able, 
 active, and distinguished, in discharging difficult duties for the 
 state, and hath exhibited very many services, as well in time 
 of war as in peace, grateful and acceptable to Our most dear 
 Sister ELIZABETH, Ourselves, and the State, which We con- 
 sider deserving a great reward of honour, Know ye, that 
 We, etc.' 
 
 All Sir Thomas Stafford's advice was not sufficient to 
 wean Boyle from over-absorption in his Munster affairs ; in 
 1623 Secretary Calvert had to repeat much the same warning 
 in writing from Dublin : ' If I may be soe bould to saie yt, I 
 think yt were very necessarie that your Lordship spent one 
 winter here to grace our state, which will be well taken by his 
 Majesty and my Lord. I could yeeld many reasons for this 
 which I shall tell you of hereafter.' Friend after friend echoed 
 the warning. William Fenton, who was knighted the same 
 year that Boyle received his barony, soon suggested that his 
 brother-in-law might with advantage make his new honour a 
 reason for crossing to England to return thanks to the King ; 
 it was time for my lord to show himself once more at court, 
 for while his back was turned his enemies whispered evil things 
 concerning him. Fenton wrote that the King had been led to
 
 94 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 believe * you had done wrong to the Crown to fee so much 
 land as you hold from Wardship,' and that Sir John Denham 
 had said that he * held Boyle to be a man that had undone 
 many, and would lay hold on any occasion of forfeiture.' 
 Next came the note of alarm from his friend Mr. Henry 
 Peers : ' Your Lordship's estate, and God's providence therein 
 greater than that, which makes you the greater subject of 
 talk unto men and no less of envy.' One of the Roches was 
 actually declaring to Lord Salisbury that the Earl of Thomond 
 and Sir Richard Boyle were passing government grants for so 
 many parcels of land that the particulars contained in a roll 
 of parchment reached sixteen yards in length. 1 
 
 A faithful Munster neighbour, Sir John Leeke, who had 
 opportunities of hearing a good deal of Court gossip from his 
 cousin Sir Edmund Verney, also learned that many people 
 were accusing Boyle of the old crime of buying out English 
 settlers, and so weakening the country of the best of its people. 
 A sight of the muster of Protestant farmers at Bandon and 
 Tallow would have been the best answer to such complaints ; 
 but considering the way business was done in the Stuart 
 court, all Boyle's friends agreed that he must endeavour to 
 secure the support of some one who had the King's ear, and 
 Sir William Fenton urged him to come over expressly to 
 make acquaintance with the new favourite, the Duke of 
 Buckingham, ' who fails in nothing he undertakes.' 
 
 Boyle did not make the journey to England, but he took 
 Fenton's hint, and the following August a cast of falcons and 
 a cast of tercels were despatched to the Duke, and the Duke's 
 mother received a cast of falcons from Lady Boyle. Gradu- 
 ally the acquaintance grew more intimate, till at last Bucking- 
 ham's brother, Sir Edward Villiers, became one of Boyle's 
 
 1 Cal. S. P. Ire.
 
 AT THE COURT OF THE BRITISH SOLOMON 95 
 
 chief allies. Sir Edward was poor, and Boyle could supply 
 his needs ; but also there appears to have been some extra- 
 ordinary fascination about the Villiers family that made all 
 who knew them intimately overlook their faults and follies, 
 and remain devoted to the end. Endymion Porter's last 
 words in his will commanded his son to be faithful and grate- 
 ful to the house of Villiers, 1 and when the Earl of Cork was 
 an old man, the summit of his glory was the marriage of one 
 of his sons to the daughter of a Villiers. She never seems to 
 have said or done anything remarkable, but to Richard Boyle 
 she was the best beloved of his daughters-in-law. The 
 Villiers were perhaps rather typical of their time ; every age 
 has its own frailties and crimes ; seventeenth-century failings 
 are now out of fashion, and appear to us rather scandalous ; 
 but it is very probable that seventeenth-century consciences 
 might revolt at faults we now consider venial. 
 
 But when all is said, the open way in which dignities were 
 then bought and sold is startling to realise. In the summer 
 of 1620 Sir Edward Villiers was very busy on behalf of his 
 Munster friend : Boyle had already been given to understand 
 that a higher title than that of Baron might be his, no doubt 
 in the words of old Trapboys, ' for a consideration.' We are 
 not told whether the price was too high, or the conditions too 
 hard, but in the spring the title of Earl had actually been 
 offered to him, and had been declined. Then further letters 
 passed, and Sir Edward Villiers once again made himself very 
 busy, and Cousin Parsons, as Lady Boyle's trustee, was called 
 into consultation, and in July a new bargain was offered, and 
 a covenant signed, by which Sir Edward Villiers agreed to 
 procure for Boyle the right to appoint guardians for any of 
 his sons who might be under age, or of his daughters who 
 
 1 Life and Letters of Endymion Porter, p. 365.
 
 96 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 might be unmarried at the time of his death, so that their 
 wardship, instead of passing to the Crown, should be vested 
 in Sir William Fenton and Sir Laurence Parsons, and the 
 children be safe in the hands of their friends, instead of being 
 sold by the King to the highest bidder. 
 
 This agreement must have been an immense relief to 
 Boyle, who gladly paid 500 to Sir Edward for procuring the 
 boon. Then Lady Boyle and Lady Villiers made their little 
 bargain, and Lady Villiers was presented with 500, and 
 promised to procure a title for Dick, the eldest son, and heir 
 of Youghal. Boyle's cousin Cave was employed as London 
 agent in all this business, and received a gratuity of 20 ' for 
 his travail and pains'; and then the most important negotiation 
 of all was concluded. Sir Edward Villiers was paid ^4000, 
 and on the 2Oth of December 1620 comes the triumphant 
 entry in Boyle's diary : ' This day my cousin Sir Laurence 
 Parsons brought and delivered me the King's Majesty's 
 letters patent under the great [seal] of England bearing 
 date the 26th of October last past, whereby I was created 
 and made Lord Viscount of Dungarvon and Earl of Cork : 
 for which great addition of earthly honours God make me 
 and my heirs thankful to the Almighty and to his sacred 
 majesty, and that it may continue unspotted in the name 
 of the Boyles, and my posterity until the end of the world. 
 Amen.' 
 
 His gratitude to Heaven was shown by his choice of a 
 motto. The Earl of Cork's shield ever after bore the pious 
 words, ' God's providence is my inheritance.' His thankful- 
 ness to King James was as great as if the honour had been 
 bestowed out of pure grace ; to the feelings of those days 
 there was neither degradation nor bathos in the added 
 entry : ' The fees whereof in England and Ireland stood
 
 AT THE COURT OF THE BRITISH SOLOMON 97 
 
 me in ^305.4.4 sterl., besides ^4500 ster. otherwise 
 paid.' 1 
 
 The Earl of Cork was, if possible, a busier man than Sir 
 Richard Boyle had been ; and although he never seems to have 
 desired, or been offered, the post of Lord President, his power 
 in Munster was quite as great as that of the official governor. 
 As long as the great Earl of Thomond lived there was the less 
 need of a great Earl of Cork ; but when the day came for a 
 new king to ascend the English throne, Thomond had been 
 gathered to his fathers, and then it was lucky for the peace of 
 Munster that an Earl of Cork lived at Youghal who remem- 
 bered the accession of King James, and was on his guard 
 against any further revolts, whether farcical or serious. 
 
 On the 2yth of March 1628 King James died at Theobalds, 
 but it was not till the i oth of April that Sir Thomas Stafford 
 himself came over to bring the news to Munster. 
 
 f He arrived,' says the diary, ' bringing the unwelcome 
 tidings of King James his decease, and the joyful news of the 
 peaceable receiving and proclaiming of King Charles, whom I 
 beseech God ever to bless, prosper and defend. Upon notice 
 of which great accident and alteration I presently had the ports 
 of our town shut up, and them and all ways and all passages 
 by land and water stopped and well guarded, and with my 
 own hand wrote letters to the principal councillors and gentle- 
 men of quality and chief officers of every city, advertising 
 them of this heavy and joyful work of God, and at a private 
 postern gate so readily put out and despatched my messengers, 
 
 1 Sir Richard Cox relates that King James asked Chief Justice Aylmer the true 
 cause of the decay of Ireland. Aylmer replied that it was due to the landowners 
 being absentees, and suggested that the King should command them to return to their 
 estates, or else forfeit their lands. In consequence of this action, the King deprived 
 the Earl of Shrewsbury of his title of Viscount Dungarvan, and conferred it on Sir 
 Richard Boyle. Cox's Regnum Corcagiensis. 
 
 G
 
 98 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 as in every place they brought the news thereof, whereby all 
 places were made secure and guarded before any noise or 
 rumour could disturb them. 
 
 * 1 1 th. Then happily arrived 600 foot soldiers at Youghal 
 and refreshed and sent away to their several garrisons. 
 
 ' Having no letters from my Lord Deputy, and having 
 hourly notice of conventicals and assemblys of the natives and 
 recusants, posted an express messenger to my Lord Deputy 
 giving him and his council an account of my proceedings and 
 craving proclamation.' 
 
 The Deputy seems hardly to have realised the dangers of 
 delay, and when he did vouchsafe letters, sent them in such a 
 careless fashion as shocked Boyle's sense of propriety. 
 
 f 1 9th. This day as I was at dinner, received letter from 
 the Lord Deputy and Council, brought by an ordinary foot- 
 man called Teague Connaie, whereon I presently forsook my 
 dinner and immediately wrote letters, and in every two of 
 them enclosed three proclamations, so as they were all 
 dispatched in two hours, to the Earl of Thomond, 1 the Lord 
 Justice Sarsfield, Sir Richard Aldworth, and all the mayors, 
 sheriffs, etc., so that his Majesty was most solemnly and 
 joyfully proclaimed that night in Youghal, Tallagh and Lis- 
 more, and at Lismore I was personally present, and we all 
 drank King Charles his health on our knees.' 
 
 With that proclamation the old days came to an end, and 
 the ' old courtier of the Queen ' was to see new days and 
 learn many new things, for with the death of King James a 
 new spirit began to awake, and a more modern atmosphere 
 seems to breathe around men's actions. 
 
 1 Eldest son of the great Earl of Thomond. He died without heirs, and was 
 succeeded by his brother Barnaby.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 IN A SEAPORT TOWN 
 1603 1618 
 
 1 1 thank my fortune for it, 
 My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, 
 Nor to one place.' 
 
 Merchant of Venice. 
 
 WHEN Boyle succeeded to Ralegh's seignory of Youghal he 
 found the town but just recovering from the devastation of 
 the Munster war. Although the Mayor had opened the gates 
 of Youghal to the Irish enemy, his cowardice failed of its 
 intention, and the town was as thoroughly sacked and burnt 
 as though it had been taken by assault. When the relieving 
 English army arrived it found little left of the seaport but a 
 heap of smoking ruins, and nothing to do but to hang the 
 traitorous mayor over his own doorway. 
 
 But the spirit of the surviving townsmen was not broken. 
 While Kinsale was still sunk in hopeless ruin, and the sovereign 
 of Dingle was writing lamentable petitions for government 
 help, the citizens of Youghal gathered together the relics of 
 their fortunes, rebuilt their town, and recommenced their 
 commerce. Youghal had, it is true, great natural advantages : 
 its sheltered harbour was convenient for England, and its own 
 meadows and forests furnished the lumber, tallow, and hides 
 that were its chief export. Salted salmon and hake were 
 shipped off in their season, and a little coarse frieze was woven 
 and sold ; but there the enterprise of the townsmen stopped.
 
 ioo LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 So late as 1611 all the iron used in Youghal had to be imported 
 from England, and manufactures of all sorts were practically 
 non-existent till started by Boyle. 
 
 He lost no time in taking his part in developing the 
 resources of the town, he did not even wait for his property 
 to be secured by a royal grant, before beginning to correspond 
 with a London merchant about settling linen weavers in 
 Youghal, and chartering a ship to trade regularly across the 
 Channel carrying Irish pipestaves and lead to England. The 
 manufacture of pipestaves was one of the first industries 
 started by the Elizabethan settlers, and for some time was the 
 chief Munster trade, but it was carried on so recklessly that 
 the forests which had been the pride of Munster disappeared 
 rapidly, and Boyle soon found he had to remonstrate with the 
 woodcutters. One of the chief sinners in this respect was a 
 Devonshire man, Pyne, whom Ralegh had settled at Mogeeley. 
 He was more than once accused of dishonesty when he was 
 Ralegh's agent, but he had succeeded in clearing himself of the 
 charge before the English council ; Boyle, however, never liked 
 or trusted him, and said very plain things to him over his 
 destroying the forests for the sake of his pipestaves. But 
 even more reckless than the settlers were the woodcutters sent 
 over to select oak-trees for building the King's ships. Loyal 
 as Boyle was, he had no fancy to allow royal agents to pick and 
 choose among his timber, and he wrote very strongly to Cecil 
 in 1608 to beg that he might be sent notice before these men 
 set to work, as the last who came brought neither permission 
 to cut timber nor money to pay for it. Sir Geoffrey Fenton 
 wrote at the same time to suggest that there were more forests 
 in Ireland than those of Munster, and that the royal agents 
 might sometimes go further afield. 1 
 
 1 Cal. S. P. Ire., 1608.
 
 IN A SEAPORT TOWN 101 
 
 But for all Boyle's remonstrances, the royal woodcutters 
 continued to be a constant source of worry. In May 1619, 
 he complained that Sir Lionel Cranfield and Sir T. Smith had 
 sent over a shipwright, Stephen Dansk, who cut down sixty 
 trees near Clonakilty without 'notice or licence, Clonakilty 
 ' being a new incorporated town, where there is not timber nor 
 wood enough sufficient to finish or maintain the building there 
 begun.' To touch one of Boyle's new towns was to touch the 
 apple of his eye. But he permitted the shipwright to carry 
 away the wood he had cut, only he declined to receive any 
 payment for it, ' sending it as a poor token of my goodwill ' ; 
 a very dignified form of reproof. He was, however, quite 
 willing, he wrote, to enter into an agreement for a regular 
 supply of wood, and could send a thousand tons of timber yearly 
 at twenty shillings a ton, the timber to be of all kinds, ' elbow- 
 pieces, hook or crouches, studdle timbers, and top timbers.' l 
 Careful forester though he was, Boyle was never churlish, and 
 in 1631 he gave Mr. Slingsby, the Lord Deputy's servant, 
 sixty tons of ship's timber, ' in knees,' from his Bandon woods, 
 at cost price ; Mr. Slingsby had plans for making the Bandon 
 river navigable from Kinsale up to Bandon, so no doubt he 
 was building boats for his new trade, a project that would be 
 sure to awaken Boyle's interest. 
 
 But he needed timber for his own shipwrights and for his 
 own house-building. In 1 6 1 6 he paid a shipwright six pounds 
 to build a seine boat, and at the same time he was putting up 
 salting and fish houses and a fish press at Ardmore, where 
 he and the Hulls were setting up a fish-curing establishment. 
 In the same year he makes a memorandum : ' Delivered to 
 Captain William Hull 20 as earnest-money to buy casks for 
 fumados, upon an agreement to have half his fish to be taken 
 
 1 L. P., il. 2. 1 60.
 
 102 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 the next season at Crookhaven, in which he and I are to be 
 partners, and Captain Hull is to adventure 100 with me in 
 my next season's fishing at Ardmore.' 
 
 Boyle was too wise a man to use his oak-woods for mere 
 fuel ; when letting a brewery he was careful to make the 
 condition that no wood was to be used in the furnaces, ' but 
 only ferns and heath to brew withal.' In 1619 he sent over 
 to the Forest of Dean to inquire about the possibility of 
 shipping cinders to Ireland, and in 1626 he began to buy sea 
 coal at seventeen-pence a barrel for his iron-foundries in the 
 Blackwater Valley, for he had soon discovered there was ore 
 enough to be found in those Devonian strata to supply the 
 needs of the country and begin an important export trade 
 from Youghal. 
 
 The Irish name of Tallow, which signifies Iron Hill, 
 shows that the ores there were known of old, and Ralegh had 
 begun to work its mines ; but the mineral wealth of the 
 country was never seriously developed till Boyle came. He 
 sunk mine after mine ; at Ballyregan, Cappoquin and Mocollop, 
 Ardglyn, Kilmacoe and Lisfinnon, the forges glowed, till the 
 Blackwater valley bid fair to be an Irish Black Country. The 
 ore is said by a contemporary to be hematite, bog iron ore, 
 and clay ironstone ; 1 and Boyle worked it into all sorts of 
 forms, from bar iron for export, to the Tallow knives he sent 
 to Lady Carew as a Christmas present. In seven years he 
 made 2, 1 ,000 tons of bar iron, worth at 1 8 a ton the immense 
 sum of ^378,ooo. 2 
 
 In 1619 Boyle sent over an agent to visit the English iron 
 country to search for some of his workmen who had run 
 away, and if he failed to find them, to seek out some honest 
 men in their room, for the new country was crying out for 
 
 1 Boate quoted in Smith, ii. 281. 2 See Smith, i. 104.
 
 IN A SEAPORT TOWN 103 
 
 skilled artisans. The messenger was to ride into the Forest 
 of Dean and then on to Bewdley, and inquire what the iron 
 forgers of Staffordshire and Shropshire paid for a ton of pig 
 iron from the Forest. Boyle was indeed an Iron King, and 
 soon, not content with the mere production of bar iron, he 
 began to manufacture guns. In March 1623 the Lord 
 President of Munster came from Mallow to Lismore and saw 
 a piece of ordnance and some shot cast at Cappoquin, and 
 Sir Sackville Crow, who had the monopoly of the manufacture 
 in Ireland, hired the use of the furnaces for his own business. 
 Boyle's desire was to make artillery for export he already 
 had a good trade in bar iron with the Low Countries, an 
 Amsterdam merchant paying him ^4600 for it in 1623. But 
 there were great difficulties in exporting any commodities in 
 those days, the customs seeming designed to hamper trade 
 in all ways, and Boyle had to offer Sir George Calvert and 
 the Lord Deputy 500 for their services before they would 
 assist him to procure a licence to export his ordnance. 
 
 It is curious that Boyle does not seem to have tried to 
 work any of the rich mineral beds in West Cork, but he joined 
 Sir Charles Coote in starting iron-works in County Leitrim, 
 and bought the iron-works of Scariff in Clare from Lady 
 Boyle's nephew, Luke Brady, in 1634. Elizabeth, a sister of 
 Luke Brady's, was married at Lismore in 1621 to a certain 
 Richard Blacknoll, and the following year Blacknoll and a 
 cousin, George Boyle, took a lease of the Kilmackoe iron- 
 works at a rent of 400 a year, to be partly paid in bar iron. 
 Blacknoll soon became the chief man in all Boyle's iron 
 business, but before long there arose suspicions that all was 
 not well with his accounts, and then it came out that 
 he and Brady, not content with cheating Boyle of his profits, 
 were conspiring to rob him of his lands. The Lord Treasurer
 
 io 4 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 told Boyle that they had offered to pay the King 4000 a year 
 for wood and iron, and to make ordnance for him, if he would 
 recover from Boyle, and lease to them, that part of the Ralegh 
 estates on which the iron-works stood. This precious scheme 
 came to nothing, and Boyle does not seem to have thought 
 much the worse of Luke Brady, who was a poor creature, 
 always in debt and in trouble. But Blacknoll was a cleverer 
 rogue, and for a time had a most successful career ; he was 
 not to be daunted at the failure of one or two schemes, and 
 proceeded to do business on the grand scale, and actually got 
 the better of Sir Gerard Lowther, Sir George RatclifFe, and 
 even Lord Straffbrd himself. Boyle began a lawsuit to 
 recover some of the money made away with, but it dragged 
 on interminably, till at last, in 1635, Blacknoll died, leaving 
 his widow no legacy but the suit. Boyle wrote in his diary : 
 ' God forgive him his sins and the high deceit and inexpressible 
 wrongs he did to myself in my reputation and estate, I being 
 the worse for him by at least 10,000, and although his 
 poverty made me hopeless of restitution, yet it was my prayer 
 to God that I might live, and he also, till we had a fair hearing 
 and I had a repair to my credit.' 
 
 Mrs. Blacknoll stoutly held on to the lawsuit for a couple 
 of years, but at last she allowed it to be referred to arbitration. 
 Her brother Luke Brady, Sir William Fenton, and Sir William 
 St. Leger, Lord President of Munster, met to debate in July 
 1637 at tne President's house at Doneraile, but did not give 
 their award till October, when they decided Mrs. Blacknoll 
 should pay Boyle 6600. Boyle, having now no one to fight, 
 promptly discovered that he was very sorry for Mrs. Blacknoll, 
 and * in regard of her poverty and many young children,' not 
 only forgave her the 6600, but promised to allow her 20 
 yearly till her youngest child was fourteen.
 
 IN A SEAPORT TOWN 105 
 
 The iron -works were not Lord Cork's only mineral 
 venture. His copper- mines were not of great importance, 
 but away to the east of Youghal, where the Irish Minehead 
 looks across the sea to her Somerset namesake, the Earl smelted 
 lead, and worked silver-mines of considerable value. We are 
 not nowadays used to thinking of Ireland as an El Dorado, 
 but money was to be made there from the precious metals 
 in the seventeenth century, and when Lord Cork leased his 
 silver -mines to Captain Burgh in 1631, the rent paid in 
 kind was very large. The Earl was to receive ' a fair bason 
 and ewer, four dozen of large silver plates, and eight 
 great silver candlesticks, all to be of plain London touch, 
 with my arms engraved on them, for the providing whereof 
 [of the arms] I wrote to my goldsmith, Mr. Nathaniel 
 Stoughton.' 
 
 Further mineral wealth was found in Irish marbles. 
 Satisfactory building stone seemed hard to procure, and was 
 imported from the Bath stone-quarries near Bristol, but Irish 
 marbles soon won a name beyond Ireland. Ralegh had long 
 before sent over specimens to make a chimney-piece for Cecil, 1 
 and when it became fashionable, Anne of Denmark sent to 
 Boyle for ' Ranse stone ' to beautify her palace at Greenwich. 
 Lord Cork commissioned Randall Clayton to see twenty-five 
 tons of this red marble quarried on Little Island in Cork 
 Harbour and shipped to England. It may be interesting to 
 note that the cost of quarrying was 6, 55., and hauling to the 
 seaside was charged a shilling a ton. 
 
 Although Lord Cork was proud of his orchards and 
 gardens, no new crops were introduced under his rule into 
 Munster, unless indeed tobacco may be reckoned as one of 
 his ventures. A time-honoured tradition tells that Ralegh 
 
 1 Pope Hennessy's Raleigh in Ireland.
 
 io6 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 planted the first tobacco plant brought to Europe in his 
 garden at Youghal, and Lord Cork continued to grow it 
 and send presents of the home-grown leaf over to his English 
 friends. Sir Dudley Carleton wrote in 1623 to beg his 
 lordship ' to bestow a little tobacco upon me, if you have 
 any pure, otherwise not.' Did his lordship adulterate his 
 tobacco ? The request would seem too brutally frank for 
 that to be the case, and we may hope that Sir Dudley only 
 disliked some special mixtures. 
 
 Boyle's schemes for increasing the trade of Youghal and 
 his own income were endless, and he was ever on the look-out 
 to find artisans and skilled craftsmen whom he could settle 
 in the town or on his estate. In 1 6 1 8 his brother, Dr. John 
 Boyle, wrote over recommending a cooper who would be 
 useful for boat-building, and also mentioning a Venetian who 
 wished to set up glass-works in the south of Ireland. 
 Possibly the latter established himself in Cork under Dr. 
 John's patronage, as that was the principal place of glass 
 manufacture in Ireland for many years. 
 
 In the year 1618 Youghal was elevated to the dignity 
 of a staple town, receiving the exclusive right to carry on 
 the woollen trade with Bristol, Barnstaple, Liverpool, Chester, 
 and Milthrop (possibly Milford). Boyle is usually credited 
 with having obtained this concession for the town, for he 
 had agitated in 1 6 1 6 l to procure it, saying it would secure 
 constant work for the poor ; but further experience of business 
 had made him something of a free-trader, and far from assist- 
 ing the town to win this monopoly, he at once joined with the 
 Lord Deputy and the principal Munster gentry, Thomond, 
 Aldworth, Sir E. Harris, and Bishop John of Cork, to 
 protest that this establishment of the staple town was merely 
 
 1 Caulfield's Council Book of Youghal.
 
 IN A SEAPORT TOWN 107 
 
 'a hindrance to trade and a vehicle for fraud and incon- 
 venience.' l 
 
 For the years between 1610 and 1618 Boyle's diary is 
 chiefly a record of land purchases and a trade account-book. 
 But bookkeeping, it appears, had not then grown into a 
 science, and the diary is an amazing production for a business 
 man. Bad debts are jumbled up with christenings, speculations 
 in bar iron with visits from distinguished friends ; and timber- 
 trade, weddings, goshawks, and glass-works are set down in 
 such admired confusion as to remind one of the classic rhyme 
 about 
 
 4 Ships and shoes and sealing-wax, 
 And cabbages and kings.' 
 
 It might be expected that this confusion would have landed 
 Richard Boyle in the bankruptcy court, but his dealings with 
 debtors' prisons were happily confined to getting his friends 
 and servants out of them. In the seventeenth century, smart 
 people were arrested for debt quite as naturally as in the days 
 of Rawdon Crawley or Little Dorrit. When Boyle arrived in 
 Dublin as a privy councillor in 1614, he found McCarthy 
 Reagh, the representative of the kings of Munster, in prison, 
 ' and when all his hundred friends that were in the city refused 
 to free him, I, like a kind fool, pitying his distress and im- 
 prisonment, paid 70, i os. And after my twenty-one years 
 forbearance he repaid me my own moneys without any use 
 or consideration.' 
 
 Boyle soon learned to be more prudent in his loans to 
 Irish gentlemen, and later on, when his son-in-law begged him 
 to free The M'Adam Barry, who had been long imprisoned in 
 London, in the Counter of the Poultry, he took a mortgage 
 
 1 Cal. Care<w MSS., 1618, p. 424..
 
 io8 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 on a ploughland at Castle Lyons and the grant of the advowson 
 of Rathcormac as security. 
 
 But to his own relations he seems, however, constantly to 
 have been ' a kind fool,' and there are frequent entries such as 
 * Relieved my cousin, R. Boyle, out of prison.' * Sent Joseph 
 Boyle, son to my cousin Richard Boyle the bookbinder, twenty 
 shillings and released him out of prison, for which I paid ^5 
 and gave my bill for other ^5.' Dick Tynt, the son of 
 Spenser's widow by her third husband, was never out of 
 debt, and was sometimes clever enough to get his rich kins- 
 man to pay his tailor's bill twice over, and pocket the 
 change himself. 
 
 M'Carthy Reagh, it will be noticed, repaid his debt 
 ' without any use,' an expression that reminds us of Shylock's 
 ' usage ' which Antonio contemptuously called ' interest.' The 
 whole system of paying interest on loans and of conducting 
 banking operations was then in its infancy, but the growth of 
 trade and the increase of luxury in the seventeenth century 
 obliged people to invent ways of paying debts and sending 
 money from place to place without the need of carrying bags 
 of gold through perils of land thieves and water thieves. 
 
 Boyle, however, had so many calls on his purse that he 
 was obliged to keep a good deal of cash in hand. Once 
 when leaving home for Dublin, he put ^1180 for Munster 
 expenses ' in the till of the iron chest in the inward study ' ; 
 and he was proud that he could so frequently pay down 
 sterling gold, for the scarcity of coined money was so great 
 that payments were frequently made in kind, and buying 
 and selling was very often a matter of barter. When his 
 brother-in-law, Pierce Power, owed money for wood, Boyle 
 accepted instead of the debt 'green french velvet to line a 
 cloak, as much satin as should make a doublet, with taffeta
 
 
 IN A SEAPORT TOWN 109 
 
 to cut it on and buttons thereof.' In 1614 Boyle sold Ros- 
 mayne in the county of Limerick to his other brother-in-law, 
 Sir Thomas Brown, for his grey horse and forty barrels of 
 ' great Bear ' or barley, and the next year he paid for building 
 a castle at Balligoran with fowls, and a large flock of sheep with 
 five English rams. When the sum needed was too large to be 
 paid in live stock, he usually tried to pay it in pipestaves or 
 bar iron, or by assigning rents due. 
 
 Neighbours soon found that Boyle was a convenient banker, 
 and that his many correspondents over sea and his confidential 
 servants who were constantly carrying his messages to and fro 
 gave them facilities for doing business unknown before, and 
 made use of him accordingly. In 1616, for example, 'Mr. Ball 
 delivered me without receipt of any money, a bill of exchange 
 to have ^63 paid in London to my brother Fen ton, for the 
 use of my Lord Roche. Donald the harper carried them.' 
 This Donal Duff O'Cahill was Queen Anne's Harper, for 
 times had changed since Spenser called all Irish bards either 
 spies or vagabonds and Philip Sidney said they had sung many 
 a man to death with their biting wit. The songs without 
 words of the harpers it was found could do little mischief, and 
 Irish music came into fashion with Irish hawks and hounds, 
 and the Earl of Cork helped his own blind harper to a new 
 instrument. 
 
 Donal was a prosperous person and did a good deal of 
 business with Boyle, making money in his native land as well 
 as at court. At one time he is set down as borrowing ^5, 
 and when Boyle was in London in 1628 he got a bill of 
 exchange from him for ^40 to send to Mrs. Donal Duff in 
 Ireland. In 1615 Donal had the ' selling of the sheryfwick 
 of Cork,' which Pierce Power bought of him for ,80, of 
 course through the medium of Boyle ; and when he travelled
 
 no LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 from one country to the other he seems usually to have 
 carried gold for the rich man of Youghal. Another court 
 official who made use of Boyle's experience was Archie 
 Armstrong the king's jester. Archie was a thrifty and canny 
 Scot, and gave Lord Cork 150 to keep for him. He was 
 over in Dublin in 1635 looking after his investments, when 
 the Earl repaid him his money, adding 5 in gold, for which 
 he wrote penitently ' God forgive me ! ' He evidently felt 
 Archie was not the fool in that transaction. 
 
 Great and small were as anxious to consult Cork on money 
 matters as they are to make interest with company promoters 
 nowadays. Not long after Archie Armstrong came ' my 
 noble friend the Lord President of Munster,' to whom Cork 
 lent j8oo gratis, on a mortgage which he devoutly hoped 
 would never be redeemed, but would provide land for the 
 estates of his fourth son. 
 
 Rich as Lord Cork was, he had not always gold in hand 
 for his own needs, and had in his turn to ' take it up ' from 
 any neighbour who had it by him. One time he wrote to 
 authorise his kinsman Sir Allen Apsley to pay certain London 
 creditors of Sir Walter Butler 176, as he had borrowed that 
 sum from Sir Walter to lend it to Captain Button that he 
 might victual a King's ship. 
 
 For it was not only private persons who came to do 
 business with Boyle. His sacred majesty King James was so 
 busy heaping wealth on his favourites that he occasionally 
 forgot to victual his ships or clothe his soldiers. One captain 
 of a foot company on the march to Dingle had actually to 
 pawn his own clothes in Clonakilty, that he might buy frieze 
 stockings and brogues for his bare-footed soldiers, and Cork 
 lent him 7 to redeem his garments. When the unlucky 
 Cadiz expedition of 1625 landed at Kinsale on its return
 
 IN A SEAPORT TOWN in 
 
 home, its leader Lord Wimbledon was penniless, and Lord 
 Cork had to undertake the care of the army, lending ^270 to 
 pay the men and relieve the sick, and lodging and dieting the 
 ten companies among his tenants for three months. 1 
 
 Six of the officers came to spend Christmas with him, but 
 four of the poor gentlemen fell sick and had to be nursed at 
 Lismore for nine weeks, and when they left, he had to lend 
 them 90 to carry them home. 
 
 There was some fear of less welcome visitors two years 
 later, when it was thought that the French would retaliate for 
 Buckingham's vain expedition to assist the Huguenots of 
 Rochelle by making a descent on Ireland, and the President of 
 Munster inspected the forts of Cork and Waterford, and 
 discovered they were so dilapidated as to be useless. Naturally 
 he had recourse to Boyle, who lent ^500 for the repairs, but 
 his Majesty proved to be an even worse debtor than M'Carthy 
 Reagh. It was many a long year before Boyle saw that money 
 again, and his humble petition for its repayment was the 
 beginning of all the troubles that darkened his later life. 
 
 King James's brother-in-law, the jovial King of Denmark, 
 was of a more grateful disposition, and acknowledged services 
 done by Boyle to his subjects with very royal liberality. A 
 Danish ship, the Pearl, was driven by stress of weather to take 
 refuge in Youghal harbour, and would not have reached that 
 shelter but for the courage of a fisherman, John Griffin, who 
 risked his life to get on board and pilot her into safety, and 
 had his deed chronicled in the Youghal Council-book. The 
 ship must have been damaged by the storm, for she lay at 
 Youghal for thirteen months after, and her owners were put 
 to straits, for they feared they should be driven to break the 
 bulk of their cargo and sell their goods in Ireland below 
 
 1 Smith, ii. 60.
 
 ii2 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 their value, till Boyle came to the rescue and lent them 
 700, and they went on their way rejoicing. They wrote 
 home to tell of Irish hospitality ; and after a while came 
 a letter from over sea from the King of Denmark himself, 
 thanking the good men of Youghal for their kindness to his 
 subjects, and sending a hundred pounds in money for the town, 
 and to Boyle a gold chain and medal bearing his Majesty's 
 portrait. The mayor returned a Latin certificate of thanks, and 
 covenanted to relieve any Danish subjects who should present 
 themselves at the Youghal poorhouse, 1 and Boyle treasured 
 that medal as one of his chief jewels. King Charles himself 
 asked to see it, and it was proudly sent over to England for 
 exhibition, and when his eldest son entered public life, Boyle 
 passed on the medal to him to be preserved as an heirloom in 
 the family. 
 
 A breath from the sea seems to blow through these old 
 Boyle papers. We see the merchants looking over their bills of 
 lading on the quay ; the fine gentlemen from England in their 
 ruffs and satin doublets landing to pay their compliments at 
 the College House ; the fishermen with tidings of Algerine 
 rovers ; and Admiral Button spinning yarns of icebergs and 
 the North West Passage. 
 
 But it is not only the bustle of commerce that fills the 
 records ; the mystery of the sea meets us too. On a May 
 morning of 1623 a sailor tenant of Boyle's, Thomas Brien by 
 name, came to him with tidings of O Braseel, as he called it, 
 that earthly paradise ' incomparable in its haze ' of which the 
 old bards sang, where the heroes Oisin and Connla dwelt with 
 their fairy brides in the island of eternal youth. Legends told 
 that St. Brandan the navigator had landed on it, and in more 
 modern times it has been suggested that the Hy Brasil legends 
 
 1 See CaulfielcTs Council Book of Youghal.
 
 IN A SEAPORT TOWN 113 
 
 of Galway sailors lured Columbus on his voyage to the 
 western lands ; certain it is that Hy Brasil was figured as an 
 actual island on some seventeenth-century maps. But the 
 business-like Earl of Cork did not trouble himself much about 
 St. Brandan or fairyland ; he only promised the sailor a reward 
 if he could bring him sufficient proof that he had discovered 
 and landed on the island, before the next Christmas ; and he 
 on his part gave the Earl forty shillings in gold as a pledge 
 that he believed in his own yarn, which money was passed on 
 to the countess, and so Brien sailed away into the West, and 
 whether he came back or not, no one tells us. The Earl of 
 Cork's money truly could buy estates in Ireland, but fairy- 
 land is not to be won by gold, and the paradise of the West 
 is still the freehold of poets and story-tellers and of them 
 alone. 
 
 But the sailors did not always bring tales of fairyland to 
 shore ; there came also ' the crying of a sword out of the sea,' 
 or in Boyle's emphatic and prosaic English, ' news that 
 Redmond Fitzjohn of Ballycrynnan was turned pirate for the 
 third time, God damn him.' Indeed turning pirate was the 
 most natural thing in the world for people who lived on a 
 barren coast cut up by innumerable convenient bays. Among 
 the labyrinth of western islands, and among the wooded creeks 
 of Cork Harbour itself, a navy might lie hid in safety, and 
 pirates flourished there in the seventeenth century as smugglers 
 did in the eighteenth. And the gentlefolk found it as difficult 
 to resist doing business with pirates as they did later on with 
 smugglers. When there were no shops and few roads it was 
 hard to refuse luxuries that sailed up to your very door ; and 
 so the pirates were one day the scourges of the neighbour- 
 hood, and the next its tradesmen and purveyors. 
 
 The Hulls were themselves not quite beyond reproach, 
 
 H
 
 ii 4 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 although Sir William wrote to Boyle in 1610 from Lem Con 
 with all the dignity of conscious rectitude : 
 
 ' Here is Ellis the pirate arrived yesterday as I hear by 
 Captain Bishop. The men were drunk at Schull Haven all 
 night at Gath his house, and their boat aground, yet none 
 came to give me any warning ; here is one of the pirate's 
 mind dwells on my land, that at Sir Thomas Button's being 
 here three weeks since gave notice of his being in this harbour, 
 by which means he escaped.' 
 
 But it was rumoured that the most noted pirate, Campane, 
 had been bold enough to cast anchor in the harbour of Lem 
 Con, and that Sir William Hull himself had bought forty 
 horse-loads of pepper of him and sent it off to Kinsale, and 
 also knew who it was that had bought a chest of * chenery 
 roots ' at five shillings a pound. Not only had Mr. Hull of 
 Clonakilty bought goods which the carrier of the town con- 
 veyed openly home for him, but even the Lord President of 
 Munster had been among the customers. But then Campane 
 was no common local pirate ; he was a Dutchman, and such 
 a distinguished person that the authorities thought it worth 
 while to make terms with him, and even to secure him from 
 arrest for a time, in the hope that he might mend his ways. 
 In 1625 Lord Deputy Falkland wrote to Sir William Hull to 
 say that Campane's protection would not be renewed if he only 
 used it to enable himself to re victual his ships and so be gone 
 to sea to seek more booty ; but if he would divulge where he 
 had hidden his treasures, and would deposit $oo as caution 
 money to assure the Government that on his return with his 
 wealth he would pay 10,000 for a pardon, and settle as a 
 peaceful subject in his Majesty's dominions, he might have 
 leave to trim and revictual his ships in a Munster harbour. 1 
 
 i S 1 . P. Ire., 4.8, 129, 228 ; Col. Dom. S. P., 1628.
 
 IN A SEAPORT TOWN 115 
 
 Poor Sir Thomas Button, famous sea-captain though he 
 was, had a hard time in hunting pirates up and down the coasts 
 of Carbery. When he wrote in 1 6 1 6 to wish Boyle ' all 
 happiness in your received honour, and all increase of it to 
 your own heart's desire,' he soon passed on to describe his own 
 ill-fortune in searching for Fleming, a noted pirate. He 
 chased the fellow off Cape Clear, ' but such was the foulness 
 of my shipp as that I could not do any goode to fetch hym 
 upp ' ; but he trusted he had at least frightened him away from 
 Ireland towards the coast of Spain. 
 
 Sir Laurence Parsons also had his reports of pirates to send 
 to Boyle in 1620. He had been holding an Admiralty Court 
 at Bantry, and had ridden home by way of Lem Con, Baltimore, 
 Castlehaven, and so by Clonakilty to Bandon, visiting all the 
 seaports as he went. He found Bourk the pirate had been in 
 Berehaven, where, having taken victuals and necessaries, he 
 did as they pretended f leave in requital sixty-three fardels of 
 sarsaparilla,' but Sir Laurence, finding this was a common trick 
 of the pirates, confiscated the sarsaparilla and handed it over 
 to the admiral. Bourk had left one of his prizes lying for a 
 while in Bantry Bay, which tempted a certain Sir Thomas 
 Roper to try to seize it, so, getting together thirty gentle- 
 men of the neighbourhood, he embarked in a Flemish ship 
 that happened to be at hand, and gaily made all sail for the 
 prize. But alas for their hopes, suddenly round the headland 
 appeared Bourk, and while they were yet far off the prize, the 
 pirate was beside her and ' shot off all his ordnance for joy at 
 the meeting.' After this royal salute, poor Sir Thomas and his 
 thirty gentlemen could but sail back again, while Bourk carried 
 off his prize in safety to Valentia ; where, however, Sir Laurence 
 thought it might be possible to lay hold on him, and sent mes- 
 sengers off in all haste westward to look out for the vessels.
 
 n6 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 When freebooters could laugh at admirals and knights, it 
 was no very pleasant matter for peaceable people to adventure 
 themselves on a sea voyage. When the son of Lord Deputy 
 Chichester was coming to Ireland in 1613, Boyle sent a 
 mariner all the way across to c Paestown ' (probably Padstow), 
 to warn him that pirates hovered on the sea to inter- 
 cept his passage. The sailor was paid ten pounds for his 
 voyage, and a messenger was also sent off to the Lord Deputy 
 at a cost of five shillings. In 1630 a man crossed in an open 
 boat to Holyhead to warn Lord Dungarvan and Lord Kildare 
 that pirates were in the Channel, the same doubtless who 
 snapped up all Lord Strafford's baggage shortly after ; and 
 Lord Cork himself was chased into Minehead and escaped 
 with difficulty. 
 
 After reading of such adventures, it is satisfactory to find 
 that at a jail delivery at Cork in 1625 'eight arch pirates' 
 were hanged ; but unfortunately others soon took their place, 
 for the King's navy was too weak to guard the seas. 
 
 Troublesome as were these home-grown water thieves, the 
 Munster shores knew far fiercer enemies. The Sallee Rovers 
 were constantly hovering off the southern coasts, 1 awaiting 
 their chance to make a dash on some fishing- village and carry 
 Christians away to slavery, often, it is said, marching their 
 fettered captives across France to re-embark at Marseilles, 
 by favour of the Most Christian King. The guardships did 
 what they could, and at the news of danger the garrisons of 
 Kinsale or of Castlehaven hurried to the spot ; but the 
 corsairs were no laggards in their work, and as Davis tells, 
 when they sacked Baltimore and the countryside was roused, 
 
 . . . * this gallant rides from distant Bandon town, 
 Those hookers crossed from stormy SchulJ, that skiff from Affadown, 
 
 1 See Strafford Letters, ii. 119.
 
 IN A SEAPORT TOWN 117 
 
 They only found the smoking walls by neighbours' blood besprent, 
 And on the strewed and trampled beach awhile they wildly went, 
 Then dashed to sea and passed Cape Clear, and saw five leagues before 
 The pirate galleys vanishing that ravished Baltimore.' 
 
 In this case of Baltimore, Boyle was convinced that the 
 success of the Rovers was due to the slackness of Captain 
 Hooke, whose guardship was at Kinsale ; and he wrote in 
 great anger to Dorchester, 1 begging him to make the English 
 Consul at Algiers interfere on behalf of these unhappy English 
 and Irish carried off to slavery, and in the end the greater 
 number of them were restored to liberty. 
 
 Sometimes a message found its way home from Christian 
 captives, for the Corsairs were men of business and ready 
 enough to put their prisoners to ransom if they could get a 
 proper price. One of these pathetic letters came from 
 ' Morockoe ' to entreat Boyle's help. It is endorsed ' Sept. 
 1622. From Redmond Fitzjohn of Ballycrynnan his brother 
 Gerald who is a captive at Morockoe.' It is more vivid to 
 give the letter in the original spelling : 
 
 * RIGHT HONNORABLE AND WORDYE GOOD LORD, far to 
 tedious, I dare not write the third part of my miserie : sence I 
 came out of lerland mee brother being kild by the turkes men 
 of warre the I3th of January being the yeare of the Lord 1617, 
 and after him I was cast awaie uppon the coaste of Barbaric 
 with the rest of his comppany where wee weare made Captives 
 in the hands of infidels and barbrous nation and soe many 
 inconveniences hanginge uppon us as to reckon them all were 
 infinite and to taste but one of them intollerable. 
 
 ' I have written often time to your Lordshipp but never 
 could receive an answer, but onlie Sir James Gooffe howes 
 dwelling place is within tree miles to Clonmell, beinge then 
 
 1 Cal. S. P. Ire., 1631-2.
 
 n8 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 in London with the Earle of Clanrickard and our letters 
 beinge come to his hands, and finding the opportunities of a 
 shipp bound hither within 4 daies after he could not omite to 
 salute and withal comforte our distressed state with his affec- 
 tionate lines and to advertise us of our letters that he would 
 deliver them according to their several direxions. Now the 
 shipp being uppon this Barbrie coaste and bound home I 
 would not omite this time but put your Lordship in remem- 
 brance of my [me] and alsoe for the afection you bore to my 
 father and to my brother after mee fathers death, and now 
 your vassals. I though leaste wordye yet most willinge am 
 come to prefer myself as a bound man unto your Lordship, 
 for all my trust is in you onlie under God, to have pitie 
 uppon my poore estate and distressed miserye. 
 
 ' Therefore I beseeche your Lordship whatever order you 
 wil take for my, advertise Sir James Gooff off it ; for he 
 knows the English merchants that are heere and alsoe the 
 Lundowners [? Londoners] that trafiques uppon this Barbyre 
 coaste. As for my ransome it will come neere hand ^200 
 little more or less. I need not make many words, for your 
 Lordship knows mee meaninge. Soe I reste ffrom Morocus 
 the first of September 1622. Your ffaithful and ever servantt 
 most obedient to command GERALD FITZGERALD.' 
 
 It was an irony of fate that threw the luckless Gerald into 
 the hands of the Corsairs, for his brother Redmond Fitzjohn 
 Fitzgerald was the very man at whom Boyle swore so heartily 
 for turning pirate three times over. These Ballycrynnan Fitz- 
 geralds must have been men of good standing for all their 
 wild fortunes, for that masterful Lady Honora Fitzgerald, 
 who bullied John Fitzgerald of Camphire, recognised Redmond 
 as a kindred spirit and gave him a brass gun, a minion as it
 
 IN A SEAPORT TOWN 119 
 
 was called, for his ship. The minion Redmond sold to Boyle, 
 but in 1617 he was busy fitting out his ship afresh by the 
 help of Sir Robert Tynt of Youghal, who went surety for his 
 expenses. At this time he had only been twice a pirate, and 
 he gave out that he was preparing to embark on a more 
 heroic adventure, as one of the little fleet that sailed from 
 Kinsale on Ralegh's last Guiana voyage. 
 
 For Munster was the last land to wish Ralegh good speed 
 on his fatal Guiana voyage, when the eagle was let out of his 
 cage in the Tower for one flight more, not for freedom, but 
 that the daws might have the better chance to harry him to 
 death. But Ralegh's friends did not suspect the royal 
 treachery that was betraying him to the Spaniards, and wel- 
 comed him back to active life with boundless hopes. Boyle 
 wrote to his merchant cousin Barsie of Plymouth to send 
 thirty-two gallons of aquavitae on board Sir Walter's ship, 
 and Sir Allen Apsley, Sir Walter's friendly jailer, announced 
 his prisoner's departure in a letter to Boyle in April, saying 
 that ' Sir Walter Rawley, not without great opposition, is at 
 last gone to Plymouth with some eight shippes.' At Plymouth 
 were further delays, and it was not till July that Lord Cork's 
 friend Mr. Robert Waller could write that Sir Walter 
 'departed from Plymouth the I2th of this month, having 
 first cast off sundry of his meaner followers who in their 
 returning, having no horses of their own, take other men's. 
 It will cost the King some charge in buying halters to save 
 them from drowning ! ' 
 
 The next tidings of the expedition came from Sir Walter 
 himself. Worn with often reading and stained with damp, 
 the letter was faithfully preserved, and hard as they are to 
 decipher, the old hero's words are worth the keeping. He 
 dated his letter from Mr. Thomas Fitzgerald's mansion at
 
 iio LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Rostellan. There from the terraced garden he could look 
 out over Cork Harbour and recall old days and old hopes at 
 the sight of Drake's Pool, where his former comrade had lain 
 
 in ambush for the Spanish fleet. 
 
 'July 29, 1617. 
 
 ' MY VERY GOOD LORD, After as many crosses [on land] 
 and sea as ever man was subject unto [I am] by extremity of 
 weather driven into [the harbour] of Cork : I was first forced 
 into Plym[outh and] from the French coast into Falmouth, 
 with a violent storm on Midsumm[er eve] and midsummer 
 day. My smaller ship [not being able to] bear it out I put 
 into this port [of Kin]sale, not hearing yet any news of [the 
 ship] in which I had bestowed a great p[art of my] provisions. 
 This hard beginning [nevertheless], God I trust will bless us 
 with a [good wind]. If I had horses I would have [waited 
 upon your Lord]ship, but not having my own, I have sent 
 Manus Maguire, [and perhaps your] Lordship will do me the 
 favour [to oblige] me with a few hackneys. I [shall make] 
 bold with Mr. Thomas Fitzgerald to Cloyne on Tuesday 
 morning [with three] or four gentlemen and a couple of 
 hawks. This much I make bold with [your Lordship], if 
 God bless me with good success [in these undertakings, being 
 certain and well, [I will] then acknowledge your Lordship's 
 favour [or] perish, for there is no middle course but perish 
 or prosper. I shall then entreat my [messenger] to give 
 your Lordship thanks for [all], and ever remain your 
 Lordship's to be .' * 
 
 That day's hawking over Cloyne meadows and marshes, 
 the ride to Youghal across the country where he had fought 
 more than thirty years before, when all the world was young 
 and he was one of Spenser's knights fighting for the glory of 
 
 1 L. P., ii. 2. 85.
 
 IN A SEAPORT TOWN 121 
 
 the Fairy Queen, the talk over his pipe under the yew arbour 
 in his old home, where now Sir Laurence Parsons lived, may 
 have been a fleeting St. Luke's summer in Ralegh's life. For 
 a moment, among old friends, on the soil that had seen his 
 victories, he may have forgotten the long years of prison that 
 lay between those days when he won his Irish grants and the 
 world was at his feet, and to-day, when old and broken, he 
 knew there was nothing for him ' but to perish or prosper.' 
 
 One day he spent in riding over to Mogeeley Castle to 
 endeavour to end that long lawsuit with Mr. Pyne which had 
 begun in the early days of the Munster settlement, and had 
 passed on to Boyle with the rest of Ralegh's Irish possessions. 
 There in the garden at Mogeeley, Ralegh and one of his 
 officers, Captain Kemys, talked the matter over, and Mr. 
 Pyne endeavoured to make Ralegh sign an acknowledgment 
 of the genuineness of the lease granting him Mogeeley for 
 eighty-eight years. This Ralegh absolutely refused to do, 
 but it is possible that Pyne himself was deceived about the 
 lease, for the document eventually proved to be one of the 
 productions of that accomplished forger, Jonn Mears. Captain 
 Kemys supported Ralegh's assertion that he had never signed 
 such a lease, and as Mr. Pyne persisted in considering it 
 genuine, the interview came to nothing. 1 
 
 The night before his execution Ralegh, weary of the 
 quarrels and pettinesses of life, relented somewhat even 
 towards Pyne, and wrote : ' There is a lease in controversy 
 between the Lord Boyle and one Henry Pyne of the castle 
 and lands of Mogeeley, and although I did write something 
 at my going from Ireland towards Guiana to the prejudice of 
 Pyne's lease, yet since that time, better bethinking myself, I 
 desire that the opinion which I gave may be no evidence in 
 
 1 L. P., i. June 1617.
 
 122 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 law against Pyne, but that it may be left to the proof on 
 both sides.' l His broken spirit cared no longer to detect 
 and put to shame the forger, he desired to put it all away : 
 ' from this and all I would begone.' 
 
 But on that summer day in 1617 when he walked with 
 Boyle round the new-built walls of Youghal and saw his old 
 dreams realised, and the English traders walking on the quay 
 and English cattle grazing in the new parks, his busy brain 
 began to weave schemes as of old, and the friends agreed on a 
 partnership to work the copper-mines of Ballygarron, and to 
 send specimens of the ore to London to be tested by Sir 
 Walter's assayer. 
 
 It must have been strange for him to see how Boyle had 
 more than carried out his own projects. As he turned once 
 more to the westward, and looked back at his friend, he 
 might, like Ulysses, have said of him : 
 
 * Well loved of me, discerning to fulfil 
 This labour, by slow prudence to make mild 
 A rugged people, and through soft degrees 
 Subdue them to the useful and the good. 
 Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 
 Of common duties . . . 
 He works his work, I mine . . . 
 . . . my purpose holds 
 To sail beyond the sunset and the baths 
 Of all the western stars . . .' 
 
 Before Ralegh sailed he wrote generous words of approval 
 of these ' common duties.' He told Boyle : ' I have written 
 to my honourable friends how much I am indebted to your 
 Lordship, and withal what service you have done the State in 
 strengthening this part of the Kingdom.' 
 
 Lord Cork lent some money to a couple of the officers 
 
 1 Edwards's Life of Raleigh, ii. 4.93.
 
 IN A SEAPORT TOWN 123 
 
 before they left, and a hundred pounds to Sir Walter that he 
 had to borrow himself from Sir Laurence Parsons. He also 
 sent six bars of Spanish iron and a hogshead of salmon on board 
 ' as a guyft.' That, however, was but a small part of Boyle's 
 contribution to the enterprise ; he told Carew Ralegh after- 
 wards 1 that he had supplied Sir Walter with 350 in ready 
 money, besides furnishing him with oxen, biscuit, beer, wine, 
 and other necessaries. The principal gentlemen of Munster, 
 Lord Roche, Lord Barry, and many more, gathered at dinner 
 at Sir Randall Clayton's to bid Ralegh farewell. At dinner 
 Ralegh let fall some words, as though he was not fully 
 furnished for this voyage, which Lord Cork observing, im- 
 mediately procured him a hundred French crowns, which he 
 knew would be current money in any place where he should put 
 in to water or victual. After dinner Lord Cork withdrew with 
 him to a window, and there offered him 100 more, telling 
 him he feared from his discourse that he was not sufficiently 
 furnished with money for his voyage, and thereupon made 
 him this offer, which he refused, protesting that all his defects 
 were supplied by Lord Cork beyond his hope or expectation ; 
 adding that if he was driven into any harbour he had jewels 
 that he would sell rather than take any more money from 
 him. Upon this he called to him the Lord Barry, the Lord 
 Roche, his son, Mr. Walter Ralegh, Captain Whitney, and 
 several others who dined there, and taking his son by the 
 hand told him and the other gentlemen how Cork had kept 
 a continual open house for three weeks to entertain him 
 and all his company, that he had supplied his ships with 
 several kinds of provisions and with 350 in ready money, 
 and had given money to most of the captains of his fleet, and 
 that he would now press jioo more on him which he did 
 
 1 See Boyle's letter, printed in Smith, i. 85.
 
 I2 4 
 
 not want : and addressing himself to his son, he said : * Wat, 
 you see how nobly my Lord Boyle hath entertained me and 
 my friends ; and therefore I charge you on my blessing if it 
 please God you outlive me and return, that you never question 
 my Lord Boyle for anything that I have sold him ; for if he 
 had not bought my Irish land, it would have fallen to the 
 Crown and then one Scot or another would have begged it, 
 from whom neither I nor mine should have anything for it, 
 nor such courtesies as now I have received.' And thereupon 
 Boyle accompanied him to the boat, where, at taking leave, 
 Sir Walter repeated all he had before said of the earl's civili- 
 ties. 'And this,' said Lord Cork, 'was the last time I ever 
 saw him.' 
 
 So on the loth of August his friends saw him vanish 
 across the Western Ocean. Sad to confess, Redmond 
 Fitzjohn of Ballycrynnan after all did not make one of 
 that heroic venture. He found more congenial business 
 nearer home, and the next November Boyle was shaken out 
 of his usual dignity by finding the faithless Fitzgerald had 
 turned pirate the third time. Whether Redmond Fitzjohn 
 lived to be hanged, or settled down like the greater pirate 
 Campane as a peaceful subject, does not appear ; he vanishes 
 from Boyle's diary and from our story in that eventful 
 year 1617. 
 
 Nearly a year did Ralegh's Irish friends wait for news, 
 and then in May 1 6 1 8 Lord Deputy St. John wrote to tell 
 Carew that Ralegh had put into Kinsale in March last, 
 where he had found Kemys, Pennington, and King, the 
 captains who had deserted him, with their ships ; and the 
 Lord Deputy had at once sent directions to the Earl of 
 Thomond to secure those mutineers. He adds that he 
 heard that Sir Walter was going on to Youghal Harbour,
 
 IN A SEAPORT TOWN 125 
 
 and ends, f I am extremely sorry for his ill success by the 
 failure and mutiny of those that ought rather to have died 
 than left him.' l 
 
 Boyle mentions that he received ' letters from Sir Walter 
 Ralegh of his arrival at Kinsale,' and that Captain Pennington, 
 who perhaps was detained in custody, borrowed fifty pounds ; 
 but of the leader of the expedition is no further word till 
 October 29, when the short sad entry stands, 'Sir Walter 
 Ralegh beheaded at Westminster.' 
 
 But he was not forgotten. The lawsuit with Lady Ralegh 
 did not touch Boyle's memory of his old friend. Again and 
 again come mention of gifts given for Sir Walter's sake. 
 ' 1641. Gave old Mr. Shelbury forty shillings, that was in 
 want, having been solicitor to Sir Walter Ralegh.' ' Enter- 
 tained Captain Shelbury, he being destitute here in Dublin 
 and being effectually entreated by his father, an ancient 
 follower of my dear and worthy friend Sir Walter Ralegh.' 
 ' Sir Walter Ralegh's tobacco ' was a specially precious gift 
 to be sent over to cousins in England ; ' Sir Walter Ralegh's 
 staff' was given by Boyle as a relic to the Lord Chief Justice 
 of Ireland, Sir William Jones ; and ' Sir Walter Ralegh's 
 stone ' was set in the jewel the Earl of Cork wore on the 
 most stately occasions and bequeathed with special directions 
 in his will to his revered friend the great Archbishop Ussher. 
 Sir Walter made his venture and paid the forfeit of his failure 
 with his life, but for Boyle, as for us, Youghal will ever be 
 haunted by the memory of him 
 
 * Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
 To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.' 
 
 1 Cat. Carenu MSS., 1618, p. 365.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 A MUNSTER MANSION 
 
 * Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall, 
 A bin of wine, a spice of wit, 
 A house with lawns enclosing it, 
 A living river by the door.' 
 
 R. L. STEVENSON. 
 
 WHEN Boyle acquired Lismore with the rest of the Ralegh 
 property the castle was in a sad state of ruin, and for some 
 years he did not attempt to live there. But in 1614 he began 
 to set it in order, and a stone-cutter agreed to c make and 
 carve four arms and crests with the borders in freestone, one 
 at my gallery window, one at my schoolhouse, one at my 
 almshouse, and another at my house at Lismore for ^7, los. 
 with meat, drink, and lodging at Lismore.' The building 
 and repairing at Lismore was never ending. Boyle loved 
 bricks and mortar. ' Two glasurs ' were paid for putting 
 the castle staircase and the schoolhouse ' into colours ' ; and in 
 1622 he agreed with the plasterer 'to ceil with fret work 
 my study, my bedchamber and the nursery at Lismore, and 
 to wash them with Spanish white.' There is no account of 
 an entire rebuilding, but one time the park wall is built, at 
 another a tower for a water-mill, and later on 1061 feet of 
 terrace were laid out with paving-stones, at fivepence a foot. 
 
 The wars have left little of the castle of which the first 
 Earl of Cork was so proud, but the unequalled position is 
 unchanged, and the great drawing-room still boasts the view 
 
 126
 
 A MUNSTER MANSION 127 
 
 that made the second King James start back in affright when 
 he looked from the window and saw the precipice fall plumb 
 from his feet to the swirling stream of the Blackwater far 
 below ; across the river rise undulating slopes of rich pasture- 
 land, and behind them the range of the Knockmeldown 
 Mountains, where Boyle and his sons hunted the wolf and 
 the red deer, stands out bold against the sky. 
 
 As time went on the visits of the Boyle family to Lismore 
 grew more frequent and lasted longer, till at last it became 
 their real Munster home, and the College House was only 
 used when business or a journey to England made it con- 
 venient to stop for a night in Youghal. 
 
 The inside of Lismore must have been as beautiful as 
 the exterior. One suite of furniture consisting of two large 
 chairs, two high stools, and two low stools, were of crimson 
 velvet fringed with silver and silk, and another set were of 
 red, embroidered in black velvet. There were gilt bedsteads 
 and quilts of needlework or of Indian embroidery. The 
 dining-room walls were hung with tapestry, on the floor 
 was a ' foot Turkey carpet,' and the window seats were 
 covered with velvet cushions. The dinner-table was loaded 
 with plate, but the amount of silver that furnished the house 
 and even was used for bedroom ewers and 'basons was not 
 so extravagant as it would at first appear ; the masses of plate 
 accumulated in every great house were a convenient fashion 
 of hoarding the precious metal till the day of need, when it 
 could be melted into ready money with little trouble. Before 
 Boyle died most of his silver dishes and saltcellars were 
 riding on horseback in the service of the country. But in 
 the piping times of peace all the sideboards of Lismore 
 glittered with plate, which splendour nearly cost Lady Boyle 
 dear. For one morning, descending from her stately gilded
 
 128 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 bedstead, and ' resting on a bedstaff,' it broke, and she fell 
 down upon the silver dishes and cut her knee so badly that 
 a surgeon had to be called in. 
 
 Antiquarians are disagreed as to what a bedstaff exactly 
 was, save that it was an article in constant use and constantly 
 spoken of. Some authorities think it was used for beating 
 up the feather beds and smoothing the bedcovers, so it is 
 interesting to find that Lady Boyle evidently used hers as a 
 climbing pole. 
 
 When we are investigating the ways of the household at 
 Lismore it is curious to note who composed the ' family ' of 
 great folk in those days. It would seem as if the social layers 
 were not divided as they are to-day : positions were held then 
 by those of gentle blood which our new lady helps would 
 hardly take, and upper servants were more often than not 
 poor relations of the master of the house. Of course the 
 Countess's gentlewomen were something of ladies-in-waiting, 
 and Lord Cork's confidential ' servants ' were more or less 
 private secretaries. But they had to know and keep their 
 proper place, and Cousin James Tompkyns, when he sent over 
 his wife's kinswoman, Letitia Hopwood, to enter the Earl's 
 household, wrote hoping she would prove ' dutiful and service- 
 able,' while to make Letitia the more welcome she carried 
 with her from Warrington twelve cheeses. 
 
 The Earl of Cork constantly found situations in his family 
 for his cousins, but married off * my wyffs womon ' or ' my 
 oulde servant ' with equal satisfaction whether they were cousin 
 or no. Cousin Roger Vaughan of Mocas in Herefordshire 
 sent his son over to service at Lismore, and thither also came 
 Cousin Epinetus Howard, who, though he only spent the 
 summer in Ireland, received ten pounds in gold for his 
 services. Those two did not remain long enough to have
 
 A MUNSTER MANSION 129 
 
 their marriages arranged, but ' my cousin Naylor, Dean of 
 Lismore,' ' was married in my house at Dublin to Anne 
 Mansfield my wife's gentlewoman whom I gave in marriage.' 
 
 The Earl did not let the brides go empty-handed from his 
 house. In 1628, 'My wife's woman Mrs. Mary Evesham, 
 was contracted to Mr. John Ward of Dublin by my cousin 
 Robert Naylor my chaplain, in the nursery of Lismore, in 
 the presence of myself, my wife, my son, and Mr. Whalley, 
 and in the presence of them all I gave her jCioo in gold 
 which she presently gave her new betrothed husband.' The 
 same gift was presented to a young lady who made a better 
 match. 'June, 1633. This day at Chichester House, Sir 
 Richard Southwell contracted to Mrs. Ann Neville, my 
 daughter the Countess of Kildare's gentlewoman, and I gave 
 her of my bounty 100 in gold in a fine needlework purse 
 toward her preferment, and the Earl of Kildare hath promised 
 Sir Richard another 200 with her.' 
 
 It was necessary to import attendants who had some 
 pretensions to birth and breeding to fill posts of trust, for 
 some of the wild Irish servants were very wild indeed, and 
 the Earl had to make a bond of ^200 for his servant 
 Donough M'Teague Carthy, ' if he shall be attainted for the 
 treasonable words he spake against his Sacred Majesty.' 
 It is so improbable that the Earl of Cork should shelter a 
 traitor that we must needs believe Donough M'Teague Carthy 
 had been very drunk and then spake unadvisedly with his lips. 
 
 One servant was always faithful, and that was old Davy 
 Gibbons, the footman or messenger, who was rewarded for 
 a service of thirty years with a lease of lands in Waterford, 
 rent free, but for a fat capon to be paid at Christmas, and 
 a pair of gilt spurs paid every New Year's Day, himself or 
 his heirs-male putting them on. In the Earl's last will he 
 
 i
 
 130 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 added a legacy of 10 to stock the farm, and commanded 
 his heir to see that David was not disturbed in the enjoy- 
 ment of it. Another old servant, William Chettle, * my 
 honest servant,' was given 20 a. year out of Powlmore in 
 the barony of Inchiquin, f and as an addition for his better 
 maintenance during his life, I have given him a bond wherein 
 Arthur Freke and Lieut. James Finch are, for arrears of 
 rent on his farm, bound to pay him 195 on Midsummer 
 day next.' Chettle also came in for presents of clothes ; 
 one New Year's Day he received 'a new cloak that I 
 had never worne, of London Russet, lined throughout with 
 black velvet.' 
 
 Those were the days when it was an honour to a gentleman 
 to wear the clothes of any one above him in rank, and when 
 King James showed his appreciation of the famous Cotteswold 
 games by sending to their founder Mr. Dover, a man of good 
 position and fortune, a suit of his own clothes to wear at the 
 festivity. As Lord Cork's ' servants ' were very different 
 people from the ' twenty old fellows with blue coats and 
 badges ' kept by the old Courtier of the Queen in the ballad, 
 so the Lismore ' servants,' instead of blue coats, wore the 
 Earl's gayest cast-off garments, and often were given clothes 
 and doublets he had never put on. John Eddow was given 
 a French green satin doublet with points of gold and green 
 silk, a cassock and green silk lace suitable, and John Narroon 
 of Glannabwy was given a tawny satin doublet and breeches 
 and girdle suitable. 
 
 The supplies for the great household at Lismore were 
 naturally drawn chiefly from the Earl's own farms and gardens, 
 and not content with smoked fish and barrelled cockles from 
 his fisheries at Crookhaven and Ardmore, he imported fresh- 
 water fish into Ireland, and soon could stock his friends' ponds
 
 A MUNSTER MANSION 131 
 
 as well as his own. 1 In 1630, eight carp and thirty tench 
 were sent over from the Low Countries to him; many died 
 by the way, but when we consider the rate at which journeys 
 were accomplished in those days of waggons and packhorses, 
 we can only marvel that any survived. Yet in time the 
 Earl's fish-pools were filled, and four years later he was able 
 to send to the Lord President of Munster twenty young 
 carp and ten tench. 
 
 The importation and breeding of all sorts of game and farm 
 stock was a matter of the deepest interest to Lord Cork. The 
 royal patent for Youghal had granted permission to enclose 
 certain lands for breeding horses and deer ; and the name park 
 still clings there to the fields that have reverted to less dignified 
 use. Mr. William Freke wrote in 1617 that he hoped to get 
 about fifty does and fifty buck from a Mr. Maid, who was 
 disparking his park called Currypool, near Bridgewater, and 
 hoped to get a hundred more from the Earl of Pembroke's 
 herds in the Forest of Dean. He was sending two horse- 
 loads of toils to take them with. 2 Henry Vaughan of Moccas 
 also contributed deer for his cousin's park ; and the following 
 January, Mr. Edward Seymour, a south of England squire, 
 wrote to protest against Boyle's agent Mr. Russel offering 
 to buy his deer at but a French crown each, when he could 
 sell them for three times as much at home, without the risk 
 and trouble of sending them so far ; but he was willing to 
 come to terms and ship them to Ireland if he could receive 
 wainscot as a return cargo for his vessel, and also have the 
 right of buying a hundred does at a pound apiece in five 
 or six years' time. A good many of the larger stags and 
 does he had destined for Lord Cork had died after being 
 
 1 See Autobiography of Robert Boyle. 
 
 2 L. P., ii. 2. 108.
 
 132 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 taken, which he attributed to the shortness of the panniers 
 they were put into and the long land carriage during which 
 they had hurt themselves by struggling, for the wind had 
 prevented the ship standing close inshore and he had been 
 obliged to send them eight miles by land. 
 
 Lord Cork loved the deer he had got with so much 
 trouble, and kept a tame buck for some time at Youghal ; but 
 it proved to be an untrustworthy pet, and in 1619 he wrote 
 that it had turned savage and had wounded Sir William Fenton 
 and killed a keeper, before he could come up and shoot it. 
 
 A year after he had imported his deer, Lord Cork notes 
 with joy that he found in his park ' the first fawn that ever was 
 fawned in those parts,' and it was not long before he could send 
 his deer far and wide among his friends, presenting six brace 
 of deer to Lord Clanrickard to stock his new park at Por- 
 tumna ; and later on five brace of young fawns went to the 
 same park, Lord Cork skilfully arranging that they should 
 have been brought up by goats, so that their foster-mothers 
 should travel with them. 
 
 Of all the Munster gentry, who seem to have spent their 
 time like Job's children feasting in each other's houses, the 
 one we meet with the oftenest is Sir John Leeke, who leased 
 Lisfinnon Castle from the Earl. Jovial, warm-hearted, and 
 gossiping, whenever there was a message to carry or a good- 
 natured errand to do, Sir John was always ready to start, and 
 his frequent English visits to his wife's cousins the Verneys 
 of Claydon, enabled him to do a vast amount of London 
 shopping for the Boyle family. 
 
 Of course Sir John Leeke was one of the first to follow the 
 Earl's example and keep deer, and when he was in England 
 he begged his lordship to keep an eye on them. ' I send 
 over,' he wrote to Boyle in 1624, ' an excellent keeper, as good
 
 A MUNSTER MANSION 133 
 
 a woodman as any in this kingdom, an honest and a quiet 
 man. I will direct him to your honour, that yourself may 
 put him into the park, otherwise the dogged fellow Thomas 
 will do him some ill turn or other, if I be not there to order 
 him ; but I know he doth fear you, and therefore if you 
 command him he dare not violate. I beseech your honour 
 let them kill some bucks with the bow, that my hounds be not 
 marred.' He had no fancy evidently for Thomas going 
 a-hunting on his own account ; and he had further heard that 
 Thomas was haunting the ale-houses and giving away rabbits, 
 ' and there be night walks,' so it was indeed necessary for 
 some one to keep an eye on him. 
 
 English cows and English sheep were so frequently 
 brought over for the Earl's home farm and for the use of 
 his tenants, that there was none of the anxiety felt over their 
 journeys that there was about the deer ; but the importation of 
 horses for the horse park was an important matter, and the 
 Earl was delighted when Sir John Leeke brought him over a 
 horse he had bought for ^2,4. He was constantly buying and 
 exchanging, and giving horses to his friends and servants, and 
 had a fashion of calling his horses after their former owners. 
 ' Bay Audley ' was a greatly valued horse of Lord Castlehaven's 
 breed, and there was a * Grey Eddow,' and many more such. 
 
 Although we know by his presents to King James and his 
 courtiers how highly Boyle valued his eyries of falcons, strange 
 to say he never gives any details of hawking-parties in his 
 letters or diaries ; it is always as presents that he mentions 
 hawks. Neither does he ever tell of his hunting exploits : it 
 is in his son's diary that we hear of riding after wolves on the 
 Knockmeldown Mountains. Lord Cork only mentions wolf- 
 hounds when he sends them away to his friends. As the 
 greatness of the native chieftains had declined in Ireland, the
 
 134 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 breeding of their hounds had been neglected, and although 
 there was still no lack of wolves in Ireland to give them 
 occupation, the dogs who had been tall enough to look over 
 the shoulders of their masters as they sat at meat grew smaller 
 and fewer. So, when the fancy to own them suddenly arose 
 among fashionable people in England, the Earl of Cork was, 
 in his own words, ' put to his straits ' to procure wolf-hounds 
 for his friends, and had to inquire far and near, coming on a 
 ' very fair dog ' in one place, and ' a handsome brace ' in another, 
 to make up the number. The St. Legers and the Browns and 
 the Laceys all helped him, and one that the Earl had destined 
 for Mr. Perkins the tailor was after all offered for the service of 
 the Queen of Bohemia. That lovely lady must have owned a 
 pack of wolf-hounds ; young Dungarvan took over three brace 
 in 1636, and Davie Gibbons, the old footman, followed next 
 year to the Hague with two more. But ill-natured gossip 
 hinted that the Queen of Hearts went even further than 
 William the Conqueror in her taste for sport, and ' loved the 
 tall deer ' better than her children ! 
 
 In trying to imagine the life in a country mansion in the 
 seventeenth century, we must take account of the constant 
 coming and going of guests. In the days when there was no 
 penny post and no telegraph wires, business matters had to be 
 arranged by sending a special messenger or by interviews, even 
 if the interview meant a two-days' journey. When there were 
 so few inns, a journey usually meant a series of visits, for the 
 gentry accepted it as one of the duties of their position to keep 
 open house. Besides those who came from need, or business, 
 or pleasure, there were the official visitors. When a great man, 
 judge, or president, or lord deputy, was on his rounds, he 
 naturally turned to the nearest big house, riding up with his 
 retinue of gentlemen and grooms, and the train of pack-horses
 
 A MUNSTER MANSION 135 
 
 jingling behind, or perhaps rumbled up more solemnly in his 
 great leathern coach, with chaplain sitting in the boot, and all 
 the gentry of the neighbourhood drawn up to receive him. 
 Then all was bustle, the tun of Canary that had been 
 a present from the Mayor of Youghal was broached, with 
 usquebaugh and aquavitae and good ale ; there was venison to 
 be fetched from the park, Ralegh's potatoes and Ralegh's 
 Affane cherries from the garden, casks of e fumados ' and 
 cockles to be opened and fresh fish fetched from the pond, the 
 English cheeses cut, the groceries from London brought out, 
 marmalade, and green ginger, and cinnamon water ; sirloins 
 of beef from the green Camphire meadows were roasted to 
 keep the mighty pasties company all served on silver dishes 
 and spiced with condiments from the branched silver salt- 
 cellar. And while the guests feasted, the scarlet-clad musicians 
 played stately old tunes, or the Irish harper was called in as a 
 compliment to the Irish among the guests. 
 
 There is an entry among the Lismore accounts of twenty- 
 two shillings given to f the Prince's players,' one of the 
 wandering theatrical companies, who played in great folks' 
 halls from Munster to Elsinore, and when the acting was over 
 there were games for the guests at cards or dice, gleek and 
 ' quarter loo dicing ' and ' mawe.' The children also had their 
 gaieties, and the Earl gave them five pounds for their masque, 
 'whereof I paid out of my own purse ^4, 17, o, and gave 
 order to Mr. Whalley to add three shillings to make up 
 5.' There were merry days at Lismore in the Great Earl's 
 time. 
 
 Boyle never gave up his connection with the friends of 
 his youth in Connaught and Leinster ; the Moores and 
 Edgeworths were constant correspondents, and Henry Crofton 
 of Mohill, the son of Boyle's earliest patron, the Escheator
 
 136 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 General, was trustee to the marriage settlement of Sara 
 Boyle. 
 
 Whether English, Irish, or Scottish, or of old Norman 
 blood, not one of the Munster family names is missing among 
 the records of the Earl's visitors. The Elizabethan settlers, 
 Hulls and Beechers, Daunts, Hydes, Hewitts and Flemings, 
 met at Lismore the old Irish Lord Roche and Lord Muskerry, 
 Keatings and M'Carthies. 
 
 It is certainly noticeable that no social feeling divided either 
 Romanists from Protestants or Celts from Saxons. Lord 
 Roche only took a mischievous pleasure in leading his Puritan 
 friend into compromising situations. Boyle wrote in vexation 
 in 1620, ' I rode with my Lord Roche to M'Carthie's marriage, 
 but he was married with a papist priest before and I unnobly 
 did withal * ; and in 1615 Roche was delighted to spur Boyle 
 up to remember his religious obligations, and reminded him 
 of the coming of Lent and his Majesty's edict concerning its 
 observation, excepting for * such as should be sickly, or whose 
 constitution of health may not bear eating fish : l which I wish 
 for your good, and assuring myself it will be well taken, for 
 my Lord Deputy is resolved to hold that course with his 
 household in Dublin.' 
 
 But in spite of these little pin-pricks, when we cannot 
 doubt that Cork managed to give as good as he got, he and 
 Lord Roche were firm friends, and at the very time when he 
 was exhorting Lord Cork to fast, Lord Roche was also writing 
 to him, that, anxious as he was to discuss the arrangements 
 for the coming Parliament, * I would not have you be bold to 
 come abroad till fairer weather come on, therefore appoint the 
 
 1 In 1 640 there is a note that Lord Cork purchased a licence from the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury ' under his seal of office for myself and eleven more to eat flesh this 
 Lent, the fees whereof cost one mark.'
 
 A MUNSTER MANSION 137 
 
 time of my coming to you . . ., for I prefer your wellfare 
 and health before my ease and all the horseflesh in the 
 country.' 
 
 The Earl on his side never failed in the office of friend- 
 ship : when Lord Roche's son, Sir Tibbott, or Theobald, died 
 of small-pox at Youghal, he even went so far as to send the 
 body back to the bereaved father in his own coach. 
 
 To the port of Youghal came visitors of all degrees from 
 England : fine gentlemen, who hoped that Lord Cork's influ- 
 ence would secure them matches with Munster heiresses, 
 country squires like Sir Harry Lee of Ditchley, immortalised 
 in Woodstock^ who came to see after investments of money, 
 and, dearest of all, Cork's old comrade in Carew's war, Sir 
 Thomas Stafford, who called to talk over old adventures, on 
 his way to visit his mother at Crookhaven. The letter that 
 announced his coming was sealed with the wonderful seal the 
 great Dean Donne had given him, a mystic emblem of hope, 
 showing the Saviour extended, not upon a cross, but on an 
 anchor. 
 
 With the prosperous English visitors came also an un- 
 ceasing stream of poor Boyle relations, all of whom were 
 welcomed and provided for by their prosperous cousin. 
 Lord Cork had not the least hesitation in admitting that 
 many of his connections were in trade, and when in London 
 was as ready to dine with his cousin Croon the Vintner 
 as with any court gentleman. He invited his ' poor honest 
 kinsman,' Roger Boyle, the grocer, over to Ireland and settled 
 him on a farm on the Galtees. But the poor grocer, it 
 appears, did not understand farming, for it was not long till 
 he was driven to mortgage his land, and Lord Cork had to 
 redeem it for him. 
 
 Only one of them, * Cozen Cripps,' was too much even for
 
 138 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Munster hospitality. She established herself at Ballynetra, 
 where the Earl sent her twenty shillings by his niece, Kate 
 Supple ; but a few months later he was obliged to send Dean 
 Naylor's wife with twenty-five shillings to give ' my cousin 
 Cripps to carry her into England. And my children made 
 it up to 5 amongst them, conditionally she came no more 
 to trouble us in Ireland ! ' This undesired visitor was 
 apparently well connected, for there is mention in the diary 
 of an old Sir Edward Cripps, to whom the Earl sent a pair 
 of embroidered gloves one New Year's Day. 
 
 Of all the Boyle cousins, the one who must interest us 
 most is the golden-haired Elizabeth Spenser, who found her 
 way back to Ireland and married again and lived at Youghal. 
 There was nothing poetical in the poor lady's later life ; her 
 letters are but complaints to her rich and sympathetic cousin 
 of her anxieties about her sons or her money, and we can 
 hardly doubt that her second and third marriages were matters 
 of commonplace convenience. But after all, it is better so, 
 better that the romance of her life should be buried in West- 
 minster Abbey with the poet who had honoured her with his 
 love, than that she should have given her heart with her hand 
 to one of a lower nature. Her second marriage, with Roger 
 Seckerstone, did not last long, and in 1612 she took as her 
 third husband Captain Robert Tynte, the godfather of Boyle's 
 eldest daughter. There was no jubilant opening of the 
 Temple Gates for this wedding ; it was celebrated, as seems 
 to have been the bad fashion of those days, in the study of the 
 College House at Youghal. Richard Boyle, Dean of Lismore, 
 tied the knot, and the event is chronicled in the Earl's diary, 
 ' and I gave her to him in marriage, and I beseech God to 
 bless them with good agreement and many virtuous children.' 1 
 
 i /.. P., i. i. g.
 
 A MUNSTER MANSION 139 
 
 Lady Tynte had indeed cause for anxiety over her sons. 
 Her Tynte children were not especially virtuous, and her 
 Spenser sons were very poor. There is a most sad letter from 
 Peregrine Spenser to Boyle in i6i2. 1 He says: 'Necessity 
 and I have been of so long acquaintance, that I am almost 
 inured to continue her abject.' He begs for counsel, for 
 he had got a situation as gentleman usher, by means of such 
 friends as he, a stranger in England, could make in so short 
 a time, but now had lost it by falling ill. His health was not 
 equal to study, ' but your charity will be a means to direct my 
 youth in a path, that my age may live to pray for you.' In a 
 postscript he adds : ' My mother writ to me that you had 
 taken order with Mr. Bor for five pounds at Easter last, which 
 hitherto I have not heard of ; but your kind remembrance by 
 Capt. Norton hath remembered more thanks than this little 
 paper dare be capable of.' Peregrine was well named a 
 stranger and pilgrim upon earth, as his father had felt 
 himself when he gave his son such a significant name. How- 
 ever, Peregrine's fortunes seem to have improved, for at his 
 death in 1641 he left his son Hugolin owner of an estate 
 named Renny. 
 
 In 1624 came the most exalted of visitors, the Governor 
 of the country. Lord Deputy Falkland rode on progress 
 through Munster, and came with great state to Youghal, the 
 Earl of Cork meeting him with forty gentlemen, and entertain- 
 ing him and the Lord President of Munster for four days at 
 the College. There, in the dining parlour, Lord Falkland 
 knighted the twelve-year-old son and heir, Lord Dungarvan, 
 and the new boy-knight presented the Deputy with a falcon, 
 and the Deputy's son Lucius, with a tercel gentle. Lord 
 Cork presented a black mare to the Deputy, and the fees for 
 
 1 L. P., ii. 2. 139.
 
 1 40 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 knighthood amounted to 31, ios. The Deputy also knighted 
 Smyth of Ballynetra, Lord Cork's brother-in-law, and George 
 Boyle of the iron-works, the Earl paying their fees for them. 
 
 Lord Falkland liked his Munster host so well that he 
 would willingly have found a bride for his son Lucius Cary 
 among the Ladies Boyle ; but Lord Cork was not disposed to 
 give one of his richly dowered daughters to a comparatively 
 poor suitor, and so he missed the honour of calling the noblest 
 gentleman in England his son-in-law. But a warm friendship 
 continued to exist between the families, and long years after, 
 when Lucius Cary fell on Newbury field, Katherine Boyle's 
 letter of sorrow was a worthy epitaph on that stainless knight. 
 
 Lord Falkland's progress in Munster ended somewhat 
 sadly, for the President of Munster, the Earl of Thomond, 
 was taken suddenly ill during the tour, and died in three days. 
 But his death brought a close friend of the Boyles to Munster, 
 for in December Lord Falkland announced : 
 
 ' Sir Edward Villiers shall certainly shortly come over 
 President of Munster, which, for his sake, your sake, and my 
 own, I am glad of. If the times prove as stirring as they are 
 likely to be, his employment will prove both honourable, 
 profitable, and pleasant unto him.' 
 
 What the ' stirring times ' were to which the Deputy looked 
 forward is not clear ; it is to be hoped that he did not mean 
 that an Irish war with ensuing forfeitures was the best luck to 
 be desired ! Perhaps poor Lord Falkland thought that any 
 fighting in the field would be preferable to the constant 
 struggles in the Irish Council Chamber, where Sir Francis 
 Annesley had for long made it his pride to put one Lord 
 Deputy after another to rout. 
 
 In October 1625, Sir Edward Villiers arrived in Ireland 
 and became tenant of the College House at Youghal, and in
 
 A MUNSTER MANSION 141 
 
 March 1626, 'my Lord President came from Moallo to 
 Lismore,' and * saw a piece of ordanance cast at Cappoquin.' 
 There were plenty of junketings that year. One entry in 
 the diary tells of an August picnic for the Boyle and Villiers 
 children. ' Sent a fat buck to Dungarvan, whither my son 
 Richard, my four daughters and Mr. Villiers, with other good 
 company, went to be merry, this being the first day my son 
 saw Dungarvan.' As was inevitable when Lord Cork and his 
 friends were happy together, the talk soon turned on marriages. 
 Cork would willingly have had a daughter-in-law from the 
 Villiers family, but Sir Edward said candidly that his fortune 
 was not great enough to dower a Viscountess of Dungarvan, 
 for he had not eight hundred a year in land. He must have 
 been a singularly unlucky man, for scandal had whispered that 
 more money had come into his hands than he could publicly 
 account for. However, it does not seem to have stayed with 
 him, for whatever fault the Villiers family had they were never 
 niggardly. The Viscount of thirteen was, it seems, old enough 
 to take some interest in his own future bride, for an allusion 
 made long afterwards by Dungarvan to Lady Barbara Villiers 
 shows there had been a little sentiment as well as diplomacy in 
 the negotiations. 
 
 But these gay days passed all too quickly. On September 
 2, 1626, comes the entry, 'My noble friend, Sir Ed. Villiers, 
 sickened this day at Youghal and died there the 8th of this 
 month about four of the clock in the morning and was buried 
 in my new chapel about eight in the evening, I attending his 
 death and funeral/ Lord Cork did all that friendship could 
 do to aid Lady Villiers in her sad journey back to England, 
 sending fifty pounds to the captain of the King's ship then on 
 guard on the coast of Munster to enable him to make suitable 
 preparations on board for her reception; and on the i6th of
 
 i 4 2 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 October, Lord Cork, Lord Barry, and Lord Digby rode to 
 Youghal, * to bring my Lady Villiers a-shipboard, and returned 
 the 2ist, and I gave my godson Richard Villiers his nurse 
 ten shillings.' 
 
 Lady Villiers gave a parting gift of ten books of Common 
 Prayer for use in the chapel where her husband lay. 
 
 The epitaph she placed over his tomb is so striking, that 
 some critics have suggested it may have been written by Ben 
 Jonson. 
 
 Munster may curse 
 The time that Villiers came 
 
 To make us worse 
 By leaving such a name 
 
 Of noble parts 
 As none can imitate 
 
 But those whose harts 
 Are married to the State. 
 
 But if they press 
 To imitate his fame, 
 
 Munster may bless 
 The time when Villiers came.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MARRIAGES OF CONVENIENCE 
 1621 1630 
 
 ' Marry ! That marry is the very theme 
 I come to tell of.' 
 
 Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY weddings appear to have been usually 
 a matter of as long and complicated negotiation as if two 
 nations were discussing peace and war, instead of two private 
 gentlemen haggling over how many hundred pounds should 
 make up a dowry. 
 
 Our sympathy to-day is naturally given to the Romeos 
 and Juliets of old ; but we may well spare a little pity for 
 seventeenth-century parents, for authority carries with it its 
 own responsibilities, and when the future of children was 
 entirely at the mercy of a parent's wisdom or caprice, a con- 
 scientious father felt himself bound to provide for that future 
 to the best of his ability. 
 
 While the Earl of Cork's sons were yet in their cradles, 
 he was moving heaven and earth to buy them titles and to 
 build up estates for them. Each fresh mortgage or purchase 
 of land was ticketed for Dungarvan, or for Roger, or for 
 Robert. It was simpler, though hardly less expensive, to 
 provide for the girls ; they were to be married off as soon 
 as possible, to the richest suitors attainable. There was no 
 hesitation felt about marrying for money ; the whole thing 
 
 143
 
 144 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 was a mere matter of pounds, shillings, and pence ; and yet the 
 Earl was a most loving father, and lavished prayers and 
 blessings on the daughters who were bargained away like 
 pieces of merchandise. 
 
 There was perhaps one redeeming point about these 
 unromantic matches, which often distinguished them from 
 mere manages de conveyance : the bride was usually no more 
 than a baby, and she was handed over to be brought up in the 
 family of the boy bridegroom, so that the lifelong familiarity 
 of the children made the affair less repulsive than when a 
 grown man and woman met for the first time on their 
 wedding-day. 
 
 Alice Boyle was but ten years old when the agreement was 
 signed that promised her to a boy of twelve, young Lord 
 Barry ; but she returned after the betrothal to Lady Clayton's 
 care, for the bridegroom had no home of his own to which to 
 carry her. Although he was The Barry More, head of the 
 great Barry family that had been lords of a third of all 
 Munster ever since the days that the Normans invaded Ire- 
 land, 1 he was but a homeless and forlorn little fellow. His 
 grandfather was David Fitzjames Barry, Viscount Buttevant, 
 but his father, David Barry, had never succeeded to the title, 
 having died in 1635, shortly before this boy's birth. 
 
 When old Lord Buttevant died, his real heir was his deaf 
 and dumb eldest son ; but by general consent this man was 
 held incompetent, and little David was hailed as head of the 
 family, although he was seldom given any higher title than 
 Lord Barry. Hard times soon came on the boy and his 
 widowed mother, Mrs. Ellis 2 Barry, for his guardian was 
 his aunt, the Countess of Ormond, and the countess, for 
 reasons of her own, joined with her second husband, Sir 
 
 1 See Windele Manuscripts. 2 Ellis, or Ellice, short for Elizabeth.
 
 MARRIAGES OF CONVENIENCE 145 
 
 Thomas Somerset, in persecuting poor Mrs. Ellis in every 
 way she could devise. But Mrs. Ellis had been a Poer, and 
 had the spirit of the Poers. She took to herself a second 
 husband, Mr. Sherlock, garrisoned her boy's castle of Barrys- 
 court with ' fifty hable men,' and refused to let the guar- 
 dians lay a finger on her boy or his estates. But the good 
 old Munster fashions of private feuds did not please the 
 Lord Deputy of Ireland, who clapped poor Mrs. Ellis into 
 Dublin Castle, and left her no resource but to appeal to the 
 powerful Sir Richard Boyle for his help. He promptly con- 
 cluded an offensive and defensive alliance with her, sent her 
 ^5, i os. in gold for her expenses, and promised to recover 
 her boy, and marry him to his own eldest daughter, Alice 
 Boyle. 
 
 Meanwhile the little fellow over whom the guardians were 
 quarrelling was sent away from his mother and his friends, 
 and bestowed in the household of the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury. He ought to have done well under the care of so 
 learned and pious a man as Abbott ; but the archbishop was 
 either too busy or too much absorbed in his studies to take 
 any interest in a mere child, and David idled about Lambeth 
 Palace, uncared for and untaught, till Boyle gained power to 
 interfere in his behalf. Then, in November 1617, Boyle 
 wrote with proud pleasure : 
 
 ' God bless it. On this day I agreed with Sir Lawrence 
 Esmond, Mr. Patrick Sherlock, and Mr. Barry and his sons 
 on behalf of my lord Barry, to redeem all his mortgages so 
 that they exceeded not ^3000, and to have ten in the hundred 
 for the use of my money, the surplus of the rent to be dis- 
 posed of for the young lord's maintainence. And I am to 
 give Alice the rents of the Abbey of Castle Lyons to buy her 
 pins, and I to have the breeding of the young Lord Barry.'
 
 146 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 As soon as matters were so far advanced, Boyle was able 
 to assume the responsibility of the young lord's education, 
 and he was sent off to Eton under the care of his tutor, 
 Dr. Joslen, and William Brown. Perkins, the Earl's London 
 tailor, received orders to provide fifty pounds' worth of clothes 
 for tutor and pupil, and to advance ' 25 to pay for his 
 quarter's dyett at Eton.' 
 
 But even at Eton the boy's troubles were not over : most 
 people looked on him with affection and pity ; but Sir 
 Laurence Parsons wrote to warn Cork that he believed Lady 
 Ormond would never rest content till she had ruined her poor 
 sister-in-law, and that the only hope of safety for mother or 
 son would be to get the Duke of Buckingham to lay the case 
 before the King, who would be sure to take ' Somerset's 
 doings ill.' 
 
 Kind Sir John Leeke, who leased land near Castle Lyons, 
 the ruined mansion of the De Barrys, shared Lord Cork's 
 interest in the fatherless boy. He wrote in 1618 to tell how 
 at last the King's notice was drawn to young Barry : ' Sunday 
 the 2yth of September the King led my Lord Barry to chapel, 
 and there did use him most graciously. I have been often 
 with him ; his lordship doth lack money, and if I can get in 
 my money, I will supply him with .50 or 100, if it shall 
 please your lordship to see me paid.' 
 
 But even these open signs of royal favour did not secure 
 Lord Barry from his enemies. His kinsman, Lord Roche, 
 wrote in August 1620 in a desperate state of anxiety lest 
 Lord Cork should get tired of maintaining the long struggle. 
 f Seeing,' he says, * how earnest Sir T. Somerset deals against 
 your lordship and that sweet young lord, whose courage and 
 health I pray God may be preserved from such unnatural 
 and cruel attempts, I cannot conceive nor understand how
 
 MARRIAGES OF CONVENIENCE 147 
 
 your lordship in honour or conscience may forsake this young 
 lord, considering how firm and steadfast he is towards you 
 and yours, notwithstanding any soothing or large offers that 
 are daily made unto him to quit him from your lordship.' 
 
 Boyle had by this time secured his own title as Earl of 
 Cork, and was too safe in the favour of the all-powerful Duke 
 of Buckingham to be scared into dropping the boy he had 
 secured for a son-in-law. Opposition only made him the 
 more resolved to possess Lord Barry, cost what it might, and 
 although he considered ^850 an unfairly high price to pay 
 for the wardship, in addition to the ^3000 he had promised 
 as Alice's dowry, he paid it down in October 1620, and paid 
 the young lord's Eton bills into the bargain, for one of Lord 
 Cork's English friends warned him, ' the young nobleman 
 saith plainly he will not depart hence in debt.' At last all the 
 money matters were settled, and Lord Barry was delivered 
 from his enemies, and arrived safe and sound at Youghal in 
 December, ' to my great comfort,' writes Lord Cork, * after 
 a most tempestuous passage and narrow escape, God be ever 
 praised. And I gave my Lord Barry my ambling gelding 
 Bay Thomond and my mewed goshawk, and I am to have his 
 eyrie of falcons.' 
 
 There, storms were over ; there was now only comfortable 
 talk of horses and hawks, and a cheerful family circle to 
 welcome the lonely boy, in which we may hope Mrs. Ellis 
 Poer and her daughter Peggy Sherlock found their places. 
 
 On the 3rd of December, with due formality, is entered 
 in the diary : ' The young Lord Barry Lo. Viscount Buttavent 
 was this day in the hall of the College House of Youghall by 
 the L. Bishop of Cork contracted pro verba de presenti to my 
 eldest daughter the Lady Alice Boyle in the presence of Sir 
 W. Fenton, Sir J. Fitz Edmonds, Sir R. Tynte, and 40 more
 
 148 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 of good worth and reputation. And their contract written 
 and testified by the said bishop, and signed by the young 
 couple with many of the witnesses' names subscribed. And I 
 do humbly beseech the Almighty God of Heaven in and 
 through his best beloved Son Jesu Christ to pour upon them 
 both all spiritual and temporal blessings in a most plentiful 
 manner, and that they may live long and comfortably together 
 in His divine fear and protection, and be the parents of many 
 good and virtuous children, etcetra.' 
 
 In spite of the quaint conclusion, Lord Cork was evidently 
 deeply moved by the marriage of his eldest daughter. He 
 never wrote so warmly of any other wedding. He took 
 Lord Barry to his heart as an elder son, and was never better 
 pleased than when he could write he had ridden to assizes or 
 military musters on horseback ' with my Lord Barry.' 
 
 The following summer the wedding was solemnised by 
 Michael Boyle, Bishop of Waterford, late in the evening of 
 July 9, 1621. This wedding at Lismore was a double one, as 
 the Earl's second daughter Sara was married at the same time 
 to Sir Thomas Moore, son and heir to Lord Moore. The 
 story of sweet Sara Moore must be told presently, but we 
 may first follow the fortunes of the Barrys a little further. 
 
 The next notice of the young bridegroom is in December 
 1621, when his father-in-law makes a very serious note about 
 him in his diary : 
 
 ' My Lord Barry, tho' it was Sunday, upon an untimely 
 falling out at dice, wounded Malperos, the usher of my hall, 
 very dangerously with the firefork. I pray God he may 
 recover, and that the example hereof may teach my Lord 
 better temper and carriage, and neither of them hereafter may 
 presume to play upon the Lord's Day.* 
 
 As we hear no more of Sunday battles, we may presume
 
 MARRIAGES OF CONVENIENCE 149 
 
 my lord did take it to heart. He grew up to be a gallant 
 and spirited gentleman, a little headstrong and careless about 
 money matters, but in general most dutiful to his father- 
 in-law. Mr. Vigors, the Boyles' private chaplain, describes 
 him as * of a most noble, generous, free nature, full of 
 humanity and Christian charity, and no less pious and truly 
 virtuous. He hath sermons in his chapel duly twice a day 
 on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.' l 
 
 The young couple lived almost entirely with Lord Cork 
 during Lord Barry's minority. The young lord seems 
 not to have cared for Barry's Court, his fortress on Cork 
 Harbour, and mortgaged it to Lord Cork to raise money to 
 repair and enlarge Castle Lyons, the Castle Lehane granted 
 to his ancestors by King John. Unceasing work at Castle 
 Lyons ended in turning the feudal fortress into a superb 
 Jacobean mansion, built round a central courtyard, one side 
 of which was entirely occupied by the great hall, and another 
 by the kitchen. A noble gallery, ninety feet long and two 
 stories high, was begun, but never finished. Tradition still 
 tells of the beauty of the terraced gardens watered by an 
 artificial canal, and of the great deer-park ; but alas ! a fire in 
 the eighteenth century has left nothing but ruins to tell of 
 the former glories of the Barry mores' mansion, and most of 
 the family portraits and records perished with the Castle. 2 
 
 It is tantalising that the formality with which children 
 addressed their parents makes the letters of the Earl's children 
 tell little of their real characters, but Sir John Leeke breaks 
 out in absolute raptures over his ' dear mistress,' as he always 
 calls Lady Barry. * My dear mistress, the worthiest of 
 women. Believe me, old Cork could beget nothing foolish. 
 
 1 Urban Vigors's Narr., Cork Arch. Jour. (1896), p. 300. 
 
 2 See Windele Manuscripts, Cork Arch. Jour. (1897), p. 176; Smith, i. 146.
 
 150 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 By my soul I dare swear it, I had rather have her judgment in 
 business than the greatest councillors among us, and if I had 
 a desire to be merry, better company is not.' l 
 
 Fond as the Earl of Cork was of his eldest daughter's 
 husband, he could not always suppress a grumble at the amount 
 of money he was asked to lend to the poor and proud head of 
 the Barry clan, but Alice could generally manage to persuade 
 her father to open his purse-strings. Sir John Leeke in one 
 of his rapturous panegyrics on his ' dear mistress,' tells the 
 Verneys it was she who had bestirred herself to persuade her 
 father to renew a lease to him on very generous terms. 
 
 A serious appeal for money came in the year 1637, when 
 Lord Barry heard a report that the Duke of Buckingham had 
 promised to support Viscount Gormanston's claims to take 
 precedence of Viscount Buttevant, and he flew in great agitation 
 to implore Lord Cork to save him this humiliation, by bidding 
 higher in the market for titles and buying him an earl's 
 coronet ! The thousand pounds, at which Buckingham priced 
 the title, was of course advanced by Lord Cork, secured on 
 lands which his son-in-law let to him at a peppercorn rent. 
 The Earl of Barrymore also had to pay 243, 8s. 8d. in fees, 
 and then was for ever secure from the pretensions of mere 
 viscounts. 
 
 From this time on, the news from Castle Lyons is chiefly 
 of the peaceful family sort. In 1632, when the falling in of 
 some Fermoy leases brought a flock of five hundred and thirty 
 ewes into Lord Cork's hands, he writes, ' The ewes I have 
 bestowed on my pretty grandchild Katie Barry, to begin a 
 stock of sheep for her withal.' Pretty Katie had a younger 
 sister Ellen, and then came two boys, Richard and James. 
 Richard, afterwards second earl, was named after his grand- 
 
 1 Verney Mems., i. 203.
 
 MARRIAGES OF CONVENIENCE 151 
 
 father and brought up with great care ; his mother wrote in 
 1639 to beg Sir Edmund Verney to find her a ' mounseer ' to 
 teach him to write, and to accompany him when he was sent to 
 school. ' I would not have him too old or too young,' she 
 writes, ' but one of very temperate carriage.' * Choose one for 
 my mad boy,' she goes on, * and that he may come over with 
 as much speed as may be, for he is spoilt for want of one.' l 
 
 And here we may leave Alice a while to her busy, useful 
 life, and turn to the little sister who was married on the 
 same day. 
 
 Sara Boyle had never passed under Lady Clayton's care, 
 for the negotiations about her marriage began when she was 
 not out of the nursery. The story starts in the year 1617, 
 when Sara was nine years old. A certain old friend, Sir John 
 Blennerhasset, wrote to Lord Cork to tell him he had been 
 staying at Mellifont Abbey, where his hostess, Lady Moore, 
 had been talking over her family with him, and confided to 
 him how anxious she was to find a good wife for her eldest 
 surviving son, and asked him to help her in the search. Sir 
 John in reckoning over the families of his friends, bethought 
 him of the nursery full of children at Lismore, and wrote off 
 to tell Boyle of this excellent chance. * The young gentleman 
 is of as good hope as any I know in this kingdom, his age is 
 about eighteen.' 2 The Earl answered with great pleasure and 
 gratitude : ' It is so fair and honourable, as I should forget 
 myself and my child's good too much if I should not appre- 
 hend it as a blessing from God. . . . My Lord Moore, he is 
 a nobleman that I ever honoured, his father being the principal 
 means under God that first invited my coming into this 
 kingdom. His lady is my gossip, to whose mother I was 
 much bound in my first fortunes. The memory thereof, and 
 
 1 Verney Menu., \. 218. 2 L. P., ii. 2. 102.
 
 152 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 the virtues of the other [i.e. Lady Moore] I much reverence, 
 and therefore have the greater willingness to match in that 
 family. My daughter, though of good growth (you have 
 seen her in my house), is but nine years old ; she is well 
 nurtured and conditioned, religiously bred, and hath as many 
 good qualities as may be expected of one of her time. The 
 preferment I shall give her shall be ^3000, and I shall expect 
 a jointure accordingly '; and concludes by ' desiring God, 
 who makes marriages in heaven, to bless your endeavours.' 1 
 
 After Alice's wedding in 1621, she was left for two years 
 longer in her father's house, but her portrait was sent to 
 Mellifont, painted by a * french limner,' who was paid thirteen 
 pounds by Lord Cork for ' making my own, my wife's, my 
 mother's, Sara's, Dick's, and Joan's pictures.' The portraits 
 of Dick and Joan were sent over to Sir Edward Villiers, no 
 doubt to pave the way for negotiations of marriage for them. 
 Meanwhile Sir Thomas Moore was making the grand tour 
 under the care of a tutor, having taken Lord Cork's own 
 saddle hackney, Black Carew, as a parting present from 
 Lismore. But he returned the following year, and with his 
 younger brother spent the best part of a month in Munster. 
 
 When Lord Cork had paid over the last instalment of 
 Sara's dowry in July 1623, he rode over to Mellifont from 
 Dublin and gave his future son-in-law a bill for 500, 'as a 
 further bounty,' and then in October Sir Thomas claimed his 
 bride ' and departed Lismore with my daughter his wife, and 
 I gave Sir Thomas a fair ambling mare and a pillion furnished, 
 and Sara ^5 in her purse, and accompanied them to Clonmell, 
 and there bare their charges, and sent my Lord Barry, Mr. 
 Ralph Horsie, Mr. Ruffen, Percy Smith [his nephew], and 
 James Foster [a servant], along with them. And my wife at 
 
 1 L. P., \\. 2. no.
 
 MARRIAGES OF CONVENIENCE 153 
 
 Sara's departure gave her a ring set with fine diamonds, and 
 sent also two fair grey coach geldings and a writing-table book 
 to my Lady Moore by Thomas Badnedge.' 
 
 The little bride's first letter home must be given in her 
 own spelling; her writing is exquisite, and spelling was but 
 a matter of individual taste in those happy days. It is plain 
 that she had not travelled much from home at a time when 
 most journeys were done on horseback, and we are glad to 
 think her ride to County Meath was done ' with a greate deale 
 of Eass.' 
 
 * MY MOST HONOURED FATHER, To crave your bless- 
 ing and to contineu my deuiful respext shall ever be my 
 greatest ocatione to present you with my letters. And now I 
 must crave your pardon for that I am bould to kepe your 
 gildinge that careed me with a greate deale of Eass to this place. 
 I humbly desier that he maie remaine with me untill I becum 
 a better horsewoman, and then I shall not faile to restore him, 
 and thus with the remembrance of my most devtifull respeckt 
 I end, your honores most obedient dauter, SARA MOORE.' 1 
 
 This letter was received at Lismore on the first of 
 November 1623, but it was all too quickly followed by one 
 from Sir Laurence Parsons, who wrote in December : ' With 
 a shaking hand and sorrowful heart I signify unto you that 
 Sir Thomas Moore about 2 of the clock this afternoon 
 departed this life, where I was present, praying with others 
 for him, but he was speechless before I came. His mother 
 did tear herself with violence of passion, and the Lady Sara 
 took on bitterly, with whom I stayed all the afternoon to 
 comfort her the best I could, and I left my sister with her, 
 who is continually kind to her. Grief made me forget a main 
 
 i L. P., ii. 3 . 77-
 
 i 5 4 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 point touching Sir Thomas Moore, he died strong in the 
 true faith, prayed continually, repented heartily, and assured 
 himself of salvation constantly ; and departed meekly and 
 christianly, and had good memory at his end.' 
 
 As soon as the wintry roads were passable Lord Cork sent 
 off an escort under charge of kind Sir John Leeke, to bring 
 the baby widow home again. 
 
 Sir Dudley Norton wrote with anxiety : 
 
 * I shall not be as quiet untill I hear of her safety, for I 
 know she had a most bitter and dangerous journey. Good 
 my lord, let me know with the first how she is arrived. . . . 
 My lady your daughter hath left behind her both there and 
 here such a memory of her modesty goodness and virtue, as 
 could not be expected in one of her tender age, and hath 
 been rarely seen in one of riper years. But nature and breed- 
 ing have well concurred, and your lordship hath reason to call 
 her as you do, your dearest daughter. For my part I admire 
 her and will ever honour her, and so I hope all the family of 
 Mellifont do, for she hath worthily deserved the same.' l 
 
 Poor Lady Moore wrote a pathetic letter on parting with 
 her little daughter-in-law : 
 
 ' MY MOST NOBLE LORD AND DEAR BROTHER, Your Sudden 
 
 sending one for my daughter hath bred in me new sorrow : 
 whilst I did enjoy her company mcthought I had a part of him 
 that loved her most dearly. I durst not offer to stay her this 
 bad weather, lest it might be displeasing to your lordship and 
 the rest of your worthy family. I must confess that it is 
 much against my mind that she goes in this bad time. With 
 love and goodwill of all that know her is she gone from 
 hence. My sorrow is so great as I am not able to express. I 
 
 i L. P., 11. 3. 123.
 
 MARRIAGES OF CONVENIENCE 155 
 
 have lost my dear and comfortable son on whom my heart 
 was fixed, and now his lady is gone from me, so as I have no 
 memory of him that was dearer to me than my life, but his 
 virtues and my knowledge of him, which will never go out of 
 my mind until I be with him in the place of rest, before 
 which time I would be glad to see your lordship and my 
 daughter if it may be. I am able to say no more to you at 
 this time, I am so full of tears, but promise faithfully that my 
 perpetual love to your noble family shall ever live with me, 
 though God hath deprived me of the chief bond that was 
 between us. I beseech your lordship to commend my love to 
 your virtuous lady and the rest of your worthy family, for 
 whose happiness I will ever pray, and will be to them in heart 
 as if my son and daughter had continued with me still. I 
 was not born to be so happy. And so I commit you to 
 the Almighty, from Mellifont this 12 of February, Your 
 lordship's affectionate and true loving sister 
 
 MARY MOORE. M 
 
 Lady Moore did not survive her son long, dying two 
 years later ; but the intimacy between the families of Lis- 
 more and Mellifont continued, and ten years after there was 
 talk of a marriage between Lord Moore's heir and the 
 youngest of Lord Cork's daughters, Margaret. 
 
 Sara remained a widow for three years, and then as a young 
 lady of seventeen married Lord Digby of Coleshill, nephew of 
 that wise Earl of Bristol who, as ambassador at Madrid, had 
 suffered so many things from Prince Charles and Buckingham 
 at the time of the Spanish match. Lord Digby's mother was 
 a Geraldine ; she bore the title of Lady Offaley in her own 
 right, and her son inherited from her the barony of Geashill in 
 
 i I. P., 11.3.91.
 
 1 56 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 County Kildare. Robert Digby and Sara were married at 
 Lismore on Christmas. Day, and their eldest child was born 
 at Lismore the following October, and was christened 
 Katherine. 
 
 Lord Cork's third daughter Lettice remained an unmarried 
 young lady at home, at an age when most of her sisters had 
 been long established in houses of their own. There is no 
 mention of her being placed under Lady Clayton's care, and 
 whether from that reason or not, Lettice's writing is poorer 
 and her spelling worse than that of any of her sisters. The 
 allusions to visits to Bath make it probable that her health was 
 not good, but it was such an unprecedented thing for a well- 
 dowered young lady of seventeen to be still unmarried that 
 one cannot help suspecting the desire to give Lettice a season 
 in London was one of the reasons that carried the whole Boyle 
 family to England in 1628. There a husband was found for 
 her, and she was married to George Goring, eldest son of 
 Lord Goring, afterwards Earl of Norwich. Lord Cork's diary 
 gives no account of the wedding, nor does it even allude to 
 settlements : it is only from contemporary gossip that we learn 
 the bride had a portion of ,10,000. George Goring was 
 then just entering public life ; he was twenty, just a year older 
 than Lettice. His father wrote from Tunbridge Wells in July 
 1629, to beg Lord Carlisle to present 'my son George, a new 
 married man,' to his Majesty as ' ready to do him service in 
 any and all ways.' l 
 
 Lord Cork's time in England in 1628 was also employed 
 in finding out the real value of a match that had been im- 
 pending for several years between his fifth daughter Katherine 
 arid a connection of Lady Boyle's, young Sapcot Beaumont. 
 In 1622, Lord Beaumont of Coleorton, 'Coolorkin' as Lord 
 
 1 Goring to Carlisle; Mainwaring to Vane, Col. S. P. Dom., 1629.
 
 MARRIAGES OF CONVENIENCE 157 
 
 Cork spells it, came to Lismore a-wooing for his son, and 
 Lady Boyle strongly favoured her cousin's suit. Katherine's 
 portion was to be ^4000, and in return Lord Beaumont 
 made magnificent promises. The bride was to receive a 
 jointure of ^5000 a year and a house ( furnished in all 
 respects ' to dispose of at her sole pleasure, and a lease of 
 lands worth ,350 more. 
 
 Lord Cork handed over 100 in gold as earnest-money 
 of this bargain, and presented to Lord Beaumont * my own 
 yellow saddle gelding my Lord President bestowed on me, 
 a cast of falcons, a cast of merlins, nine bundles of mingled 
 coloured Irish frieze, and a barrel of pickled scallops.' It 
 looks as if the Earl in his delight at the good bargain had 
 ransacked his storehouse to find enough offerings to present 
 to Katherine's future father-in-law. But for all that the 
 omens were not propitious ! Two months after, the diary 
 says, ' I received notice that of the twenty tons of iron I sent 
 to London for the Lord Beaumont by George Gwyr, he being 
 in distress at sea cast overboard three tons thereof. God 
 send my match with my Lord Beaumont better success than 
 this beginning doth promise.' 
 
 In 1624 the little girl was sent off to be brought up in 
 Lord Beaumont's family, but Lord Beaumont died shortly 
 after, and when Lord Cork visited Lady Beaumont to inquire 
 as to his daughter's future prospects, he had to enter sadly 
 in his diary, ' I had shown me, and by her ladyship's licence 
 took copies of, the former conveyance the perfidious Lord 
 Beaumont, deceased, had made of all his estates, on which I 
 had paid him 3500, of which I find myself in danger to be 
 cozened by my said wife's cozen ! * The Earl had lived so 
 long in Ireland that even when he was in a rage he could not 
 resist a joke ; it must also have been a comfort to him to be
 
 158 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 able to say that it was all Lady Cork's fault, for he continues, 
 ' who with her kindred and friendship drew me, much against 
 my disposition, to yield to that unfortunate match ! ' There 
 had not been much sign of reluctance about the barrel of 
 pickled scallops ; but as we have said, no doubt it was an 
 immense consolation to say ' I told you so ' to his wife. 
 
 Lord Cork, while in England, was so much busied with 
 lawsuits and visits to court that he had no time to keep any 
 records of weddings, but it must have been about this time 
 that Katherine's fate was finally decided, and she was married 
 to Arthur Jones, the son of one of his oldest and most 
 trusted friends, Viscount Ranelagh. Her fortune is, how- 
 ever, recorded, and the agreement that the ^"3000 should 
 be paid over to Lord Ranelagh at Strongbow's tomb in 
 Christ Church Cathedral on Midsummer-day 1631, showing 
 that Christ Church was the centre of Dublin business, as 
 St. Paul's was in London. 
 
 Lord Cork also writes later on that Lord Ranelagh 
 ' bestowed on his daughter-in-law, my Kate, certain unset 
 diamonds and a purse with 30 in gold pieces therein, and 
 gave her a rich agate, unset,' which stone Lord Ranelagh 
 afterwards took over to England * to change or alter for 
 Katy.' 
 
 Katherine was the most distinctly intellectual of the 
 daughters of Lord Cork, and the tone in which her father 
 writes of ' my Kate,' and the frequent mentions of intrusting 
 her with money and referring to her on business matters, 
 makes it probable that she was his favourite daughter. She 
 spent much of her married life in his Dublin house, but her 
 eldest child was born at Athlone Castle, the gloomy Norman 
 keep that King John had built to overawe the wild Irish of 
 Roscommon. 

 
 MARRIAGES OF CONVENIENCE 159 
 
 Dorothy, Lord Cork's sixth daughter, was sent from home 
 when but nine years old, to be educated in the family of her 
 future husband, Arthur, son of Sir Adam Loftus. She seems 
 to have become absorbed into the Loftus family, and knew no 
 home but their mansion of Rathfarnham.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 VANITY FAIR 
 1628 1629 
 
 'Therefore at this Fair are all such merchandise sold as Houses, Lands, 
 Honours, Preferment, Titles, Wives, and Husbands.' 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
 IN 1628 a large party started for England from the College 
 House at Youghal. Crossing the Channel was no small 
 adventure in these days, not only from danger of pirates 
 and Sallee Rovers, but also because the vessels in use could 
 not always hold their own against the south-westerly gales 
 that drove the Atlantic waves thundering upon the coast of 
 Ireland. An Earl of Desmond and an Earl of Barrymore 
 had both found watery graves in St. George's Channel ; no 
 wonder therefore that the Earl of Cork made his last will 
 before starting on the voyage. One copy of this important 
 document he carried with him, and one was left in the great 
 iron chest at Lismore, whose three keys were kept respectively 
 by Sir William Fenton, James Foster, and the estate agent, 
 Mr. Whalley. 
 
 The younger children of the family were left in Ireland, 
 the boys under the care of their tutor, and Mary with Lady 
 Clayton, who had fetched her in March from Lismore. 
 
 On the yth of May, the Boyle family bade farewell 
 to Ireland, and sailed in a ' Biskaner,' a ship from Biscay, 
 which the Earl hired { to waft them over.' The party con- 
 sisted of Lord and Lady Cork, Lettice, now a young lady 
 
 160
 
 VANITY FAIR 161 
 
 of eighteen, her younger sister Joan, Hodge Power, their 
 cousin from Lisfinnon Castle, and Arthur Loftus, Dorothy 
 Boyle's betrothed husband, who was on his way to join 
 young Dungarvan at Christ Church, where Lord Cork lent 
 him 9, 155. to buy a piece of plate to present to the college 
 on his matriculation, which money he afterward forgave Arthur 
 as a New Year's gift. 
 
 They sailed about five in the afternoon, and when morning 
 dawned they were espied by a Dunkirk privateer with two 
 tiers of guns, who chased them all day, and near Milford 
 Haven ran them so close as to overtake the barque that 
 attended them to carry the footmen and horses. 'And,' says 
 the Earl, ' having in our sight and hearing shot twenty pieces 
 of ordenance at it, took it, and carried it to sea.' 
 
 We may imagine the relief of the party when they arrived 
 in safety at Minehead, and landed about eight in the evening. 
 Of the fate of the three footmen carried off by the privateer 
 we hear no more. A newsletter of the date l tells us that the 
 privateer was * so courteous as to restore my Lord of Cork's 
 horses and land them in Wales,' but the Earl enters nothing 
 in his diary save the sums disbursed to pay for the passage, 
 and the presents given to captain and crew. 
 
 The journey to London was taken with more deliberation 
 than on the famous occasion when Boyle carried the news of 
 the victory of Kinsale. The first day they rode as far as 
 Taunton and rested there for Sunday, and then spent suc- 
 ceeding nights at Sherborne, Amesbury, Basing, and Staines, 
 reaching London on the i6th of May. They established 
 themselves in a house in Channel Row, Westminster, rented 
 from Lord Grandison for ^100 a year. 
 
 Lord Cork had not merely come pleasuring to England, 
 
 1 Court and Times, Charles /., p. 377. 
 L
 
 1 62 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 for serious dangers were threatening him, and the very day 
 after their arrival he hurried to pay his respects to the Duke 
 of Buckingham, in whose all-powerful hands lay his future 
 prosperity or beggary. The great favourite received him 
 cordially and kept him to dinner, and then took him to the 
 King, * whose gracious hands I had the honour to kiss, accom- 
 panied with gracious language full of comfort.' Contemporary 
 gossip hints that a present of several thousand pounds to 
 Buckingham had procured this gracious reception, but Lord 
 Cork only writes down his gifts to the trumpeter, and to his 
 old friend Archie Armstrong the court jester, who was still 
 a great man at court. In after years he overstrained his credit 
 by a mock grace before dinner, 'All praise to God and little 
 laud to the devil,' whereon Archbishop Laud had him turned 
 out of his place. But at this time Laud was but Bishop of 
 London, and the Archbishop of Canterbury was still the learned 
 George Abbott, whose Puritan leanings were marked enough 
 to satisfy even such a severe critic as Archie, and who was a 
 good friend to the Earl of Cork. Presents of Irish manu- 
 factures often found their way from Youghal to Lambeth, 
 a runlet of usquebaugh, or a piece of fine Irish frieze to make 
 my Lord of Canterbury a cassock ; and once ' a large, fair 
 olive-coloured Bezoir stone,' the favourite specific against 
 poison, was bought by the Earl from his goldsmith cousin, 
 Barsie, for 10, and sent to the Archbishop in a needlework 
 purse as a New Year's gift. 
 
 Few things strike one as odder in seventeenth-century 
 manners than the way in which presents were passed from 
 hand to hand by people who could very well afford to keep 
 their friends' tokens of affection and buy new offerings to 
 give away, quite in the fashion in which Homeric kings 
 presented their guests with goblets and arms which they them-
 
 VANITY FAIR 163 
 
 selves had received from some far-famed hero. It has been 
 noticed by a modern historian how ' the rarity of coined 
 moneys in Jacobean times brought about something the same 
 condition as its entire absence among the early Greeks, where 
 the modern distinction between the market value and the 
 sentimental value of a present was unknown.' When wealth 
 consisted largely of plate and ornaments which were taken in 
 payment and used for barter or hoarded against times of need, 
 ' even the gifts of friendship were not considered in a different 
 light from a money present.' l 
 
 A particularly splendid present was sent to the Earl of 
 Cork by Lady Offaley, Sara Digby's mother-in-law, ' a fair 
 belt and girdle, all laced over with silver lace, with massive 
 Spanish buckles and furniture of goldsmith's work, worth 
 twenty marks,' which, much as the Earl admired it, was 
 promptly forwarded as a gift to Lord Castlehaven ! Even 
 a mare ' my noble friend Donatus Earl of Thomond be- 
 queathed to me by his will ' was only kept for a while and 
 passed on about this time to Dean Daborne of Lismore. 
 
 But presents were dear to Lord Cork's splendour-loving 
 soul, even if he was too thrifty to keep them for his own 
 delight. He describes with loving detail the ' curious case of 
 twelve knives with agate handles, the case of green velvet 
 laced with silver,' which the customs officers of Cork gave to 
 him, and which he bestowed on Lord Conway this Christmas 
 of 1628. 
 
 Christmas in London was such an exacting season that the 
 Earl's stock in hand of valuables became soon exhausted, and he 
 had to buy new presents to the amount of 216, which, if we 
 take Mr. Sidney Lee's calculation of the then value of money, 
 would be equal to the incredible sum of 1728 nowadays. 
 
 1 Mahaffey, Survey Greek Civilization, p. 52.
 
 164 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 But these presents were not mere tokens of affection ; the 
 Earl was making himself friends with the mammon of un- 
 righteousness where friends were seriously needed, and the 
 judges, Hyde and Richardson, were given silver standishes. 
 The question of accepting presents was a delicate one, as 
 Bacon had found to his cost, and it is possible that they were 
 now looked on as something of a retaining fee, for Sir John 
 Denham declined the standish offered to him as to the other 
 judges, and the King's secretary, Sir John Cook, refused a 
 present of gold. Cottington and most of the other great 
 men about court were sent gilt-covered cups ; the Earl of 
 Suffolk had already received a present of usquebaugh, and the 
 stately Earl of Arundel's library was enriched by ' a rare little 
 book of the rare monuments of the world, done by art per- 
 spective in virgin parchment with the pen, which his Lordship 
 accepted thankfully.' 
 
 But before this costly Christmas arrived the ladies had 
 been presented at court. This ceremony did not take place 
 till they had been a month or more in England. It is 
 possible that Mr. Perkins, the tailor, and the making of 
 court dresses had something to do with the delay, for about 
 this time ^136 was paid to him for gold and silver lace for 
 the ladies' wearing. Sir John Leeke had, as usual, to help in 
 the shopping, and used his interest with ' the Lady Verney's 
 man ' to get eight yards of rich gold-cloth for twelve pounds. 
 When all the smart gowns were ready, Sir Thomas Stafford 
 and c the great ladies in court ' presented Lady Cork and her 
 daughters to Henrietta Maria, ' who kissed them and used 
 them all most graciously.' 
 
 As the summer advanced the house in Westminster became 
 too confined for a family used to the green fields of Munster, 
 and the Earl of Bedford ' most nobly,' as Lord Cork writes,
 
 VANITY FAIR 165 
 
 lent his house at Northall to the family, and they removed to 
 it on the fifth of August, and afterwards spent a lively autumn 
 in a round of country visits. 
 
 At Lord Digby's house at Coleshill they found little 
 Katherine, whose match with Lord Beaumont's son was now 
 finally broken off, and who was awaiting her parents under her 
 sister Sara Digby's care. After staying at various friendly 
 mansions the whole family arrived in Oxford, where Lady 
 Digby's second daughter was born, and the Ladies Boyle were 
 entertained by three undergraduates, Dungarvan, Arthur 
 Loftus, and their friend the wild young Earl of Kildare, 
 not to mention a more dignified personage, Lady Cork's 
 uncle Dr. Weston, a canon of Christ Church. On leaving, 
 Lord Cork presented a manuscript Bible to Christ Church 
 library, and paid three and sixpence for having it bound. 
 
 When the Oxford visit was ended the Earl of Cork and 
 his party rode back to London by Maidenhead, and stopped 
 at Eton, where like any modern visitor he dined and 
 tipped five schoolboys. ' I took Lady Villiers' three sons 
 and Mr. Glanville's two sons to dinner with me at Windsor, 
 where I gave the children thirty shillings. And that night, 
 Oct. 7, God ever be thanked, I and mine returned safe to 
 London.' 
 
 Two of these Eton boys were the sons of Mr. John 
 Glanville, the great lawyer, of whose skill Lord Cork just 
 now was in sore need. He had for long had two troublesome 
 lawsuits on his hands, one with poor Lady Ralegh con- 
 cerning her rights of dower from Youghal, the other with 
 Blacknoll, the knavish manager of his ironworks in the 
 Blackwater Valley ; but what was more serious than either 
 suit, this knavish Blacknoll had lately been communicating 
 with Mr. Hadsor, the King's lawyer, concerning the titles to
 
 1 66 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 a large portion of the estates bought from Ralegh, and the 
 claims that the Crown might lay to them. There had even 
 been rumours that the great Earl of Cork would be summoned 
 to England as a criminal to answer for his wrongful possession 
 of Crown lands ! 
 
 The State papers of the time are crammed with letters and 
 reports on the subject, for the chance of recovering property 
 worth at least ^50,000 was too tempting for the King to 
 relinquish easily. At first the Crown lawyers expressed a 
 doubt whether the original grant to Ralegh was valid, as 
 possibly the estates had never been really forfeited by 
 Desmond at all, ' rebellion being no attainder without con- 
 viction ' ! But Lord Cork's lawyers proved that although 
 there had been a delay in convicting Desmond of treason, a 
 bill of attainder against him had been finally passed by the 
 Irish Parliament, and that point was settled in his favour. 
 But yet Sir William St. Leger, who himself had owned some 
 of the same forfeited lands, wrote cynically in 1627 that Lord 
 Cork's best chance of security would be to give the Duke of 
 Buckingham four thousand pounds, and another thousand to 
 the King's servant, Endymion Porter. Whether the Earl of 
 Cork adopted this plan or not, he had old experience of the 
 wisdom of pleading his own cause, and he had come to 
 England without waiting to be sent for. His persuasive 
 tongue and his powerful friends might do much for him at 
 court, and in Ireland he left behind him a staunch ally, the 
 Lord Deputy Falkland. Cork had stood by Falkland when 
 he was thwarted in the Irish Council and maligned in England, 
 and now Falkland wrote of him, alluding sadly enough to the 
 Irish nobles who had slipped over to England to slander him 
 in the King's ear, * Lord Cork leaves on good terms with me 
 and does not steal away as others have done. He is a prime
 
 VANITY FAIR 167 
 
 peer of the realm, and if you take him for the fine pillar of 
 your province of Munster you shall not mistake him.' l 
 
 Lord Cork had consulted Mr. Glanville, the lawyer, at 
 Broad Hinton during his stay in Oxford, and also arranged 
 with the well-known Noye to act as his second counsel, and 
 offered him ten pieces as a retaining fee, ' whereof he took 
 but two and enforced the other back on me. I also gave his 
 clerk twenty-six shillings and presented him with a fair young 
 mastif dog.' The Attorney-General Heath was also paid two 
 hundred pounds as a fee ' with promise of further thankful- 
 ness.' Perhaps the great lawyers looked with the more favour 
 on the Earl of Cork as about this time he was admitted a 
 bencher of the Middle Temple. 2 
 
 Noye, Glanville, and Condrop drew up the draft of a 
 warrant for an entirely new grant of the estates to Lord Cork 
 to make them secure to him for ever, and in April 1629 judg- 
 ment on it was delivered by Lord Keeper Coventry, Baron 
 Denham, and Baron Trevor ; the Attorney-General, Solicitor- 
 General, and all the judges agreeing 'that nothing Mr. Hadsor 
 or the King's Council could urge ought to stay the sealing of 
 this patent,' and after yet a second examination it was signed 
 and passed under the Great Seal of England, ' for the com- 
 passing of which,' writes Lord Cork, ( I am much bound to 
 Lord Coventry, Lord Keeper of England.' That Coventry 
 was on Lord Cork's side is enough to show on which side 
 justice lay, and Cork must have felt his lands were at last 
 securely his own. 
 
 The fees paid in the case amounted to 386, ys. 4.6.. ; 
 but that included a payment for the King's release of Lord 
 Cork for some asserted infringement of custom-house rules in 
 his iron trade, no doubt divulged, or, as the Earl asserted, 
 
 1 Cal. S. P. Ire., April 1628. 2 March 5, 1629.
 
 1 68 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 invented, by Blacknoll, when he offered to secure the Earl's 
 ironworks for the Crown. 
 
 Lady Ralegh's lawsuit was not settled so quickly. The 
 dower she claimed from the Munster estates sold by her 
 husband to Boyle amounted to a third of the original 
 purchase-money, that is to say, five hundred pounds. This 
 was perhaps not a large sum for such a wealthy man to pay 
 over to the impoverished widow of his best friend, but when 
 demanded as a right, Boyle became exceedingly indignant, and 
 asserted the claim was both unjust and ungrateful. He upheld 
 that in buying lands with such a doubtful title and paying the 
 money to their attainted owner he had acted with quixotic 
 generosity, and far from owing dower to Lady Ralegh he 
 need not have paid Sir Walter himself the thousand pounds 
 due for the land at the time of his imprisonment. 
 
 Lady Ralegh carried her case to court after court, and one 
 friend after another tried their powers as mediators in vain. 
 
 Cork must have spent the five hundred she claimed over 
 and over again in law expenses, but he was an angry man, 
 and every year made him more determined to prove that he 
 was right and she was wrong. 
 
 Sir George Carew, now Earl of Totnes, was put into a 
 difficult position by this feud. On the one hand was his 
 kinswoman, Lady Ralegh, who turned to him as her only 
 champion ; on the other was his old friend, Richard Boyle, 
 who had purchased these lands by his advice. Carew did his 
 best to reconcile the two, but with little success. He apolo- 
 gised to Cork, as one man of the world to another, for the 
 vehemence of poor Lady Ralegh's assertions. ' Her style,' 
 he wrote, * is round and quick, which in women may be 
 excused ! ' He also warned Boyle that as Lady Ralegh was 
 very cheerful over her expectation, it would be wise to ' fall
 
 VANITY FAIR 169 
 
 to accord with her by some arbitrary course,' clearly some 
 course of arbitration, ' always provided that I may be spared 
 by you two from having any finger in the business.' So in 
 July 1624 Cork had consented 'to refer my Lady Ralegh's 
 demand of dower to four or six judges in England to be 
 mutually chosen.' But for some reason or other this course 
 was not taken, and to make the difficult case more difficult a 
 very accomplished rascal was found to be involved in it. This 
 man, John Meares, had been Ralegh's bailiff at Sherburne, 
 where he learned, said Ralegh, ' to write my hand so perfectly 
 as I cannot in any way discern the difference.' 'That 
 dampned rogue,' as Boyle called him, now endeavoured to 
 blackmail both Boyle and Lady Ralegh by showing them 
 by turns all sorts of important deeds which he threatened to 
 make public unless he were well paid. At last, during Cork's 
 stay in London in 1629, he and the Raleghs were driven to 
 join together against Meares, and had a formal meeting in 
 the Middle Temple about one of these forged deeds, when in 
 the presence of two lawyers chosen by each side ' Mr. Shel- 
 bury, solicitor for Lady Ralegh and her son, did in discourse, 
 three several times acknowledge that he could not remember 
 nor was witness to any such deed.' 
 
 Soon after this interview the claim was at last heard by 
 the Lord Keeper, but he declined to give judgment, and 
 referred it back to be heard by common law in Ireland ; and 
 we know no more ! Whether this last appeal was success- 
 ful, whether the claim was ever heard in the Irish courts at all, 
 and how it was decided, no one knows. There is no record 
 of the case being tried in Dublin, and no note of it in Boyle's 
 diary. Possibly the poor lady lost courage and gave way, and 
 then Boyle, after his usual fashion, would cool down and pay 
 her some small compensation. Some difficulties must, how-
 
 i yo LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 ever, have remained unsettled, for when Carew Ralegh was 
 restored in blood, and the ban of treason taken off his name, 
 Lord Cork thought well to take measures to have a proviso 
 for his own safety inserted in the Act of Parliament, which 
 proviso, he noted, cost him in fees to counsel and officers one 
 hundred pounds. 
 
 But even these great lawsuits were but items in Lord 
 Cork's busy days in London. Foreign iron-merchants were 
 to be bargained with, courtiers flattered or bribed, old friends 
 assisted, while every post from Munster brought commissions 
 and petitions to the ' all knowing Earl of Cork.' Now it was 
 Lord Killeen who wished Lady Buckingham to be paid seven 
 hundred pounds to buy her help in securing an earl's patent ; 
 now it was a letter of lamentations over the flood that had 
 swept away Mallow bridge, and now Mr. Hardress Waller's 
 acknowledgment of the rents the Earl allowed his Irish agent 
 to collect for his friends. 1 Then came news of Mr. Waller's 
 wedding with Sir John Dowdall's daughter, and a pair of rich 
 wedding gloves, and a nightcap wrought by the bride's fair 
 fingers in gold-coloured silk. And in all Lord Cork's expedi- 
 tions, whether of business or of pleasure, faithful Sir John 
 Leeke was his unwearied companion and confidant. 
 
 There were plenty of poor Irish stranded in the great city 
 of London who needed the help of their wealthy countryman. 
 A certain Maurice Fitzgerald, who was found begging with his 
 wife and children, was given ten shillings and a pass back to 
 Ireland ; and Mr. Thomas Stephens of Broghill had for two 
 
 1 Sir Hardress Waller, son of George Waller of Groombridge, Kent. Settled in 
 Ireland about 1630, and acquired the estates of Castletown, County Limerick, by his 
 marriage with Sir J. Dowdall's daughter. He voted for the death of King Charles, 
 and was a warm supporter of Cromwell. He escaped to France at the Restoration, 
 but returned and surrendered himself, and was imprisoned for life. Died about 1616 
 in Jersey.
 
 VANITY FAIR 171 
 
 months his diet in the Earl's house, by reason of his extreme 
 poverty, and when Sir Edmund Verney engaged him as a butler 
 Lord Cork gave him his own suit of camlet doublet, hose, and 
 cloak, and forty shillings in money. 
 
 In October Lord and Lady Cork and their daughters rode 
 to Deptford, to see the monument newly erected to the 
 memory of the Earl's eldest son, little Hodge, and of Lady 
 Cork's circumnavigating uncle, Captain Fenton. Lord Cork 
 seems to have got good value for his money, for the great 
 erection in Deptford church cost only ^38 ; but the alabaster 
 portrait tomb by the same sculptor, which the Earl erected to 
 his parents at Faversham, cost one hundred pounds. 1 
 
 Six months after Lord Cork had erected the memorial to 
 his eldest son was born his fifteenth and youngest child. 
 The baby was christened Margaret, and was as usual sent out 
 to nurse, and her family saw no more of her till two years 
 later her sister Lettice Goring was travelling to Ireland, and 
 brought little Margaret home with her. 
 
 The following July, 1629, the crowning honour of Lord 
 Cork's life came to him : the King commanded that the 
 Earl of Cork and the Lord Chancellor of Ireland should 
 be justices of that kingdom till a deputy was appointed. 
 There could be no question now that Lord Cork had done 
 well in coming over to England. His vast experience of 
 Irish politics had no doubt impressed serious statesmen 
 as much as his wealth and splendour had influenced the 
 courtiers. It is, however, a curious coincidence that the 
 King had shortly before secured a loan from the Munster 
 millionaire. Before leaving Ireland Cork had expended 
 500 on the necessities of the King's ships there, 
 
 1 This tomb bears full-length figures of Roger and Joan Boyle, with their sons the 
 Earl of Cork and Bishop of Cork kneeling at head and foot.
 
 172 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 and 500 for the endless task of making the forts of 
 Cork and Waterford defensible ; and instead of paying his debt, 
 the King had suggested in the April of 1629 that Lord Cork 
 should lend him ^14,000 more, taking in return the farm of 
 the Irish customs and a monopoly on tobacco farmed by a man 
 named Jacob. 
 
 The loyal and prudent old Earl knew it was unadvisable to 
 say nay to a monarch's request, and fortunately was able at 
 once to supply 2000 which he had at hand, lodged with the 
 banker Burlemachi, but ' the differences,' he writes, * between 
 his Majesty and his subjects since the tumultuary Parliament's 
 dissolution about tonnage and poundage hath so decryed and 
 discredited the officers of the customs, as Mr. Jacob and his 
 sons have not credit nor power to perform their promise and 
 intendment, and have left me to my shifts to take up, upon 
 use and interest, another 12,000, which God grant for the 
 preservation of my credit I may be able here to compass.' 
 
 It was but a small part of this sum after all which he was 
 obliged to borrow from Burlemachi ; the iron in his store- 
 houses supplied most of the money, and Cork's favour at 
 court could not but wax accordingly. 
 
 The Earl of Cork's future colleague as Lord Justice was 
 Adam Loftus, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Loftus was a 
 diligent, resourceful, and unscrupulous lawyer, 1 but clever 
 though he was, he was not always diplomatic enough to control 
 his temper, and his sharp words had aroused a feud of long 
 standing between him and Lord Cork. The quarrel was so 
 characteristic of both parties, and was indeed so much a matter 
 of public interest, that we may perhaps delay a moment to 
 give its history, for even the King, the Duke of Buckingham, 
 and the whole Council spent four hours in endeavouring to 
 
 1 See Introd. S. P. Ire., 1630. 

 
 VANITY FAIR 173 
 
 compose it, and in investigating the charges which both Cork 
 and the retiring Lord Deputy Falkland brought against the 
 Chancellor. These charges, a contemporary newsletter says, 
 Lord Loftus met c with such modesty and wisdom as was 
 admired by all that heard him,' showing that Lord Loftus 
 could occasionally put on court manners. The King finally 
 referred the case to the Duke of Buckingham, who, although 
 he at first seemed inclined to side with Lord Cork, yet 
 c allowed the Chancellor to come fairly off.' l 
 
 The feud, like most of those in which Lord Cork was 
 concerned, appears to have begun over a loan which Lord 
 Loftus had repaid in an unbusinesslike and uncourteous 
 manner. Then Lord Cork took his revenge. The Chancellor 
 had borrowed money on Cre Eustace (now Ballymore Eustace) 
 from a certain Sir Nicholas White ; Cork got this mortgage 
 from Sir Nicholas, and when to his delight the Chancellor 
 failed to pay up, he hastened to foreclose and the land 
 became his ! 
 
 Lord Loftus was so chagrined that he did not attempt to 
 conceal his feelings, even when sitting in court, and unfor- 
 tunately was soon after called on to adjudicate in a land case 
 in which his enemy was concerned. This case, between the 
 Earl of Cork and Sir William Power, over the boundaries or 
 ' mearings ' of their lands, occupies half the State papers of the 
 time, and half the great men of the country were dragged 
 into the quarrel. Finally the case was carried before Lord 
 Chancellor Loftus, who, being just then in a very ill-humour 
 with Lord Cork, openly sided with Power. 
 
 The Earl describes with indignation that when he gave 
 reasons for some point not being entered into, ' the Lord 
 Chancellor said, " I would examine the witness to conform my 
 
 1 Court and Times of Charles /., p. 377.
 
 174 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 conscience, but the PERVERSENESS of this Earl of Cork 
 will not give way thereto." Whereunto I answering that 
 my carriage deserved not such disgraceful language, neither 
 would I endure it, His Lordship replied, " Do you grumble?" 
 And in open court when I attended justice at his hands he 
 gave me other affronts and storms of which I have complained 
 to the King's Majesty and Lord Deputy.' In spite of the 
 Chancellor's favour Power lost his cause and was ordered to 
 publicly apologise on his knees for his slanders. For ten 
 long years he struggled against this degradation, till at last 
 Lord Cork, having many sorrows of his own, softened towards 
 his old adversary and consented to end the debate by receiving 
 Power's submission privately in his bedchamber, with only 
 Lord Esmond and Sir Piers Crosby as witnesses. Then the 
 boundary question was discussed in a reasonable spirit, certain 
 outlying portions on either side were exchanged, and the 
 great suit was at an end. 
 
 But the quarrel with Loftus did not close so easily, but 
 lasted to the end of Lord Cork's long life. Lord Cork's 
 industry in chronicling every event of his life made it par- 
 ticularly difficult for him to forget, or forgive, and it was 
 indeed a strange irony of fate that dashed his day of 
 greatness, by compelling him to share the dignity of Lord 
 Justice with the one man in Ireland who had publicly insulted 
 him. There is no comment on the subject in the diary. Cork 
 was much too correct ever to speak or write of his Majesty's 
 doings but in the most conventional terms of respect. 
 
 He does not appear to have kissed hands on his new 
 appointment for some time, the journal only mentioning the 
 usual round of junketings. In August ' I and my wife and 
 the children went from Newington Green to Kingston upon 
 Thames, where we were bravely feasted at dinner by my
 
 VANITY FAIR 175 
 
 cousin Croon of the King's Head in Fleet Street, and after 
 dinner we rode to my Lord Goring at Nonsuch.' 
 
 The evening after these visits to the vintner and to Lord 
 Goring, whose handsome eldest son had just become the 
 husband of Lettice Boyle, the Earl was at last admitted to an 
 audience with the King at Oatlands, where he had 'a large 
 and most gracious conference with his Majesty,' and no doubt 
 received the royal instructions on the conduct of Irish affairs. 
 
 There was now nothing further to keep the family in 
 England ; Lettice was married, a future match for Joan with 
 the Earl of Kildare was arranged, and the duties of the Lord 
 Justice now called him back to Ireland. 
 
 The journey home was broken at Oxford that the Earl 
 might ride over to Woodstock to receive despatches from Lord 
 Dorchester, and take leave of his court acquaintances. 
 
 The triumphant Lord Justice scattered money in all 
 directions. Dorchester's secretaries were given five pounds 
 each ; the children of Dr. lies, Principal of Hart Hall, and of 
 Dr. Piers, Canon of Christ Church, were given twenty shillings; 
 Dr. Weston's servant five pounds ; and ( the nurse of my 
 daughter Sara's child twenty shillings.' Dungarvan received 
 his share of the good things going, and was the richer by ten 
 pounds. The only cloud was the settlement of household 
 bills, for the Earl wrote, ' came to an unhappy account with 
 the sly W. Britton my steward. God forgive him all the 
 wrongs he did me in his accounts.' 
 
 Paying visits as they went, the family travelled by Coventry 
 and Stone to Conway, and so to the favourite place of embar- 
 cation Beaumaris, where Lord Cork hired a vessel to carry 
 them to Ireland. But as he was preparing to embark, a King's 
 ship came in sight, and proved to be the Ninth Whelp, one of 
 ten pinnaces named the Lion's Whelps, lately built at the royal
 
 176 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 dockyard at Deptford, 1 and now sent to convey the Lord 
 Justice to Ireland with due state. 
 
 Even a King's ship could not ensure a fair wind. When 
 Lord Cork had compensated the owner of the less glorious 
 vessel, and was ready to go aboard the Ninth Whety, the 
 weather became so threatening that the Whelp had to take 
 refuge in the Dawpool in Chester Water. On the last day of 
 September the party ventured to embark, but found the wind 
 still stiff against them, and had to go ashore again till the next 
 day ; then at last on the ist of October 'God sent us a fair 
 wind and we had a safe and happy passage, and arrived at 
 Ringsend near Dublin, on Friday the 2nd about ten of the 
 forenoon in safety. God be ever praised for all his blessings 
 and mercies.' 
 
 Ten pounds were distributed among the crew, and Captain 
 Rice was presented with ' a pair of rich gloves, fringed and 
 embroidered with gold, which I had of the Earl of Antrim, 
 and I gave my wife to give him a wrought night-cap of black 
 silk and gold.' 
 
 1 Court and Times of Charles L, July 1628.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE 
 1629 
 
 ' Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, 
 While proudly riding o'er the azure realm 
 In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes . . . 
 Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway 
 That hushed in grim repose expects his evening prey.' 
 
 GRAY. 
 
 THE Earl of Cork had now reached the summit of his great- 
 ness. From obscurity he had raised himself to be ruler of a 
 kingdom, and it was no wonder that, looking back on his career, 
 he declared unassisted human power could never have accom- 
 plished such a task. He stood at the top of fortune's wheel ; 
 but even as he reached its summit, the wheel turned on, and 
 with a contrast as vivid as that of a Greek tragedy, carried 
 him down into the pit of humiliation, of bereavement, and 
 wellnigh total ruin. 
 
 But for the time the sun shone, and everything combined 
 to gild the triumph of the successful man, save for the one 
 unfortunate fact that he had to share this triumph with Lord 
 Chancellor Loftus. 
 
 The departing Lord Deputy Falkland liked Loftus quite 
 as little as did Lord Cork. It is very probable that Loftus, 
 who was an abler man than either of them, had not taken the 
 trouble to hide his opinion of the Deputy. In order, however, 
 
 M
 
 1 78 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 that there might be a decent leave-taking, the King com- 
 missioned Lord Wilmot, the Commander of the Irish army, 
 to endeavour to reconcile the Chancellor with the departing 
 Deputy, as well as with his fellow Lord Justice. 
 
 Wilmot accordingly did his best to induce Lord Cork to 
 make the first move towards a reconciliation, but no sunshine 
 of prosperity could make the great Earl a malleable man, and 
 he flatly refused to visit Lord Loftus, who turned the corner 
 of the difficulty very neatly by sending his son-in-law, Sir 
 Robert Meredith, to congratulate the Earl on his safe arrival 
 in Ireland, a civility which Cork returned with equal formality 
 by sending his gentleman, Badnedge, to present his thanks 
 and service to the Chancellor. 
 
 The two great men, however, met on neutral ground at 
 the house of the departing Lord Deputy, where civil salutations 
 passed between them, and on the 4th of the month Lord 
 Wilmot brought news to the Earl that the Lord Chancellor 
 was willing to meet him after afternoon sermon in the Council 
 Chamber. c Thither,' Lord Cork writes, ' we came from 
 church, and all the company being outed, the Lord Wilmot 
 delivered me the King's letter to me directed, saying he had 
 delivered his Majesty's letter to the like effect to the Lord 
 Chancellor before, which his Lordship acknowledged. And 
 then using some persuasion to that reconciliation which the 
 King had commanded and whereunto I was prepared, we 
 both, in the Lord Wilmot's presence, duly made our reconcilia- 
 tion, with many protestations to forgive and forget all former 
 wrongs and unkindnesses, and to be thenceforward faithful, 
 loving friends, and to join really in the King's service ; which 
 I beseech God his Lordship observe as religiously as I resolve 
 to do, if new provocations enforce me not to alter my 
 resolutions.'
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE 179 
 
 Such a reconciliation was hardly likely to be a lasting one, 
 and the war broke out again, almost before Lord Falkland 
 was on shipboard ; for the Chancellor lost no time in taking 
 sole possession of the insignia of authority, and carried off the 
 official sword and mace home with him to St. Mary's Abbey, 
 without any word of apology or explanation to his fellow 
 Lord Justice. From this time forward the Council Chamber 
 was a stage for lively scenes ; over one case the Lords 
 Justices disagreed so violently that Lord Lpftus offered to lay 
 a wager that the Earl of Cork was wrong ; but when the 
 witnesses were summoned they proved Lord Cork to be right, 
 on which ' the Chancellor presently rose and went out of the 
 court,' evidently in a huff. Then the Lord Chancellor sent 
 official letters to England without consulting Lord Cork, and 
 both gentlemen appear to have spent their time in looking for 
 slights, and finding them, to the inconvenience as well as the 
 scandal of the public. The experiment in government was 
 evidently watched with some anxiety by the English friends of 
 the Lords Justices : Sir Dudley Carleton, who was now Lord 
 Dorchester, wrote in August 1630 to compliment Lord Cork 
 rather meaningly on having sunk his private differences with 
 the Chancellor, so that both ' might concur in carrying on the 
 public service,' and added enough of wise saws and moral 
 maxims to show plainly how important it was felt to be that 
 the armistice between the Irish rulers should not be broken. 
 
 It would seem that in some ways Lord Cork really did 
 endeavour to let his private quarrels rest while he acted in a 
 public capacity, for he even knighted his favourite enemy 
 Vincent Cooking ' freely, for ought known to me since I 
 came into the government,' which so softened Sir Vincent 
 that he offered very handsomely to end their long quarrel 
 over the lands which were in dispute between them, either
 
 i8o LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 by buying up Lord Cork's title to the estates, or by selling 
 them to him for the same price which he himself had paid to 
 the Beechers. 
 
 But the Anglo-Irish gentry were a quarrelsome genera- 
 tion ; no sooner had Lord Cork made peace with Cooking 
 and proclaimed a truce with the Lord Chancellor, than he had 
 to write to the Committee for Ireland * touching Lord Mount- 
 norris his speeches in Castle chamber.' Sir Francis Annesley, 
 now raised to be Lord Mountnorris, had all his life resembled 
 the proverbial Irishman, who 'was never at peace unless he 
 was fighting.' He had very chivalrously fought with the 
 authorities on behalf of Lord Barry's mother, and afterwards 
 with Lord Deputy Falkland on behalf of the O'Byrnes of 
 Wicklow, till the Deputy had to turn and fly ; but people 
 whispered that Mountnorris had fought less from love of the 
 O'Byrnes, or of justice, than from desire to oppose Lord 
 Falkland. But now he not only opposed the Justices over 
 every question that came up, but also persisted in doing his 
 accounts in a casual fashion that drove all the other officials 
 frantic, and although not absolutely proved to be dishonest, 
 he took no pains to prevent suspicions gathering round him. 
 Charges of defrauding the revenue and exacting undue per- 
 centages were repeated against him again and again, and Cork 
 appealed in vain to Sir William Beecher, the clerk of the 
 English Council, for help to bring the scandal to an end. At 
 last Mountnorris even went so far to vow that the Justices 
 might command him to pay what money they would, but he 
 would pay none but when and to whom he pleased, and grave 
 Lord Cork had to warn him that ' that was no fitting answer.' 
 
 Cork, who was himself an experienced financier, desired to 
 bring some order into the confusion of the Irish question, and 
 showed Mountnorris that by his own system of collecting the
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE 181 
 
 King's rent and arrears, every person might be paid their dues, 
 and the King not left a penny in debt. But Mountnorris had 
 no intention of going to school to ' the all knowing Earl of 
 Cork,' and Lord Dorchester warned Cork that at court there 
 was a friendly ear ready to hear any explanation Mountnorris 
 chose to send to England. Very possibly this ear was that of 
 the future Deputy Wentworth, who was Mountnorris's con- 
 nection by marriage ; but Cork also had his faithful allies. 
 Dorchester was constant in his reports of the varying gales at 
 court, and in his turn made use of Cork, admitting that the 
 greater part of his knowledge of Ireland came from the Lord 
 Justice's letters. 
 
 These letters, preserved for us among the State papers for 
 Ireland, are indeed most interesting documents. The Earl of 
 Cork's ideal of government was possibly not very exalted, but 
 it was entirely practical. His arrangements were as neat and 
 businesslike as those of any merchant or lawyer's clerk, the 
 means were fitted to the ends, and if he did not rise to the 
 statesmanlike views of Strafford, his standard being that of an 
 average man was more satisfactory to average men. He 
 objected to the disorderly extremes of Presbyterianism and 
 Romanism, he wished parishioners to go quietly to the 
 Established Church, beggars to be set to work, old people 
 sent to almshouses, children sent to school, and all the world 
 conform to the middle-class respectability of his beloved 
 * Protestant Bandon.' His account of the state of Ireland 
 awakens an irrepressible wish that the government of the 
 Lords Justices might have had a fair trial. Whether their 
 system was the best possible or not, nothing could be so 
 fatal to prosperity as the curious destiny which has every 
 few years doomed its rulers to experiment with a new scheme 
 of treatment for the 'distressful country.'
 
 1 82 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Writing to Dorchester in 1630, Cork says, 'I have 
 known Ireland for forty-two years, and never known it so 
 quiet.' The most rebellious spirits among the Irish, he 
 explains, had grown old, and the gentry having got titles for 
 their lands direct from the Crown, were no longer at the 
 bidding of ' the great and degenerate lords,' that is, the nobles 
 of Norman or English descent who had adopted the religion 
 and habits of the native Irish. The power of these gentlemen 
 for mischief was now greatly diminished, and the ordinary 
 people were ' each striving to excel other in fair buildings and 
 good furniture and in husbandry, enclosing and improving 
 their lands.' The only real danger to be feared was, as in 
 Carew's time, ' the population of hardy young men, strong 
 and with no occupation.' They were a constant source of 
 unrest, and Cork wished to turn the minds of the meaner 
 ones to trade, and to encourage those who were well-born to 
 seek foreign employment. It is curious that he should not 
 have feared that these exiles would learn under foreign 
 generals to be more efficient enemies to the peace of the 
 country ; but he held that a prosperous and contented island 
 could afford to ignore any temptation to discontent from the 
 Continent. Dorchester had lately warned the Justices that 
 the exiled heir of Tyrone was being well received at Madrid, 
 and that he heard news of arms being imported into Ireland. 
 But Cork answered that there was nothing to fear from a 
 Spanish invasion ; the Spaniards who landed in Munster in 
 Elizabeth's time, so far from stirring up insurrection, only 
 appeared at the end of it, and did more injury to their allies 
 than to the English. No doubt if Spain sent an army into 
 Ireland, some natives would join it, but rather for the sake of 
 plunder than to make Ireland the property of a foreign power ; 
 therefore he passed on to explain that the peace just concluded
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE 183 
 
 with Spain would have no influence on Irish affairs, and must 
 not be held a reason for diminishing the Irish army. After 
 a ' few more years of peace the King may be able to command 
 a levy of English and Irish of reformed manners and religion ' ; 
 but at the present time a standing army was a necessity, for 
 ' all men know, and none better than the Irish, how difficult 
 it is to get ' the ordinary Englishman ' settled in farms and 
 other employments, with wife, children and property, to come 
 out and fight.' The unwarlike farmers were no efficient 
 militia, but would rather desert everything, and leave the 
 field open to the ' combustions between the stirps of old English 
 and the Irish,' in which the King would at last be compelled 
 to become a ' stickler ' or umpire by means of the English 
 army. 
 
 The standing army in Ireland, on which Lord Cork set 
 such value, was in a deplorable state when he took up the 
 government. It had from motives of economy been partially 
 disbanded in Falkland's time, when Sir Richard Aldworth 
 wrote in despair to the Deputy, ' I would rather walk horses 
 than do as I do. I cannot do everything with nothing.' 
 The half-starved soldiers either mutinied or supported them- 
 selves by plundering the peasantry, who were not disposed to 
 submit tamely to such exactions. The officers followed the 
 example of most of the government officials, and got their pay 
 as best they could ; each man filled his pocket when he had the 
 chance, and the scramble and scandal increased yearly. 
 
 Cork's endeavours to put things straight were desperately 
 hampered by Mountnorris's irregularity of payments. ' I do 
 not accuse the Vice-treasurer of corruption,' he wrote in 
 August 1631, 'but I think he is an unprofitable servant.' 
 Yet in spite of all Cork managed to scrape enough money 
 together to be able to write proudly to Dorchester that the
 
 1 84 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 liabilities of the year were all met and the King no more in 
 debt than when the Justices took up their office. 
 
 Useful though he was, Dorchester was only one of Cork's 
 many allies in England. Another even more important friend 
 was a connection of old Lady Fenton's, Lord Treasurer 
 Portland, who held that blood was thicker than water, and in 
 storm and sunshine stood by Cork manfully. He wrote over 
 to the Earl in 1632 in great agitation concerning the import 
 of Irish wheat. It seems strange to us to hear of Ireland 
 exporting corn to England, but the supply was so important 
 that the King and Council were seriously displeased that none 
 had arrived in England, while they heard it was being exported 
 to France, ' which shows extreme negligence in such as should 
 take care for the prevention of it.' The King, said Portland, 
 had seemed favourable to the idea of appointing Lord Cork 
 to be Lord Treasurer of Ireland, but now could really attend 
 to nothing but the dearth of corn, and two ships were being 
 sent over to Ireland which positively must be filled with 
 wheat. 
 
 The King had indeed some reason to be anxious, for the 
 scarcity of food was so great in England that there were riots 
 about the royal residence of Theobalds. But the demands 
 of the English government must have been very unwelcome 
 to Lord Cork, who grudged any export of food from the 
 country he was nursing into prosperity. He had written in 
 November 1631, ' We must safeguard against licences to 
 export corn, otherwise we shall be back in our old penury ' : l 
 but as soon as Ireland ceased to be absolutely famine-stricken, 
 England insisted on taking toll of her prosperity. Needs 
 must when a king demands. It is clear that Lord Cork 
 satisfied his Majesty and the grain was sent, for that same 
 
 1 CaL S. P. Ire., 1631.
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE 185 
 
 November arrived the much-desired tidings that the Earl of 
 Cork was appointed Lord Treasurer of Ireland. The office 
 was an appropriate one, for Cork's worst enemies could not 
 deny that he was an excellent man of business ; but the Lord 
 Chancellor was evidently not particularly well pleased at this 
 honour done to his rival, and when Cork took the oaths, the 
 Chancellor neither appeared in the council-chamber nor did he 
 afterwards ' make any public speech unto me, yet I feasted 
 him, the Lords, and the Council freely.' 
 
 The Earl does not mention where this feast was spread. 
 The previous year when news came of the birth of an heir to 
 the throne, the feast was held in the great hall of Dublin 
 Castle, ladies were present, and four knights were made, and, 
 most remarkable of all, Lord Mountnorris was very civil to 
 the assembled company. Perhaps the Primate's sermon at 
 Christ Church with which the day began had a sweetening 
 effect on his temper. 
 
 Dublin Castle was available for celebrations of the birth of 
 the future Merry Monarch, but it was useless for any purpose 
 of defence, and was indeed partly in ruins. One tower had 
 fallen completely down in Lord Falkland's time and frightened 
 his family out of their wits ; and in March 1631 Lord Cork 
 recorded that he had rebuilt that part, < which cost out of my 
 purse 144, 38. 9d. The God of Heaven bless me and enable 
 me by His grace to do many more such like and other good 
 work.' He says in another place that he ' had re-edified it with 
 battlements and platformed it with lead, and six-inch plank 
 upon the lead, so as cannon was mounted thereon'; for which 
 he paid out of his purse ^1200, which, 'if it had been done 
 at the King's charge, 2000 would not effect it.' l 
 
 Cork was ready enough to restore, but he could not 
 
 1 Cork's Council Book of Letters, quoted Smith, ii. 62.
 
 1 86 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 rebuild the castle completely. It was really crumbling to 
 ruins, and the lack of funds to place it in readiness for the 
 arrival of a Lord Deputy was a constant source of lamenta- 
 tion from the Justices. 
 
 In spite of petty anxieties and irregularities of routine, 
 most people seem to have been agreed in 1630 that his 
 Majesty's three kingdoms were prosperous and contented. 
 Cork had boasted to Dorchester of the Irish prosperity, 
 and Dorchester replying while on a royal progress in August, 
 writes, ' The news of the world follows us in every corner, and 
 those I received at our last place of remove are of that 
 moment I think them worthy of your knowledge.' He then, 
 after giving an abstract of Continental affairs, ' as well out of 
 my private respect to yourself as out of the opinion that the 
 governours of that kingdom under his Majesty should not be 
 strangers to the rest of the world,' proceeded to contrast the 
 prosperity of England with the condition of the rest of Europe, 
 and tell how admirably his Majesty ordered all things, and how 
 Scotland had voted all necessary supplies c without capitula- 
 tions.' This was doubtless a hint to the rulers of Ireland, for 
 in the late Deputy's time the Dublin Parliament had shown 
 very plainly that they were not inclined to give money without 
 receiving some return. 
 
 The * capitulations ' or conditions which the Irish 
 Romanists had then wished to make with the Crown 
 appear to our modern eyes very moderate and reasonable ; 
 they offered to contribute three yearly subsidies of 40,000 
 each, on the understanding that certain obvious grievances 
 should be rectified, the exactions of the army and of the 
 Established Church restrained, and the action of the courts 
 of law and of wards regulated. We might almost be listening 
 to the demands of the English Long Parliament ; but the
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE 187 
 
 Irish had one danger that England did not dread, and 
 petitioned that no land title should be disturbed unless it 
 was of less than sixty years' existence. 1 
 
 The King had received these proposals graciously, and 
 directed Lord Falkland to summon a Parliament to enrol the 
 ' graces ' his Majesty consented to grant to his Romanist 
 subjects. This Parliament was to assemble in November 
 1628, but whether by carelessness or by intentional artifice, 
 the writs were issued in some informal manner, which gave 
 the judges ground for pronouncing them void, and the 
 Parliament never met after all. But it was obvious that when 
 a new Parliament was called, it would expect these graces, 
 or at least that part of them that related to titles, to be 
 ratified, for at present the ownership of land in many parts of 
 the country depended on the caprice of the Government, and 
 naturally such landowners were not very generous in voting 
 supplies. 
 
 Cork, who had some experience of the difficulties of 
 manipulating votes and packing Parliaments, was delighted 
 to find that he could manage the finances of the country for 
 three years without needing to call one, but he told Dorchester 
 that a Parliament would be required in three years' time to 
 provide fresh subsidies. The Romanist lords, he believed, 
 did not at present wish for a Parliament, they would be quite 
 satisfied if the exactions of the ecclesiastical courts were 
 restrained, with which desire he agreed. 
 
 Probably this was a hint to England that the whole of 
 the graces were not universally desired and need not be 
 granted ; for although Cork as a business man was clearly in 
 favour of the stability of land-titles and the regulation of 
 ecclesiastical demands, on one matter both justices were firm ; 
 
 1 Leland, Hist. Ireland, ii. 485.
 
 1 88 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 they devoutly hoped that the portion of the graces which re- 
 lated to complete religious toleration would never be enrolled. 
 They were encouraged in this attitude by the Archbishop 
 and ten of the bishops, who protested formally that in- 
 dulgences granted to idolatry would bring down a judgment 
 upon the land. 1 
 
 Considering Cork's conviction that all Romanists were 
 idolaters, it is a little surprising to find him supporting 
 the protest of the Irish lords against the exactions of 
 the Established Church. But he held the view of the 
 moderate Elizabethan that so long as the Romanist laity 
 paid reasonable recusancy fines they might be left for time 
 to work in them a ' reformation in religion and manners.' 
 ' Contemners of authority ' he was ready enough to punish, 
 the King's subjects must obey the King's laws, and priests 
 and friars, who, he was assured, were all emissaries from Spain, 
 were to be prosecuted as traitors. As a practical financier, 
 it was rather convenient to him that the Romanists should 
 be willing to pay for leave to stay away from church, for the 
 recusancy fines, he calculated, were sufficient to pay the cost 
 of keeping up the army ; but when he found the money pro- 
 duced by the fines was more than he had expected, he saw 
 that some extortion must have been practised, and took the 
 side of the Recusants. In spite of the fines, the Romanists 
 had for some time past enjoyed a considerable amount of 
 liberty. Orders from the Crown had bidden the Irish govern- 
 ment wink at their proceedings, and the priests had therefore 
 begun to celebrate Mass with public pomp, and to rebuild their 
 churches and monasteries, assuming that as their flocks already 
 paid two-thirds of the yearly subsidies, and the King's neces- 
 sities would not grow less, he would be obliged to continue to 
 
 1 M ant's Hist. Irish Church.
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE 189 
 
 conciliate them in order to gain their money. Indulgence was 
 taken by either party in Ireland to be a sign of weakness. 
 
 This independent attitude assumed by the Romanists was 
 more than the Justices could long stand. Cork wrote on the 
 22nd of December 1629, 'The Master of Abercorn, Sir 
 George, Sir Claude, and Sir William Hamilton drew the 
 priests and Jesuits to Strabane, and had a meeting there of 
 some of them with some Papists whom the laws had ejected 
 from Scotland. We shall shortly stop these overbold 
 attempts.' l 
 
 Modern controversial historians are fond of pointing to 
 the Justices' action as a model of stupid tyranny ; but we must 
 remember the laws were not invented by Boyle and Loftus, 
 they were mere instruments for enforcing a system which 
 existed and was approved in England as in Ireland, and which 
 was only modified when the Stuart monarchs hoped to gain 
 something from their Romanist subjects. 
 
 The Justices therefore began their term of government by 
 strictly enforcing the prosecution of Papists for non-attendance 
 at church. The English Council was rather alarmed by their 
 excessive zeal, and wrote suggesting that it might be dangerous 
 to irritate his Majesty's Romanist subjects too far ; but when 
 a Dublin mob raised a riot on the imprisonment of a favourite 
 friar and rescued him from the authorities, the Council saw it 
 must give way, and let the Justices work their will. They 
 set to at once, and directed the Archbishop and the Mayor 
 of Dublin to ' ransack the house of a certain friar.' The 
 following month (January 1630), they proceeded to search 
 certain houses of Jesuits in Bridge Street and Back Lane. In 
 all, they had their will of fifteen institutions, and reported with 
 satisfaction how great had been their success ' in suppressing 
 1 Cat. S. P. Ire.j 1619, p. 499.
 
 190 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 idolatrous houses.' The house taken from the Jesuits in 
 Back Lane was handed to the authorities of Trinity College, 
 who established a lecture there. The exertions of the Earl of 
 Cork in the cause of Protestantism were not merely negative ; 
 he himself maintained a lecturer in Kildare Hall, and his 
 friend Archbishop Ussher supported the intentions of the 
 Justices by holding public catechisings, which were attended by 
 all the Dublin gentry, and had much effect on the Romanists 
 of the upper classes. 
 
 Even this success did not satisfy the energy of the Justices. 
 In the spring of 1631 they directed the Mayor to turn his 
 attention to a nunnery on Hoggen Green. 1 The sixteen nuns 
 of this convent were ladies of good family, and were treated 
 with more consideration by the Council than Lord Cork 
 approved. Five of them were brought before the council 
 ' in their habit,' and permitted to return to their convent for 
 a month on giving security that they would ' never reassemble 
 conventually in the kingdom.' And though they came to the 
 castle on foot, they were sent back in a coach, ' whereby,' says 
 the Lord Justice, ' too much grace and countenance was given 
 to such delinquents and contemners of authority.' 
 
 But all Romanists were not so compliant as the poor ladies 
 of Hoggen Green. The Grand Jury assembled at Kilmainham 
 resolutely refused to present any recusants for fines, whereon 
 the foreman was fined 50, and all the rest a like sum, except 
 Mr. Ussher, who from his name was no doubt connected with 
 the Protestant Archbishop. The jurors were all sent to prison 
 till their fines should be paid, and this short method was so 
 effective that at the next session they found all the present- 
 ments desired. 
 
 1 The Hill or Hogue where of old the Danish conquerors of Dublin had held their 
 Parliament, now known as College Green. Stokes, Ireland and Celt. Church, p. 279.
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE 191 
 
 But before long the English Council became again alarmed 
 at the pace at which the Justices were going. The affair was 
 not so simple as they, in their Protestant zeal, imagined. 
 There were wheels within wheels. Lord Dorchester intimated 
 in a letter of March 1630, that as the action taken against the 
 regular Roman Catholic clergy touched Lord Annandale and 
 the Hamiltons, it must be handled cautiously, 1 and Mount- 
 norris produced at the council table a copy of a royal letter 
 to the same purport. Naturally, if the Romanists were too 
 severely dealt with, they were not likely to make voluntary 
 contributions for the expenses of government, and just now 
 they were even necessary in Charles's eyes as a counterpoise to 
 the leanings of the settlers in the north of Ireland, who were 
 many of them Scotsmen, and preferred the form of the 
 Presbyterian Church to that legally established. Some of the 
 Anglican bishops were inclined to look with leniency on these 
 schismatics, so by his Majesty's express command the Justices 
 sent the Lord Bishop of Kilfenora with several Presbyterian 
 gentlemen to join the Romanist recusants in prison. 2 The 
 Bishop seems to have been soon convinced of the error of his 
 ways, for Laud wrote to Strafford in 1637, 'I have received 
 very pitiful letters from the Bishop of Kilfenora ; pray your 
 lordship afford him all the assistance you can.' 3 
 
 Having set religious matters to right in Dublin, the 
 Justices went further afield. Lord Cork wrote 4 of the friars 
 that ' these locusts were also assembled in the city of Cork, 
 being very numerous ; and they had set up their several orders 
 and convents, wearing their particular habits.' He therefore 
 begged that the English Council would direct the Lord 
 President of Munster to imitate in Cork the example set 
 
 1 L. P., ii. 3. 155. 2 Ware's ^Bishops of Ireland. 
 
 3 Strafford Letters, \. 125. * MSS. Council Book, Smith, ii. 62.
 
 192 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 him by the Justices in Dublin, of which he enclosed a 
 report. 
 
 The Justices also turned their eyes on a far-famed place of 
 pilgrimage on Lough Deargh, St. Patrick's Purgatory. This 
 extraordinary sanctuary is said by local legend to have been 
 founded by St. Patrick, who, in a vision, was promised by 
 Christ Himself that whoever in penitence and faith should 
 abide there for a night and a day, should behold the pains 
 of hell and purgatory and the joys of heaven. The cave 
 was only seventeen feet long by about two wide, and not high 
 enough for a tall man to enter without stooping. Into this 
 den the unhappy penitents were packed, nine at a time, there 
 to spend twenty-four hours without food or sleep, for it was 
 currently reported that the devil had carried off two cavefuls 
 of pilgrims caught napping. 1 
 
 Folklorists might have been interested in tracing the con- 
 nection between this entrance to the unseen world and the 
 underground road by which legends tell that many Irish heroes 
 entered fairyland. But the Lords Justices were no folklorists, 
 and called the island in Lough Deargh, with its seven chapels 
 and holy cave, ' a monster of fame.' They gave orders in 
 September 1632 that it was to be 'pulled down and utterly 
 demolished, with St. Patrick's bed, and all the vaults, cells, and 
 other buildings, and all superstitious stones to be cast into the 
 lake, and no boat was to be taken there nor pilgrimage used 
 and frequented.' 
 
 The destruction of such a far-famed sanctuary could not 
 be carried out without protest. Even the young Queen 
 Henrietta Maria was induced to use her influence to preserve 
 it, and wrote some years later to urge Strafford to permit the 
 pilgrimage to be resumed. His answer was all devotion and 
 
 1 Mant's Irish Church, i. pp. 7, 85.
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE 193 
 
 submission, but we may suspect that he was not in his heart 
 very sorry that the Justices' work had been so thorough that 
 to undo it might bring ' prejudice and scandal to his Majesty's 
 government,' and he therefore entreated the queen to graciously 
 ' let this devotion rest ' till a more fitting opportunity for 
 restoring it might occur. 1 
 
 But St. Patrick's Purgatory had existed for centuries 
 before the Justices or StrafFord came to bear rule in Ireland, 
 and it has lasted longer than they. Their power and ambition 
 have vanished with the snows of yesteryear, yet still pilgrims 
 throng the shores of Lough Deargh and watch in the island 
 sanctuary for visions of another world. 
 
 The Justices did not confine their attention to reforming 
 the religion of the people under their charge, they also paid 
 some attention to their morals. Lord Cork related to Lord 
 Dorchester how ' I have set up two houses of correction in 
 dissolved friaries, in which the beggarly youth are taught 
 trade, and I have imprest one hundred pounds to buy wool, 
 flax, hemp, and other materials for the purpose. Idleness,' he 
 goes on, * is a very national disgrace of this island, yet the 
 clever and industrious few bear the charges of the idle, so that 
 we are not commonly infested with vagabonds and sturdy 
 beggars.' It would seem that the Socialism of the Celtic clan 
 system had certain advantages, but all the idle were not 
 content to live peaceably at the charges of the charitable, for 
 Lord Cork goes on to tell how County Meath and County 
 Dublin had lately been infested by an armed band of thirty 
 or forty ruffians, who when not satisfied with what they could 
 beg, took more by force. Lord Cork hanged eleven of them, 
 the rest of the band dispersed ; and so he solved the tramp 
 difficulty. 2 
 
 1 Stafford Letters, ii. 221. J Cat. S. P. Ireland, May 1631. 
 
 N
 
 194 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Lord Cork had some reason to consider himself an authority 
 on Charity Organisation. As we have already seen, he had set 
 up almshouses and founded apprenticing funds on his own 
 estates, and when he became Lord Justice he did his best to 
 extend the same system over the rest of the country, and 
 suggested to Sir William Beecher that as army pensions fell in 
 the money set free should be bestowed upon maimed soldiers, 
 and upon the King's almsmen, licensed beggars who, like 
 Scott's Edie Ochiltree in the Antiquary, might ask alms with- 
 out fear of the constable. 
 
 But although loans and almshouses might provide for 
 beggars and cripples, and sturdy vagrants might be hanged or 
 set to beat hemp, the restless, able-bodied Irishmen were still a 
 perplexity to their rulers. Dorchester agreed with Cork that 
 the sloth of the natives and their idle ways of living seemed 
 to be a great cause of their disorder ; and the government 
 decided once again to try the favourite panacea of a plantation, 
 bringing over English farmers to set a good example to the 
 lazy Irish, and removing the most troublesome natives to an 
 out-of-the-way corner of the kingdom.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE GREAT LORD DEPUTY 
 16301633 
 
 * Turn, fortune, turn thy wheel through storm and cloud, 
 Turn, fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud.' 
 
 TENNYSON, 
 
 THERE is something pathetic in the fervency with which each 
 succeeding government has clung to the belief that Englishmen 
 carried into Ireland would retain all their English virtues, 
 while Irishmen driven from their homes would leave all their 
 Celtic failings behind them. Some Celtic witchery they 
 certainly left behind them, as the newcomers usually became 
 more Irish than the Irish, but the dispossessed Celts remained 
 unchanged, 'only a little more so/ as they would put it 
 themselves. 
 
 The scheme propounded in 1630 was to move the most 
 unruly families of the east of Ireland into the depopulated 
 parts of Kerry, with the hope that they would there expend 
 their energies on reclaiming the wilderness, instead of waging 
 war on each other or on the English settlers who should be 
 imported to occupy their former homes. But depopulated 
 though the west of Ireland might be, its soil belonged to 
 some one, and unless a rebellion occurred to provide more 
 forfeitures, the only expedient for the Crown was to devise 
 some means of invalidating the titles by which the present 
 owners held their lands. 
 
 105
 
 196 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 When the south of Ireland was being surveyed for 
 Elizabeth's Munster settlement, the Earl of Ormond had 
 seized the opportunity to extend his estates, and being too 
 powerful to meddle with, no one had ventured to question by 
 what title he or his successors held their new possessions. 
 But in 1630 'Erin's high Ormond' was a young man, who 
 had but newly succeeded to his grandfather's estates after 
 a boyhood of poverty and obscurity, and as he was still 
 an unknown quantity, no great difficulty was anticipated in 
 dealing with him. 
 
 Lord Treasurer Weston therefore applied to the Earl of 
 Cork in October 1630, to aid in finding the King's title, so as 
 to allow of a plantation being made in Ormond, a wild tract 
 of country, sparsely peopled by restless natives, among whom 
 some few English were already established on feudal tenures. 
 Cork inquired of various persons how the case stood, but no 
 one could or would say anything decided on the matter. The 
 Master of Wards said that in strictness of law the tenants really 
 held by tenures in capite and greatly feared their services 
 being enforced, and he agreed with Lord Cork that a planta- 
 tion would be less ruinous to them than being called on to 
 render their dues to both the King and to the Earl of Ormond ; 
 but the grants and charters were in the hands of the Earl of 
 Ormond, and could be forced from him in no legal way. If, 
 Lord Cork explained, they could be got from him by fair 
 means, there would be no further difficulty in entitling his 
 Majesty to make a plantation, but, he added emphatically, they 
 must be careful not to ' clash upon that great and princely 
 grace granted by his Majesty, that no title of above sixty 
 years should be inquired into.' 
 
 Ormond heard of this inquiry and spoke to the Lords 
 Justices in a very dignified and spirited manner, reminding
 
 THE GREAT LORD DEPUTY 197 
 
 them that he was not only an Irish chieftain, but also an 
 English peer who could carry his complaints to England ; that 
 he and his ancestors had ever been loyal, deserving the rewards 
 due to loyalty ; that he held his lands as well by ancient grants 
 from the Conqueror as by late grants from the Crown ; and 
 finally, that he refused to say anything on the subject of his 
 title till he was assured they had sufficient powers and instruc- 
 tions, when he should put the matter into the hands of his 
 lawyers. Cork disliked the whole business, and suggested to 
 his English friends that the matter had best be let slide till an 
 ' honourable and knowing Deputy ' was appointed ; but that in 
 any case it would be very advantageous if his Majesty would 
 cause a gracious letter to be written to the Earl of Ormond, 
 full of remarks about bounty, clemency, and gratitude. One 
 wonders if he really expected the fiery young noble to be caught 
 by mere words ! He actually seemed to hope that not only 
 might Ormond be caught, but that all the other proprietors of 
 lands after which the King hankered would follow him, and 
 by meekly and dutifully surrendering their estates would 
 save the Justices the scandal of trenching on the long-promised 
 ' graces ' ; for the Ormond evidence once secured, the same 
 evidence would apply to three or four large territories lying 
 contiguous to the same, which would enlarge the plantation. 1 
 On further inquiry, it appeared that Lord Ormond's grand- 
 father had already been sounded on the possibility of a 
 plantation in Ormond, and had consented to it on condition 
 that his own rights were sufficiently respected, and also that a 
 plantation would be a real advantage to the present lord, as 
 the Crown would then ensure the remainder of his property 
 against the increasing attempts of the natives to regain their 
 lost territories. A certain part of the plantation project was 
 
 1 L. P., ii. 163-70.
 
 198 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 therefore carried out at once, and some of the more unruly 
 inhabitants of Lord Ormond's estate at Leix were removed to 
 Kerry ; but the debated lands in Ormond were untouched till 
 the ' honourable and knowing Deputy ' arrived, and then in one 
 respect he did answer to Cork's expectations, for he succeeded 
 in buying Abbeyleix from the Earl of Ormond for 1000, 
 besides acquiring lands in the same neighbourhood from Lord 
 Wilmot to the value of ^500 a year ; and Cork recorded, 
 well pleased, in his diary for August 1637, how he had joined 
 the Lord Deputy at Clonmel to act as commissioner to 
 entitle his Majesty to Ormond. The Deputy himself wrote 
 triumphantly to England that the original settlers were 
 extremely well satisfied, and only desired to be given the same 
 terms that the natives had received in the plantations already 
 made in Irish estates. 1 He told with glee that he had secured 
 the land for the King at ten years' purchase, ' whereas, in good 
 faith, land bought for myself, some of it stands me in seventeen, 
 most of it in fifteen years' purchase. ... I am very confident 
 the plantation in a few years will raise , 20,000 a year rent 
 more by bringing in people, trade, and commerce ; increase 
 the customs at least 4000 a year, and, which is above them 
 both, settle this kingdom in such condition as that the Crown 
 may be as securely and universally obeyed here as in 
 England.' 
 
 For all his statesmanship, Lord Deputy Wentworth saw 
 no further in the matter than his contemporaries. There was 
 no difference in the theories of different parties on Irish settle- 
 ments : Charles and Wentworth, Cork and Cromwell, had no 
 real divergence of policy, save that Charles always had a hope 
 he might gain by not driving matters in Ireland to their logical 
 extremity, while Cromwell, when he gave the natives their 
 
 1 Stratford Letters, ii. 82, 84, 90.
 
 THE GREAT LORD DEPUTY 199 
 
 choice of hell or Connaught, had at least the courage of his 
 opinions. 
 
 It has been suggested that when Cork prayed for an 
 honourable and knowing Deputy, he was hinting that such a 
 person might be found in Richard Boyle. Although there is 
 no absolute proof of the matter, it would not have been an 
 unreasonable suggestion on the part of Cork and his friends. 
 It was admitted that his experience of Irish affairs was longer 
 and more complete than that of any other living man, and his 
 own vast estates were frequently pointed out as models of 
 peace and prosperity and examples of what properly carried 
 out plantations might be. 
 
 But a Deputy was now selected for Ireland, not merely to 
 act as a magnified Justice of the Peace, but to institute a new 
 order of government, and teach great and small in Ireland 
 what Stuart prerogative meant. 
 
 This Deputy was Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl 
 of Strafford. He was appointed in 1632, but did not land in 
 Ireland till July 1633, so the difficult task of the Justices was 
 rendered almost impossible by their having to act on their own 
 responsibility, and yet report to the Deputy, who soon gave 
 them a foretaste of the treatment they were to expect when 
 he arrived among them. 
 
 The time which Cork had dreaded was now arrived. The 
 revenue of the country had to be made up, and the Justices 
 had to ask for a renewal of the subsidy which the Romanists 
 had willingly contributed in gratitude for the King's promise 
 of the 'graces.' The graces, of course, were no nearer 
 realisation now than when the King first spoke of them ; but 
 in spite of the assurances of Cork and Loftus, his Majesty 
 persisted in believing that his faithful subjects were longing to 
 pour their wealth into his empty purse ; and it was not for
 
 200 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 some time that it dawned upon him that it was possible that 
 Irishmen were growing reluctant to pay for indulgences which 
 were only dangled before them, and never made their own. 
 When at last he did succeed in realising it, the severity of the 
 Justices was nothing to the wrath of his Majesty. He wrote 
 that if the Recusants did not show themselves worthy of his 
 favour, not only should the ordinary fines to which they were 
 liable be enforced, but the promised graces should never be 
 granted at all. And then in characteristic fashion the King 
 shifted the responsibility of his broken promises on to other 
 shoulders, and added that all this was done by the council of 
 the Justices. The Justices were terrified ; they could not 
 venture to remonstrate with the King, neither could they face 
 the uproar that would be caused if the letter were made public. 
 Finally they resolved to let the dangerous message ' lie on the 
 council table ' till the Deputy arrived, when he might either 
 take the blame on himself, or devise some way of avoiding it. 
 This was, of course, exactly spoiling the King's plan, which 
 was to make the Justices, and not the Deputy, the repre- 
 sentatives of the rigour of the law, and when Strafford 
 discovered their scheme, his wrath rose like a hurricane, and 
 must have left the respectable Lords Justices gasping. He 
 wrote to them describing his Majesty's letter as of ' extreme 
 importance.' ' How is it then,' he continued, ' that I under- 
 stand that letter hath by your Lordships' order lain ever 
 since, and doth still, for anything I know, sealed up in silence 
 at the council table, not once published nor answered ? ' 
 ' Pardon me, my Lords, if in the discharge of my duty I 
 be transported beyond my natural modesty and moderation 
 and the respect I personally bear your Lordships, plainly to 
 Jet you know I shall not connive at such presumption in you, 
 thus to evacuate my master's directions, nor contain myself in
 
 THE GREAT LORD DEPUTY 201 
 
 silence, seeing them before my face so slighted, or at least 
 laid aside, very little regarded.' l 
 
 No wonder that the startled Earl of Cork turned for 
 counsel and consolation to headquarters, and sent off a copy 
 of the thunderbolt to Sir William Beecher, the Clerk of the 
 English Council, enclosing with it the copy of his answer. 
 Meanwhile Strafford took care that the Justices should be no 
 gainers by the suppression of the letters. He sent over a 
 private messenger, a Romanist, to carry a friendly warning to 
 his co-religionists in Ireland that a storm was brewing against 
 them, ' being a thing framed and prosecuted by the Earl of 
 Cork.' The Deputy would, however, do his best to defend 
 them from this tyrannical Earl of Cork, if they would but 
 pay him half a subsidy at once, so as to make him independent 
 of this Lord Justice's scheme of financial extortion. This 
 tyrannical scheme, it may be remembered, merely consisted in 
 enforcing the long established recusancy fines, which Cork 
 believed would provide enough to pay for the army without 
 imposing any new burdens on the country. But to Went- 
 worth's mind the whole scheme was preposterous. He 
 asserted that the ' casual income ' of shilling fines for non- 
 attendance at church could not possibly maintain the Irish 
 army, while its collection merely exasperated the Romanists. 
 * Nor will I so far ground myself,' he wrote to Cottington, 
 ' with an implicit faith upon the all-foreseeing providence of 
 the Earl of Cork as to receive the contrary opinion from him 
 in verbo magistri, for I am sure if such a rush as this should 
 set that kingdom in pieces again, I am the man that am like 
 to bear the heat of the day, not he.' . . . He assured 
 Cottington that he had every ground to hope he would get 
 the half subsidy out of the Romanists, unless the Earl of Cork 
 
 1 Strafford Letters, ii. 77.
 
 202 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 thwarted his plan, * and underhand labour to set the Protestant 
 party against it, which I hear he doth.' The Justices were, 
 he continued, further adding to their list of crimes by paying 
 away some particularly large sums of money which he was 
 convinced they only expended out of personal spite to himself, 
 desiring to * see me at the bottom of my business before I 
 begin, leaving me never a cross to bless myself withal what 
 sudden accident soever happen. Surely they dare do anything 
 that thus give warrant for issuing so great a sum. ... If you 
 do not upon this boldness of theirs take them soundly, and 
 that presently, over the fingers and justify my Lord Mount- 
 norris, who hath very honestly stopped payment, never look to 
 be obeyed in anything.' l 
 
 It is curious to discover that the only person liked and 
 trusted by the new Deputy was Lord Mountnorris. To this 
 solitary confidant he wrote from York in 1632 entreating him 
 to hurry back to Ireland, for money was desperately needed 
 there, and ' the customs, you know how loose they lie our 
 only confidence there being in you ' ! 
 
 That confidence was destined to be rudely shaken when 
 Wentworth got to Ireland, and began to overhaul Mount- 
 norris's accounts. But it really is extremely difficult to 
 discover what was, and what was not, considered dishonest in 
 the seventeenth century. We know that Bacon's acceptance 
 of bribes was looked on as very shocking ; but all public men 
 seem to have received presents, and most public offices and 
 dignities were bought and sold at a regular market price. 
 
 Wentworth seems to have had no real grounds for his 
 conviction that the Justices cherished a private spite against 
 him. Cork certainly disapproved of the indulgence he was 
 prepared to extend to the Recusants ; but so far from wishing 
 
 1 Strajford Letters, \. 74, York, Oct. i, 1632.
 
 THE GREAT LORD DEPUTY 203 
 
 him to begin his government with an empty treasury, Cork 
 himself boasted that he had found it empty when he came to 
 office, but had left 7000 in readiness for the new Deputy, 
 having also paid off all persons both in the civil and military 
 lists, without having the least assistance of treasure from 
 England and without leaving the King a penny in debt ; that 
 he had succeeded in reducing the expenditure of the country 
 from ,40,000 to ,20,000, also providing for the pay of the 
 army for three years. 1 He also proudly wrote that during 
 the time of his being in the government of Ireland, which was 
 four years, having but "100 a month allowed him, he spent, 
 besides his allowance, above ^"6000 in maintaining hospitality 
 and the dignity of the state ; nor during that time was there 
 the least complaint made of him to his Majesty, or to the Lords 
 of the Council of England, adding ' which government I ruled 
 with an upright heart and clean hands.' So far from his 
 dignity as Lord Justice having been of any advantage to him, 
 he told Dorchester in May i63i: 2 
 
 ' My office here is both ruinous to my estates and utterly 
 void of power to advance the King's service. If I have 
 offered my resignation, it is not from private motives, but 
 because I feel the necessary reformation of this great people 
 might with great hope be undertaken if the supreme authority 
 were so placed aright, well credited and directed from thence. 
 This place is not a comfortable one, unless a man consoles 
 himself by making a private fortune, as has been the custom 
 of my predecessors. I renounce such intentions, so that I 
 have not that satisfaction. ... I took up the government here 
 from no selfish aim, but from zeal to the King's service, and 
 love for the country which embraced me when I was young and 
 without fortune, and has given me so competent a patrimony.' 
 
 1 Smith, ii. 62. 2 Cat, S. P. Ireland.
 
 20 4 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 In a letter of October, he again expressed his eagerness to 
 lay down his office. ' The country is well stored with corn 
 and cattle, but there is little money moving, all waiting for the 
 new Deputy, and nobody is more anxious for him to come than 
 I am. I long to get home to enjoy a country life among my 
 neighbours and tenants.' l 
 
 This letter was addressed to a Captain Price, who was 
 entreated to carry over to England an Irish harp for Lord 
 Keeper Coventry, and to give to ' Lady Coventry a runlet of 
 mild Irish usquebagh sent unto her ladyship by my youngest 
 daughter Peggie, who was so much bound to her ladyship 
 for her great goodness and care of her in her sickness at 
 Canberry, whose Jewel she weareth for her ladyship's favour, 
 and I hope the child will live to do her ladyship some service. 
 I pray, help Mr. Hunt to deliver them, and let me add, if it 
 please his lordship, next his hart in the morning, to drink a 
 little of this Irish usquebagh as it is prepared and qualified, it 
 will help to digest all raw humours, expel wind and keep his 
 inward parts warm all day after, without any offence to his 
 stomack.' 
 
 And so, in spite of letters from the Deputy and whispered 
 grumbles from the wealthier Romanists, the Lord Justice's 
 day of greatness glided on to its close, with scarce a cloud 
 to shadow the brightness, and his diary is full of pompous 
 ceremonies and stately junketings, and Lady Meredith, the 
 charming daughter-in-law of Lord Justice Loftus, ignored the 
 family feud and chose the Earl of Cork for her valentine, and 
 presented him with a pair of black silk stockings, garters, and 
 roses, and a dozen handkerchiefs, and Dublin society made 
 merry in the fleeting sunshine as midges dance before a 
 thunderstorm. 
 
 1 Cat. S. P. Ireland, 1631, p. 674.
 
 THE GREAT LORD DEPUTY 205 
 
 But before the stormy Deputy arrived in Ireland, the 
 beginning of sorrow had fallen upon the Earl of Cork. 
 Twenty-nine years before, when his days of prosperity were 
 dawning, Katherine Fenton had become his wife. Now, when 
 the evil days were near, she was taken from him, and he was 
 left in his old age to face life alone. 
 
 No warnings nor details are given in the diary. Suddenly, 
 on the 1 6th of February 1630, comes the heartbroken entry : 
 ' It pleased my merciful God for my manifold sins, between 
 three and four of the clock in the afternoon, to translate out 
 of this mortal world to His glorious kingdom of heaven, the 
 soul of my dearest dear wife, who departed this world, to my 
 unspeakable grief, at the Lord Caulfield's house in Dublin ; 
 for which heavy visitation God make me and all mine patiently 
 thankful as becometh religious Christians, seeing it was none 
 but my all-knowing God that did it.' 
 
 So ended the Earl of Cork's married life. Unlike most 
 men of his time, he remained constant to the remembrance of 
 his wife ; he never thought of filling her vacant place, and to 
 the day of his death he dedicated the sixteenth of February to 
 her memory, in fasting and prayer. 
 
 It is sad to think that his bones do not rest by those of 
 her he loved so faithfully and mourned so long ; the Great 
 Earl lies far off from her at Youghal, but there on his stately 
 tomb in the Bennett chapel the coloured effigy of Katherine 
 Fenton still kneels in prayer. On her grave in Dublin he 
 lavished his wealth to erect what he imagined was a fitting 
 memorial. On the iyth of February he writes : 
 
 ' My dear wife was in the night of this day privately 
 buried in the chancel of St. Patrick's church of Dublin by 
 Mr. Dean Cullen, in the same tomb wherein her worthy 
 grandfather, Dr. Weston, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and
 
 2o6 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 her father, Sir Geoffrey Fenton, Kt., his Majesty's principal 
 secretary of this state, were buried.' 
 
 A public funeral was held nearly a month after the private 
 ceremony at St. Patrick's. Ten of the Earl's gentlemen were 
 provided with suitable mourning at a cost of 60, and the 
 blacks and charges of the funeral over and above all expenses 
 in the house, probably of the funeral feast, did amount, the 
 Earl carefully notes, c to somewhat above one thousand 
 marks.' 
 
 In May the Pursuivant-at-arms completed a design for a 
 magnificent tomb, which was to commemorate Lady Cork's 
 parents and grandparents as well as herself. The stonecutter 
 of Chapel Izod, who was already at work on the restoration 
 of Maynooth Castle for the Earl of Kildare, was intrusted 
 with this important piece of work, and it was estimated that 
 the cost, including painting, gilding, and iron railings, would 
 be 300. Eventually, between the cost of the iron supplied 
 from the Earl's own forges, fees to the Dean and Chapter, 
 and 'liberalities among the workmen,' the expense rose to 
 400. But the tomb was to cost him dearer than a few 
 hundred pounds. By a strange irony of fate his troubles 
 began at his wife's grave, and it was that stately marble 
 erection that gave Strafford his much-desired opportunity to 
 humiliate the Great Earl. 
 
 The tomb was not completed till January 1633 ; then the 
 Earl wrote : * This night the bones of my wife's grandfather, 
 Dr. Weston, sometime Lord Justice and Lord Chancellor of 
 Ireland, of her father, Sir Geoffrey Fenton, Kt., principal 
 secretary of state in Ireland, and the coffin wherein my lost 
 wife's dead body was enclosed, were all removed out of the 
 old tomb wherein they were all three buried in St. Patrick's 
 church, and all placed in the new vault of my wife's tomb by
 
 THE GREAT LORD DEPUTY 207 
 
 me made and erected at the upper end of the chancel of the 
 said St. Patrick's church, expecting a joyful resurrection.' 
 
 And then arrived the great Lord Deputy. 
 
 When Cork was weary of the chaos of Irish affairs, he 
 may have sighed for the King to send over * an honourable 
 and knowing Deputy.' But he did not dream what a King 
 Stork was, in answer to his prayer, to descend on the Irish 
 bogs ! The indignation with which the old man tells the 
 story of his future enemy's arrival is too dramatic to be 
 shortened. The entry in his diary begins, with every word 
 underlined : 
 
 'July 1633. A most cursed man to all Ireland and to me in 
 particular. 
 
 'This 23rd of July about nine of the clock in the afternoon 
 Thomas Lord Viscount Wentworth, Lord Deputy of Ireland, 
 arrived near Lowsie Hill' [now St. Andrew's Street], 'attended 
 with the Earl of Castlehaven, the Lord Docwra, and others. 
 I coming in my coach, met his Lordship walking on foot 
 towards the city, and after welcoming him, entreated his 
 Lordship to take the benefit of my coach, which he and the 
 rest did, and so we came along together to the Castle, and 
 into the withdrawing chamber where his Lordship (I having 
 precedence) brought me to my coach.' 
 
 Wentworth was of course not yet formally installed as 
 Deputy, and the Justices were still governors of Ireland, so 
 he was scrupulous to treat them with all the observance due 
 to representatives of the King, and which he intended to claim 
 as his when he assumed the government. These civilities 
 pleased the Earl of Cork to the very soul. 
 
 Wentworth wrote on the following day to Coke : 
 
 ' I visited both the Justices at their own homes, which, albeit 
 not formerly by other Deputies, yet I conceived it was a
 
 208 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 duty I owed them, being there but as a private person, as 
 able to show an example to others, what would always become 
 them to the supreme governour, whom it shall please his 
 Majesty to set over them.' l 
 
 Wentworth's plans were well thought out, and every move 
 he made had been studied beforehand ; the formal Justices, 
 with their love of power and love of etiquette, were mere 
 haphazard bunglers when they tried to play against such an 
 adversary. The unsuspecting Cork was, however, immensely 
 flattered by Wentworth's civility, and wrote in his diary how 
 ' my Lord Deputy came home to my house and made me a 
 kind visit.' 
 
 The following day the Deputy signified to the Justices 
 that he proposed to receive the sword of state from them in 
 the council chamber that afternoon at two of the clock. And 
 Lord Cork writes : ' Whereon the Lord Chancellor came to 
 my house presently after dinner where most of the lords and 
 councillors were with me, and from thence we went all on 
 foot to the Castle, the sword being borne before us by Sir 
 Robert Loftus, attended with the sergeant-at-arms, officers, 
 and pursuivants, and so we came with the King's sword and 
 mace carried till we came into the gallery of the Castle. And 
 the Lord Deputy there meeting us, he went between us both, 
 the Lord Chancellor on his right and I on his left. But at 
 the door and stairs he gave the Lord Chancellor and me the 
 precedence, and when we came to the council chamber we 
 both took our usual places and his Lordship stood at the 
 upper end of the council table till his Majesty's commission 
 which did authorise him to be Lord Deputy was read by the 
 Master of the Rolls. Then his Lordship delivered us, the 
 Lords Justices, the King's letter, requiring us the Lords 
 
 1 Sir afford Letters, 1.97.
 
 /// < mr/ "f <io
 
 THE GREAT LORD DEPUTY 209 
 
 Justices to deliver up the sword and government to him, 
 which we did. I for my part most willingly and gladly did, 
 the rather that the kingdom was yielded up in perfect peace 
 and plenty.' 
 
 Cork, unfortunately, was so proud of the condition of the 
 country, that his speech of welcome to the new Deputy was 
 entirely filled with hopes that the present prosperity might 
 continue under the new ruler ; while Loftus, with more tact, 
 contented himself with praises and compliments to Sir Thomas 
 Wentworth. 1 
 
 Cork, who remembered the days when Ireland was ravaged 
 by war, famine, and pestilence, could honestly boast that the 
 country was now in ' perfect peace and plenty,' but this serene 
 self-satisfaction maddened the Deputy, who neither knew nor 
 cared from what ruins the present prosperity was built up, 
 and could be content with nothing that did not fit his own 
 pattern of perfection. 
 
 The apprenticeship that Cork had served under Carew 
 and Fen ton, the lessons of statecraft he had learned from 
 Cecil and Ralegh, counted for nothing. In the eyes of the 
 new Deputy he was but a doting old Polonius, and not an 
 honest dotard either. It was very convenient for Wentworth 
 that Archbishop Laud had already a complaint against Cork 
 which would be a good opening for the course of humiliation 
 that the Deputy was preparing for the Great Earl, and would 
 also give opportunities for a little plain speaking to several 
 archbishops and deans. 
 
 To Laud's mind the black marble tomb which Cork had 
 erected in St. Patrick's Cathedral was nothing less than a 
 scandal. Laud's trusted emissary Bramhall had written of it 
 in horror as soon as he arrived in Dublin, telling that the 
 
 1 Carte, i. 112, 
 O
 
 210 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 tomb was 'erected in the proper place of the altar as if it 
 were contrived to give it worship and reverence which the 
 chapter and whole church are bound by special statutes to 
 give towards the east.' l 
 
 This commotion at first merely astonished the Earl of 
 Cork, and he sent over letters to explain that his tomb, 
 although it certainly stood at the east end of the cathedral, 
 so far from standing on the site of the communion table, was 
 placed in front of a blocked-up doorway. But protests and 
 explanations were of no avail ; Laud was determined that the 
 tomb should be removed, and Wentworth was delighted to be 
 the instrument of such a humiliation to Cork. Cork strained 
 every nerve to save the erection of which he was so proud. 
 Not only was he indignant at his selection of a site being 
 blamed ; the tomb was that of Katherine Fenton ; under it he 
 had buried the love and joy of thirty years, and the spot was 
 as sacred to his eyes as it could be to those of Laud. 
 
 Ussher, the Primate, and Bulkeley,the Archbishop of Dublin, 
 were ever ready to do all in their power for the Earl, and 
 wrote letters and certificates to go with a model of the tomb 
 to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the letters Cork induced 
 the Irish archbishops to write in his behalf only made matters 
 worse in London. Laud was indignant that Churchmen should 
 be found to plead such a cause. If the archbishops did not see 
 with his eyes, so much the worse for the archbishops ; and as 
 for the Earl of Cork, who had thus endeavoured to raise 
 dissension in the Church, he should hear some home truths, 
 which ran as follows : 2 
 
 'March 21, 1634. 
 
 * MY VERY GOOD LORD, It is very true that I have taken 
 exceptions to the monument which you have built in St. 
 
 1 Dom. S. P., ccxliv. 48. 2 Strafford Letters, i. 222.
 
 THE GREAT LORD DEPUTY 211 
 
 Patrick's Church, and I hope your Lordship will easily con- 
 ceive I could not prophesy of any such thing [i.e. know of its 
 existence by inspiration], and therefore must needs have the 
 knowledge from thence, and I assure your Lordship I had and 
 from good hands, tho' I cannot now recall from whom. My 
 Lord, the report that the tomb was built in the place where the 
 High Altar stood and the communion table should now stand, 
 did not come lately to me as your Lordship supposes, for I 
 assure you I heard of it and complained of it to the King, and 
 desired remedy before ever my Lord Deputy that now is was 
 so much as named to that place. And therefore, whereas your 
 Lordship writes that you built it three years since and never 
 heard any mouth opened against it, it seems some mouths that 
 durst not open there did open fully here. ... I had then 
 just cause to doubt, considering the forms of all other 
 cathedrals which I had seen, that the east window was darkened 
 by it, but that it is not so I am fully satisfied. For the other 
 exception, that it stands where the High Altar stood and the 
 communion table ought to stand, I must clearly confess to 
 your Lordship I am not satisfied ; nor whether it will not take 
 off too much room from the choir when the screen is built as 
 you intend it. Neither can your Lordship think that I shall 
 make myself a judge of these or any other inconveniences, 
 never having been upon the place to see it, but shall leave it 
 wholly to such view and consideration as shall there be had 
 of it, yet wishing with all my heart that you had erected that 
 monument upon the side of the choir or any other convenient 
 place rather than where you have now set it. And I must 
 needs tell your Lordship such an erection as that would have 
 asked very good deliberation where to have placed it. As for 
 the Dean and Chapter's consent, if they had themselves under- 
 stood the Church better, your Lordship had been free from
 
 212 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 these fears. I have received together with your Lordship's 
 letter two others, one from my Lord Primate of Armagh, the 
 other from the Lord Archbishop of Dublin, but neither of their 
 reports do fully satisfy me, as will appear by the answer I have 
 given their Lordships, for as yet never did I see cathedral 
 church where the High Altar stood in the Lady Mary's chapel, 
 and not at the upper end of the choir, which place I say under 
 favour of better judgments I cannot say is a fit place for any 
 man's monument. And whereas your Lordship writes at the 
 latter end of your letter that you bestow a great part of your 
 estate and time in charitable work, I am heartily glad to hear 
 it : but withal your Lordship will I hope give me leave to deal 
 freely with you, and then I must tell your Lordship, if you 
 have done as you write you have suffered strangely for many 
 years together by the tongues of men who have often and 
 confidently affirmed that you have not been a very good friend 
 to the Church in the point of her maintenance. I hope these 
 reports are not true : but if they be, I cannot account your 
 works charitable, having no better foundation than the liveli- 
 hood of the Church taken away to do them. I am sorry I 
 cannot give your Lordship any other answer to your letter 
 than what I have here written, and therefore leave the tomb to 
 be viewed and ordered by my Lord Deputy and the Archbishop 
 there as they shall find fittest to be done, and I leave you to 
 the grace of God and rest your Lordship's poor loving friend 
 
 <W. CANT.' 
 
 Well did Chief Justice Richardson say, when he had a like 
 lecture, ' I have been well-nigh choked by a pair of lawn 
 sleeves ! ' Never since the Great Earl left his mother's nursery 
 can he have been so soundly scolded ! 
 
 The letter is a good example of the unfortunate tone
 
 THE GREAT LORD DEPUTY 213 
 
 adopted by Laud, and his curious inability to see any view 
 but his own. ' Neither shall your Lordship think I shall make 
 myself a judge,' he writes, but neither shall the two arch- 
 bishops or the dean and chapter be judges ! In all simplicity 
 he believed that he was doing an absolutely impartial thing 
 in leaving the business in the hands of his own alter ego, the 
 Lord Deputy. 
 
 Cork had known the world for sixty-seven years, and he 
 must have read in this letter the doom of all but the submissive 
 servants of Laud and Wentworth. 
 
 Yet even Laud admitted there might be danger in offending 
 Lord Treasurer Weston by desecrating the tomb of his Irish 
 relatives, and warned Wentworth that he ' takes it very highly 
 because of his kinsman, the Lord Chancellor Weston. I would 
 not, both in regard of the King's service and your own good, 
 that this should occasion a breach between you.' * 
 
 But the Lord Treasurer might fume, and Laud hesitate, 
 and Archbishop Ussher declare that the tomb ' so far from 
 being an inconveniency was a great ornament,' Wentworth was 
 resolved it should come down, and down it came. 
 
 It is true that commissioners were appointed to view the 
 tomb before sentence was given, but the matter was really 
 settled before they set foot in the cathedral. Lord Cork 
 wrote that the commission examined some weak aged people 
 as to where the altar had stood, but they spake by hearsay and 
 to very little purpose. Wentworth, however, thought there 
 was no need of human witnesses when the tomb itself spoke so 
 much to the purpose. He wrote to Laud : 2 
 
 ' I have issued a commission according to my warrant 
 for viewing the Earl of Cork's tomb ; the two archbishops and 
 himself, with four other bishops and the two deans and chapters, 
 
 1 Strafford Letters, i. 219. 2 Ibid., i. 298.
 
 2i 4 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 were present when we met and made them all so ashamed that 
 the Earl desires he may have leave to pull it down without 
 reporting further with England ; so I am content if the 
 miracle be done, though Mahomet do it, and there is an end 
 of the tomb before it come to be intombed indeed.' 
 
 And then the next spring, March 1635, Wentworth wrote 
 triumphantly : l 
 
 ' The Earl of Cork's tomb is now quite removed : how he 
 means to dispose of it I know not, but up it is put in boxes, 
 as if it were marchpanes and banquetting stuffs going down 
 to the christening of my young master in the country. The 
 wall is closed again, and as soon as it is dry and fit to be 
 
 wrought upon, it shall be decently adorned or else ! It 
 
 costs me at least one fifty pounds for my share.' 
 
 Cork could but submit with the best grace he could muster 
 up. Even in his diary he only records that it cost him 6 8 
 to remove the tomb to the side of the cathedral, and so the 
 struggle ended, and the first triumph was scored to the Lord 
 Deputy. 
 
 1 Strafford Letters, i. 279.
 
 
 . / 6 '/' /// /-/
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE'S SONS-IN-LAW 
 1630-1633 
 
 ' Doan't thou marry for munny, but goa wheer munny is.' 
 
 Northern Farmer. 
 
 IN July of the year 1630 a boat, manned by a solitary sailor, 
 put out with great precaution from the rocks of Howth and 
 slipped with all possible haste across to Holy head. Yet this 
 sailor was no fugitive escaping from justice, or dare-devil in 
 search of adventure ; he was an official messenger from the 
 greatest man in Ireland, sent to warn three belted earls that 
 they were in danger of being snapped up by a pirate. It was 
 somewhat humiliating that the Lord Justice of Ireland could 
 do no more to secure his friends' safety than to pay a 
 messenger five pounds to secretly warn them of their danger ! 
 
 However, the warning was in time ; the party avoided the 
 notice of the pirate by putting out from Beaumaris, and they 
 all Lord Ranelagh, Lord Kildare, and Lord Dungarvan, 
 with Arthur Loftus and Arthur Jones, arrived without further 
 adventures in Dublin on the 5th of August, in readiness for the 
 weddings of Lord Ranelagh's son, Arthur Jones, to Katherine 
 Boyle, and of Lord Kildare to her sister Joan. 
 
 The early death of Lord Kildare's father had left him 
 premier peer of Ireland and head of the great Fitzgerald 
 family while still a mere baby. The haughty traditions of the 
 Geraldines were not likely to foster submission to the English 
 
 215
 
 216 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 rule in a boy reared under their influence, so in 1618 the King 
 commanded that young Kildare should be sent over to England 
 to be educated. The boy's widowed mother answered patheti- 
 cally that ' by reason of the child's tenderness and indisposition 
 of body,' and his being little more than six years old, he had 
 more need of a nurse than of any learning or breeding. 1 As 
 the Lord Deputy supported Lady Kildare's petition, it is 
 probable that her boy was left a little longer with her, but 
 eleven years later we find him established as an undergraduate 
 at Oxford and the comrade of young Dungarvan. 
 
 No doubt it was during the Boyles' visit to Oxford in 
 1629 that Lady Joan made Lord Kildare's acquaintance, and 
 Lord Cork decided to become guardian of the young man 
 and marry him to his daughter. Kildare wrote to his kinsman 
 Lord Dorchester to thank him for passing his wardship to the 
 Earl of Cork, as he knew he could not have been put in any 
 man's hand that would do him more good. 
 
 Lord Cork was not blind to the failings of ' the mad little 
 lord,' ~ as Londoners had named him, for he wrote that ' little 
 George Kildare ' had run nine hundred pounds in debt in three 
 months, f which except he take up in time, his estate will not 
 bear, say I.' He probably hoped to keep the wild boy in 
 hand as he did Barrymore, but the Geraldine was of a very 
 different stamp from the head of the Barrys ; they were only 
 alike in courage and in pride, characteristics which they shared 
 with most of the gentlemen of Ireland. 
 
 However, when all was said, it was a very fine match for 
 Lady Joan. Her trousseau, which was bought in London, was 
 worthy of the occasion, and cost ^230, i6s., and her father 
 gave her a diamond ring for which he had paid one hundred 
 
 1 Col. S. P. Dom., 1618. 
 
 2 George, i6th Earl of Kildare, was usually known as the Fairy Earl, from his 
 small size.
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE'S SONS-IN-LAW 217 
 
 marks. On the i5th of July 1630 there was a grand wedding 
 at the Earl of Cork's house in Dublin, Lord Barrymore and 
 many other noble lords being present, and Lord Kildare's 
 chaplain united the bride and bridegroom. They were both 
 the same age, nineteen. 
 
 Lord Cork plunged with eagerness into the task of bringing 
 his son-in-law's 'disjointed estates' into some sort of order, and 
 lost no time before riding out to Maynooth with Lord Kildare, 
 his friend Lord Angier, and Lord Dungarvan, to make arrange- 
 ments for the re-edifying of the ' ancient terraced house.' 
 Then followed a second visit, when Lord Digby came to give 
 his views, and it was finally resolved that the three sides of the 
 dwelling, forming a court, should be rebuilt, and the decayed 
 church should be re-edified and whitewashed, and fair wains- 
 cote pews set in it. The mouldering sanctuary where the wild 
 Geraldine Earls had bent their haughty heads, and the famous 
 Geroit Oge had glanced proudly over the ranks of English 
 nobles who were rather his prisoners than his guests that old 
 church was now to be made respectable with Jacobean white- 
 wash and pews, and, doubtless, a three-decker pulpit. But, 
 however uncompromising was the restoration, it was a true 
 restoration, for, as Lord Cork wrote, ' the church had been, 
 God forgive the doers thereof, misapplied to the keeping of 
 cattle and making of malt and other base uses. I, before I 
 could proceed to the rebuilding of the manor-house of May- 
 nooth, thought it my duty to rebuild the said church, which 
 cost me about 120, and on All Saints' Day 1632 my 
 chaplain, Mr. Floyd, preached, which, for ought I could hear, 
 was the first sermon made by a Protestant minister in any 
 man's memory herein.' 
 
 ' The dining and withdrawing chambers of the house,' and 
 * my daughter's closet with the parlour,' were all wainscoted,
 
 2i 8 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 and Lord Cork gave Tingham the builder a horse and two 
 cows to encourage him to proceed ' Really ' with the building, 
 the * Really ' in the diary being written with an impressive 
 capital R ! For a while Lord Cork kept the purse-strings 
 and paid the workmen's wages, and his wise scheme worked 
 admirably ; but Lord Kildare had a persuasive tongue, and 
 after a little his father-in-law had to write with some shame 
 that the 350 intended for the building had been wheedled 
 out of his hands by Lord Kildare's earnest requests. Naturally 
 the builders saw nothing of the money, and, after they had 
 been left a whole month without wages, were preparing to stop 
 work, when as usual Lord Cork came to the rescue, and 
 agreed to pay them regularly five marks for every working 
 day, c but whether I shall get it by my assignment out of the 
 Earl of Kildare's Michaelmas rents, God knows.' 
 
 Lord Cork having once begun to settle the accounts, had 
 naturally to go on, till in 1635 he arranged for the final com- 
 pletion of the mansion by agreeing with the stonecutter to 
 put up the young Earl's arms, painted and gilt, over the 
 gate, and to pay four and sixpence for every hundred letters 
 engraved. 
 
 The Earl of Cork must have been either an extremely 
 indulgent or unusually patient man, for the leniency with 
 which he looked on the escapades of his sons-in-law, and the 
 frequency with which he paid their debts, are hardly what one 
 would expect from a man of his punctilious manners and keen 
 business faculty. The Earl of Kildare's performances must 
 have been as delightful to his boy brothers-in-law as they were 
 trying to the head of the house ; indeed, his lordship would 
 still have been more in place as an undergraduate at Christ 
 Church, than as a married man and one of the rulers of 
 Ireland.
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE'S SONS-IN-LAW 219 
 
 Lord Cork wrote of him ruefully enough : ' Jan. 13, 1632. 
 My Lord Kildare, for discovering who it was who had battered 
 and abused my silver trencher plates, was by me promised ^5, 
 for which, when he had my promise, he said it was himself 
 with knocking marrow-bones thereon ! ' A French book of 
 etiquette of that time warns gentlemen never to knock their 
 bones on the table at dinner. ' Better,' says the sage writer, 
 ' to go without the marrow.' However, Lord Kildare had 
 no mind to go without anything he fancied, and Lord Cork 
 continues sadly, ' Whereupon in discharge of my promise I 
 commanded my servant to fetch him 5 in gold, which his 
 lordship without making any bones thereat accepted, and I 
 presently pocketed the wrong.' 
 
 But in a year's time, even Lord Cork's patience was 
 exhausted, and there was such a serious difference between 
 him and his son-in-law, that Lord Deputy Wentworth himself 
 had to act as mediator. The Earl wrote : 
 
 ' September 1633, in the withdrawing chamber of the castle, 
 the Lord Deputy heard the dispute between the Earl of 
 Kildare and me, in which discourse the ill-guided Earl ex- 
 pressed much bitterness and intemperancy. God amend him 
 and better direct him.' 
 
 This quarrel was pretty clearly over the young Earl's 
 extravagance, and it proved that not even the thunderous 
 brow of the Lord Deputy could keep Kildare in order, for 
 before long he took such a huff at good advice given him by 
 Wentworth that he bolted off to England to complain to the 
 King, who was actually so hard-hearted as to refuse to see him. 
 And meantime, says poor Lord Cork, ' his lady, four children, 
 and a family of about sixty servants were left without means 
 or monies,' and ' to avoid clamour ' his father-in-law had to 
 send 50 to pay the servants and discharge them, and took
 
 220 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 the bdies and children and their attendants into his house in 
 Dublin. 
 
 As Kildare could get no sympathy in England there was 
 nothing for it but to come meekly home again to his wife and 
 babies, and to pawn his plate when he could find no other way 
 of raising the wind. He even pawned the gilt standing cup 
 that had been his father-in-law's christening present to his son 
 and heir ! Lord Cork was naturally extremely angry at the 
 discovery of this performance, but Lady Kildare persuaded 
 him to redeem the cup and then keep it safely in his own 
 hands. Kildare's next differences with the Deputy were not 
 passed over so lightly as the flight to England had been. He 
 refused to surrender certain tide-deeds of his manor of Ley 
 to Wentworth, and a Pursuivant was despatched to Maynooth 
 who carried off his lordship to prison in Dublin Castle. 
 This was but too ordinary a fate during the stormy days of 
 Wentworth's government. It seems wonderful that the 
 Castle was large enough to hold all the nobility and gentry 
 who were packed off to it with all the unceremoniousness of a 
 comic opera. But it was grim earnest with both the Deputy 
 and his prisoners ; and as the proud young Geraldine was not 
 the man to buy his liberty by submission, he was kept in con- 
 finement for a year, two months of the time a close prisoner ; 
 even royal letters on his behalf failed to move the Deputy 
 to mercy, 1 and Kildare was only liberated for a short time the 
 following spring. 
 
 At that time Lady Kildare had gone to Fjigland, possibly 
 to make interest for her hmhand at the F.nglish court, and 
 Lord Cork, who was away in Munster, grew anxious as to how 
 matters were going at Maynooth, and sent Sir John Leeke to 
 report. He brought back, Lord Cork writes, ' assurance that 
 
 Roshwwdi, Str&rd Trial.
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE'S SONS-IN-LAW 221 
 
 the Earl was again committed prisoner to the Castle of Dublin, 
 and that he had left at Maynooth his four children and a 
 devouring family of forty idlers, without any provision of meat 
 or money to sustain them, and his children were without clothes 
 and destitute of victuals, whereupon I sent an express messenger 
 with my letters to Bodlagh his steward to move the Earl to 
 let me have his children to Lismore with the nurses and 
 servants, and upon notice of his pleasure I would send my 
 coach to bring them hither, and keep them here till their 
 mother's coming out of England or my going over thither.' 
 The description of the ragged little lords and ladies running 
 wild among the forty slipshod retainers, and jovial Sir John 
 Leeke shaking his kind head over the steward's story, reads 
 like a page out of one of Miss Edgeworth's Irish novels. It 
 is probable that the children found a home at Lismore, for 
 not long after, the eldest boy accompanied the Earl of Cork 
 to England. 
 
 Then for a little space there are no further reports of 
 Geraldine escapades in Lord Cork's diary ; but his eldest son- 
 in-law, Lord Barrymore, had something of the same ways, and 
 also aroused Lord Cork's wrath by the unceremonious fashion 
 in which he left his wife and family on his father-in-law's hands 
 and sent for them again at his own convenience. Lord Cork 
 wrote, January 1631 : ' My daughter, the Countess of Barry- 
 more, with her son and daughter with their family, departed 
 from my house in Dublin towards their own house at Castle 
 Lyons, but her discrete Lord sent Lieut. Finch to call her and 
 hers home without so much as a letter to her or me of thanks 
 for the year and a half diet I gave him and his family in 
 Dublin. Neither sent he money, horses, nor men to bring 
 her home, which is great disrespect of her and me. God 
 forgive him.'
 
 222 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 There are few notices to be met with of Arthur Loftus, the 
 husband of Lord Cork's daughter Dorothy. He occasionally 
 joined his father-in-law in buying sheep and cattle, or execut- 
 ing leases and settlements ; that is all. Only once is there a 
 glimpse of a more intimate character, when in 1635 Lord Cork 
 writes : ' This day, my son-in-law Arthur Loftus had a very 
 unpleasing passage with me in my gallery, touching a slight 
 unkindness he had taken against his wife, and expressed 
 himself heady and untractable therein to my great discontent.' 
 But as no further mention is made of Sir Arthur's temper, we 
 may suppose that the storm soon blew over. 
 
 In 1631, Lord Cork mentions that he 'gave Doll an 
 embroidered cushion and a cabinet of tortoiseshell with lock, 
 key, and garnishment of silver of goldsmith's work,' and the 
 following year he records that Doll gave him three night- 
 caps. Her eldest daughter was born at Rathfarnham in 1634, 
 and little more is known save that her husband died young, 
 and she married a second time, into the Talbot family. She 
 died in 1668, when her sister Mary wrote that she did not 
 feel so much sorrow as she could have wished, as she really 
 did not know her. 
 
 But if the tantrums of Arthur Loftus and the madcap 
 freaks of Kildare and Barrymore were not the cause of any 
 real trouble or shame to the Earl of Cork, the husband of his 
 third daughter was a very different person. 
 
 George Goring is described by Lady Fanshawe in her 
 memoirs as ' the civilest person imaginable, so that he would 
 blush like a girl,' and ' very tall, very handsome, exceedingly 
 facetious and pleasant company.' Vandyke's portrait corrobo- 
 rates Lady Fanshawe's description. It was only Clarendon 
 who could withstand Goring's fascinations. 
 
 ' Goring,' he says, ' had wit, courage, understanding,
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE'S SONS-IN-LAW 223 
 
 and ambition, uncontrolled by any fear of God or man. 
 While others would violate their promises or friendships for 
 some benefit or convenience, Goring would do so out of 
 humour and for wit's sake, and loved no man so well but he 
 would cozen him and then expose him to public mirth for 
 having been cozened, and in dissimulation he so excelled that 
 men were not ordinarily out of countenance with being 
 deceived by him.' 
 
 Of course we cannot be sure that the Earl of Cork was not 
 as completely cozened as were most of Goring's friends, for 
 when even Strafford could write of Goring's ' sweet, frank, 
 generous disposition,' the Earl of Cork might be pardoned for 
 being for a while blinded to his faults. Still, as this fascinating 
 gentleman was always begging or borrowing money, it seems 
 strange that his father-in-law could not bribe him into some 
 outward decency of behaviour to his wife. So far as letters 
 go, Goring's to Lord Cork are models of affectionate respect, 
 even though he usually manages to slip in some disagreeable 
 insinuation against some member of the family. Sad to con- 
 fess, Lettice Goring's letters also usually contain some ill- 
 natured remark or other about her brothers and sisters, but 
 the childless, neglected wife, in bad health and poor circum- 
 stances, might be pardoned a little peevishness. She neither 
 had the spirit nor the intellect that supported her sister 
 Katherine through the troubles of her married life, for Lettice 
 seems to have had few interests and no literary tastes ; her 
 handwriting is poor and her spelling abominable. 
 
 She paid her first visit to Ireland after her marriage in 
 1631, when she remained in Dublin with Sara Digby and Joan 
 Kildare, while her father made his autumn progress through 
 Munster in patriarchal fashion, accompanied by his sons 
 Dungarvan and Kinalmeaky, his five sons-in-law, Stephen
 
 224 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Crow, the husband of his niece Mary Boyle, and their friend 
 Mr. Jermyn. 'God bless me in this my going home,' wrote 
 the Earl : ' I delivered to my daughter Digby 40, and my 
 acquittance to the Vice-Treasurer to receive ^100 more, to 
 bear the charges of my house till my return.' 
 
 The party travelled by the usual route, halting at Tallagh, 
 where the judges were holding assizes, and so they came to 
 Lismore, where they spent six or seven weeks. This long 
 dose of family life was too much for George Goring ; he 
 endured it till he could borrow two thousand pounds in his 
 father's name, and a thousand in his own, ' to be repaid when 
 he is able,' and then he vanished. Poor Lord Cork thought 
 his son-in-law added insult to injury, for not only did he 
 1 depart without once taking leave of me, and left his wife and 
 servants here,' but he also * posted through Scotland into 
 England on the choice grey gelding I bestowed on him called 
 Grey Brown, whose sudden and unknown departure hath much 
 disquieted me, his wife and friends.' 
 
 Strafford, who took a good deal of interest in the Gorings' 
 affairs, wrote of them in the spring of 1633 : 
 
 * Young Mr. Goring is gone to travel, having run himself 
 out of eight thousand pounds, which he purposeth to redeem 
 by his frugality abroad, unless my Lord of Cork can be 
 induced to put to his helping hand, which I have undertaken 
 to sollicit for him the best I can, and shall do it with all the 
 power and care my credit and wit shall anywise suggest unto 
 me. In the mean time his lady is gone to the Bath. All may 
 do well enough if her father be persuaded, and then if she be 
 not as well done to as any of her kin, Mr. Goring loseth a 
 friend of me forever.' 1 
 
 In September, Goring himself came over to join his 
 
 1 Strafford to Carlisle, Strafford Letters, i. 785.
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE'S SONS-IN-LAW 225 
 
 petitions to those of the Deputy, and the old Earl was obliged 
 most unwillingly to yield, and writes on the 6th of October 
 that he had consented, ' at the importunate entreaties of my 
 daughter and the unavoidable persuasion of the Lord Deputy, 
 conjoined with the necessities of my son-in-law, to buy him 
 one of the Lord Tilbury's regiments, a troop of horse, which 
 the Lord Deputy affirmed would be worth to my son Goring 
 ^"2000 a year.' 
 
 The war in the Low Countries was then attracting many 
 young English gentlemen, and Goring could not have learned 
 the art of war from a better teacher than the General of the 
 English contingent, stout old Vere of Tilbury. 
 
 Lord Cork insisted that certain settlements should be 
 made on Lettice in return for the sums advanced to buy the 
 troop of horse, and he also required security that the money 
 should ' not be consumed in George Goring's profuse expenses,' 
 which shows that the days in which he could be cozened had 
 passed by. StrafFord was delighted at the success of his 
 mediation, and wrote : 
 
 ' Mr. Goring's business is settled reasonably well, I hope : 
 I judge him to be of frank and sweet generous disposition : 
 and if, by the assistance of my Lord his father and other his 
 noble friends, he be provided of this place, which suits 
 certainly extremely well with his genius, I am persuaded that 
 his mind set in ease and quiet, you should see him do very 
 well, and be an honour and comfort to himself and friends. 
 I beseech your Lordship let Lord Goring know this is my 
 opinion, that I will contribute the uttermost of my power 
 towards the setting forth and consummating of so good a 
 work.' l 
 
 Lettice's ' importunate entreaties ' also induced Lord Cork 
 
 1 StrafFord to Carlisle, Strafford Letters, i. 119. 
 P
 
 226 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 to lend Goring 200 in ready money to pay their expenses 
 back to London ; but her father, growing more and more 
 cautious in his dealings with his slippery son-in-law, and 
 ' doubting his readiness to repay it unto me, gave it to 
 Mr. Aldersie to lend as if it were his.' A former debt of 
 ^200 the Earl had already written off as ' desperate.' 
 
 This importunate pair sailed from the Ring's End on the 
 loth of October, Lord Cork having done all in his power 
 to provide for his luckless daughter's comfort. He sent 
 her cousin Joan Gwyn to accompany her, and a message to 
 another cousin, Tompkins, * to receive my daughter Goring 
 if she should be constrained to come and lie there, and use 
 her and her attendant courteously, and I would gratify her 
 with as much plate as should pay my daughter's expenses, for 
 money from her or me I know she would not take.' 
 
 But the Earl's anxiety over Lettice was never at rest. In 
 December, when Sir John Leeke was taking over the direc- 
 tions for Dungarvan's marriage settlements to be drawn up 
 by Lord Cork's London lawyer, the Earl begged him, before 
 he attended to any other business, to ' go to my Lord 
 Bruerton's to see my daughter Lettice.' 
 
 Unhappy as Lettice must needs have been when with her 
 husband, she was even more wretched when he went to the 
 Low Countries, and left her in his father's care in London. 
 In February 1634 Lord Cork wrote a very diplomatic and 
 very touching letter to that old gentleman : 
 
 * MY NOBLE LORD AND BROTHER, I have been honoured 
 with the receipt of your letters, and in them the assurance that 
 our son hath obtained a regiment in the Low Countries, and 
 that there is good possibility for his addition of the horse 
 troop therewith. As your lordship hath cause, so am I with
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE'S SONS-IN-LAW 227 
 
 that his employment much comforted, hoping it will be a 
 step to his further grace and advancement. And if I could 
 be satisfied how you and he intend to dispose of my daughter 
 Lettice that she might find rest and contentment, it would 
 much quiet my yet distracted thoughts, for her welfare and 
 my consideration of her estate is a main part of my greatest 
 care. And as at her being here by effectual persuasions, so 
 also by my letters sent her since her departure into England, 
 I have ever counselled and advised her to observe you and 
 your counsels, and not to be led by the advice of any other 
 which shall anyways contrary or oppose your directions, nor 
 to presume upon her own weak wit and judgment to contradict 
 or run any other courses, but to tread that path which you 
 shall chalk out unto her, for therein I assure her she shall find 
 happiness and in no other way. And of this I am as confident 
 as I may be of a woman's promises, that for the future she 
 will observe, wherein I beseech your lordship to encourage 
 and cherish her, and give her boldness to have freedom with 
 you, and then I cannot doubt but all things will succeed 
 contentfully, which I beseech God to grant.' 
 
 The Earl then goes on to speak of a difference in money 
 matters, which he was unwilling should still keep him at a 
 distance from Lord Goring, being * induced principally by my 
 own disposition, which hath been ever unapt to entertain or 
 continue disputes with any stranger, much less with one so 
 near and dear unto me as your Lordship is, for so poor or 
 contemptible a sum of money,' and therefore proposed to 
 refer the matter to the arbitration of Lord Goring himself, 
 Dungarvan, Sir Thomas Stafford, and Sir John Leeke, * and 
 now that I have made you a part judge in your own cause I 
 cannot believe but you will do me right and justice. . . . 
 And so rendering to your Lordship all hearty thanks for the
 
 228 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 great graces and favours you have vouchsafed to my son 
 Dungarvan since his return from his travels, and praying your 
 increase and continuance of them not only to him, but to my 
 daughter Lettice, who is so near and dear unto me, with 
 tender of my most affectionate respects to your lordship and 
 all yours, I kiss your hand and take leave.' l 
 
 All Lord Cork's influence seems to have failed to make 
 Lettice's position in her father-in-law's house endurable, and 
 it was arranged that she should follow her husband to the 
 Low Countries, escorted by a cousin, Anne Quin, and two 
 footmen ; and Lady Kildare, in her usual kindly fashion, lent 
 her a waiting-woman. ' God bless and preserve them,' writes 
 the old Earl. 
 
 Lettice wrote from Gravesend, in her usual melancholy 
 strain, to take leave of her father : 
 
 'GRAVESEND, Ap. n, 1634. 
 
 ' MY MOST HONOURED LORD AND DEAREST FATHER, 1 
 
 have forborn to present your Lordship with my lines till now, 
 that I might at once fully acquaint you with all proceedings, 
 which I fear will not at all answer your expectance, I am sure 
 not your desert, from them that are most obliged to you. 
 My Lady Goring is still herself, and her usage of me in her 
 house answered my expectation, for it was as bad as bitter 
 words could make it, of which my dearest brother is witness. 
 For my Lord Goring I will say nothing of him, because I can 
 never know him truly, for by his words I should judge him 
 very good, but his actions are quite contrary ; of such men I 
 will not venture to judge, but this I may truly say, he is to me 
 the crudest man living. I beseech your Lordship for God's 
 sake that I may hear often from your Lordship, which will be 
 my greatest comfort, for whilst I have a being I will never 
 
 1 Add. MSS. 19,832, fo. 36.
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE'S SONS-IN-LAW 229 
 
 cease to be your Lordship's most obedient daughter and 
 humble servant LETTICE GORING. 
 
 ' I have my maid over with me, but my cruel Lord Goring 
 would not suffer her to come into his house, who hath done 
 himself great wrong.' 
 
 Dungarvan had been directed to see after his sister when 
 he returned to London from courting the niece of the Lord 
 Deputy of Ireland, but he arrived too late, and writes to his 
 father in April : 
 
 ' My Lord Goring did take order for my sister and send 
 her over into the Low Countries before I returned from the 
 North : and since my being here, I have received letters from 
 her, of her safe arrival at the Hague, where she hath been 
 very graciously received of the Queen x and heartily welcomed 
 by her husband, as she doth express to me in her letters. 
 Before I left the town I furnished her with fifty pounds which 
 she desired of me, and afterwards had a long conference with 
 my Lord Goring for to settle all things in a fair corre- 
 spondence between them, which I hope hath been done ; and 
 now she is in a place where there is the greatest likelihood of 
 her happiness. Concerning the accounts, which is part your 
 Lordship hath committed to my trust, for to clear all reckon- 
 ings with my Lord Goring, nothing hath been done in it, Sir 
 Thomas Stafford having been very sick and like to die, and 
 my Lord Goring, out of his civility, as he pretends, refusing 
 to enter into any dispute with me, and excepting Sir John 
 Leeke for being so much your Lordship's servant. I cannot 
 imagine a better course to end all speedily than to refer it 
 wholly to my Lord Goring's judgment, since your Lordship 
 is willing to let those six hundred odd pounds fall rather than 
 
 1 Charles the First's sister, the exiled Queen of Bohemia.
 
 230 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 be longer at variance with my Lord Goring, and my Lord 
 Goring cannot in honour but meet your Lordship some part 
 of the way. Sir Thomas Stafford is in this of my opinion.' l 
 
 Lettice found many friends among the English who formed 
 the court of the kindly Queen of Hearts at the Hague, and 
 her father did his best to procure her a welcome by sending 
 to her Majesty a brace of wolf-hounds which Lord Barrymore 
 had destined for Lord Cromwell and the tailor-banker, Mr. 
 Perkins, but which Lord Cork ( made bold ' to secure for the 
 Queen of Bohemia. 
 
 In the spring of 1636 Lettice was back again in Dublin, 
 and her father as usual notes that he had given her 60 in 
 gold, which made ,120 given her since she came to Ireland ; 
 and in all the Earl of Cork admitted he was ' out of purse 
 to them 260.' 
 
 George Goring met her in London, but when he returned 
 to the Hague he left her in England, and she appears to have 
 made her home at Lord Goring's country-seat at Hurst- 
 monceau, where she at least had the pleasure of seeing her 
 two younger brothers, who spent their holidays with her 
 from Eton. But her unhappiness was too great to be ignored, 
 and even the gentleman who attended on the boys wrote to 
 Lord Cork : ' My masters did comfort her as much as they 
 could, but her languishing heart could not receive much 
 comfort, so that it made them cry often to look upon her.' 
 
 Meantime Goring was really showing himself at his best, 
 and after behaving very gallantly at the siege of Breda, re- 
 ceived a shot in the ankle which went near to cripple him for 
 life. Garrard described him in a letter to Strafford as limping 
 about London on crutches at Christmas 1637, and added, 'he 
 carries his leg in a scarf and will have little use of it.' 
 
 i L. P.,n. 3, 197-8.
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE'S SONS-IN-LAW 231 
 
 If he did not literally carry out the proverb ' the devil 
 a monk would be,' Goring certainly mended his manners 
 while he was sick, and employed all the charm of which he 
 was master to pacify his wife and her relations. He was 
 about this time appointed Military Governor of Portsmouth, 
 a post, it may be remembered, that he afterwards utilised in 
 cozening both the King and the Parliament. But at the time, 
 the appointment only seemed to promise an honourable and 
 comfortable life to the Goring pair, and as Lord Cork had 
 lately bought a house in Dorset, he was delighted to know 
 that his daughter's new home would be comparatively near to 
 him. He wrote to George Goring with the polite diplomacy 
 he had learned to use when dealing with any of the Goring 
 family : 
 
 ' NOBLE COLONEL, It pleased your honourable father at 
 my being in London, to accompany the several favours he 
 did me at court with his promise that, after your arrival, 
 both he and you would do me the honour to see me here at 
 my poor house, in the latter end of Christmas, which letter 
 he hath vouchsafed to confirm unto me since that by several 
 letters, and to bring my dear Friend Sir Thomas Stafford in 
 your company. And, for that at court Christmas doth not 
 end till Candlemas, I live in hope that his court promise will 
 be made good unto me in the country. And to this house 
 and poor family, who so long to see you, no three persons 
 can be so welcome unto us all, especially yourself, who have 
 been so great and long a stranger unto me. And it would 
 complete our joy if my daughter Lett, might accompany you 
 in this expedition ; whom I presume you will not leave, 
 neither will she willingly suffer herself to be left behind you 
 (if she be in England) when you begin your journey hither.
 
 232 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Amongst the many blessings that it hath pleased my God to 
 bestow upon me (for which I beseech the giver of them to 
 make me so humbly thankful as I ought to be) I do rank 
 amongst the highest of His divine favours the good under- 
 standing that he hath planted between your father and myself, 
 but now for the happy condition that it hath pleased God in 
 His due time to reduce yourself and your wife unto. And I 
 am confident that it is His divine purpose that hath guided 
 your heart to affect her to whom you are bound by the bonds 
 of sacred marriage, and whom I have ever observed to love 
 and honour you extremely. And so to do and to win th' 
 affection of your parents was in all my councils and hers, and 
 my fatherly charge and advice unto her. And my daily 
 prayers upon my knees to God to reduce you to that happi- 
 ness and native affection, wherein both your letters now sent 
 me do give assurance with ample satisfaction and content- 
 ment, which I beseech God to multiply and increase mutually 
 between you, and ever to thank God for this happy conjunc- 
 tion His divine power hath wrought between you in your 
 climaterical years. I sent two express messengers to Ports- 
 mouth to inquire of my Lord your father's being there and 
 yours, with a resolution if 'either of them had found you 
 there, presently to have journeyed thither purposely to have 
 guided you home to this poor house. And as for Portsmouth, 
 it hath ever been heretofore entrusted to some noble man of 
 eminency and integrity as a place of great honour and com- 
 mand. And as it was a gracious King that hath considered 
 so honourable and beneficial an employment upon you, so it 
 was a provident indulgent and fortunate father that com- 
 passed it so happily when you least thought of it. And as 
 I do exceedingly approve of your resolution to live in your 
 father's house whilst you are in London, and to make Ports-
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE'S SONS-IN-LAW 233 
 
 mouth, which is but a summer's day's journey from Stalbridge, 
 the place of your residence while you are in the country : to 
 which your intendments I promise to contribute my best 
 assistance, so you will co-operate with your good father in the 
 study of your customary affairs out of which much sweetness 
 is to be sucked. Give over immoderate gaming and play, 
 which hath much disquieted your good father and very much 
 your mother, and with many private discontentments injured 
 your own fortunes and misspent your time. And the benefit 
 of both these my poor advices will principally tend to your 
 enrichment and content ; which no man can more desire than 
 myself ; who pray you to tender my most affectionate service 
 and respects unto my Lord your father, and noble mother, who 
 is a prophetess, as also to Sir Thomas Stafford and his excellent 
 good lady and to yourself. Th' Earls of Kildare, Barrymore, 
 Dungarvan, and their cabin mates, and your sister Mary with 
 myself, desire to be most kindly remembered. And that the 
 God of Heaven will bless and guide you in all your ways : 
 with which our prayer I conclude that I am your most 
 affectionate father-in-law and true servant. 
 
 'STALBRIDGE, 18 January I639.' 1 
 
 So a brief period of happiness was granted to poor Lettice, 
 and she was permitted to join the great family gathering at 
 Stalbridge, in the spring of 1639. Dorothy Loftus was the 
 only one of Lord Cork's living children who was not with 
 him at that time. He wrote with delight of the arrival of 
 one after the other : how, on the i8th of May, * My daughter 
 Barrymore came back from the Bath, where she had left her 
 daughter Ellinor for cure, and she hath brought back from 
 the Bath in her coach Arthur Jones and my daughter 
 
 1 L. P., \l 5, 279.
 
 234 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Katherine his lady, and my niece Kate Boyle, who with her 
 retinue "were exceedingly welcome unto me.' A little later 
 Lord Cork mentions, * My daughter Goring sent Kate's 
 footman to London with letters.' 
 
 Kate Jones remained at Stalbridge till the autumn, when 
 she accompanied her father to London. Warm-hearted Sir 
 John Leeke wrote introducing her to the Verneys as ' my 
 precious Katherine ' one of the most beautiful as well as the 
 most talented women of her time. 'A more brave wench, nor 
 a braver spirit you have not often met withal ; she hath a 
 memory that will hear a sermon and go home and pen it 
 after dinner verbatim. I know not how she will appear in 
 England, but she is most accounted of in Dublin.' * Alas ! 
 he does not disguise the truth about Katherine's husband, but 
 calls him bluntly ' the foulest churl in Christendom,' whose 
 best point was that he was nightly dead drunk and so pro- 
 bably not quarrelsome. The beauty of Katherine's face, ' the 
 sweetest in the world,' Sir John admitted was somewhat 
 decayed by sorrow, but certainly what the love and almost 
 adoration of her family and friends could do . to compensate 
 Katherine for what was lacking in her husband, never was 
 wanting. 
 
 It is sad to admit that but one of Lord Cork's sons-in-law 
 seems to have been entirely satisfactory. Lord Digby never 
 failed to show himself affectionate, dutiful, and sensible. It 
 is true that he, like the rest of the world, borrowed money 
 from Lord Cork, but the loan was not to pay for his own 
 extravagance, but to redeem the encumbered estates of Geashill 
 from debt, that they might descend free to Lord Cork's grand- 
 children. There was a longstanding difficulty over titles and 
 estates between Lord Kildare and Lord Digby 's mother, who 
 
 1 Verney Memoirs, i. 203.
 
 THE LORD JUSTICE'S SONS-IN-LAW 235 
 
 was the direct heiress of a former Earl of Kildare, and there- 
 fore for her life Baroness Offaley, although the earldom had 
 passed away to the male line. In 1633 the Lord Deputy 
 entered into an examination of the case between Kildare and 
 Lady Offaley, and the Earl of Cork wrote, ' It is my earnest 
 prayer that God may send a good conclusion with peace.' 
 But the satisfactory ending of this family debate came at a 
 time of sorrow. Few of the blows which varying fortune 
 brought to Lord Cork can have been greater than that which 
 carried off the sweetest of his daughters. He wrote in July 
 1633 : 'A most lamentable day to me. This day between 
 three and four of the clock in the morning, it pleased God 
 in his great mercy to translate out of this sinful world into 
 his heavenly kingdom my second and most dear daughter, the 
 Lady Sara Digby, who departed in my house in Dublin.' She 
 was laid in her mother's tomb in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and 
 the Lord Primate preached the funeral sermon. 
 
 The formal eloquence of a panegyric on Sara Digby, sent 
 by Dungarvan's college friend, James Dillon, to the Verneys, 
 cannot hide the warmth of his real feelings. ' I have lost,' 
 he writes, ' the faithfullest she friend that ever I had, or ever 
 look to meet with. My Lady Digby is dead, whom neither 
 the tears of her father, nor the sighs of her husband, nor the 
 prayers of the poor, nor the moans of her friends, nor in a 
 word, the petitions of all that ever knew or heard of her could 
 withhold from the jaws of death.' 1 
 
 The two little daughters she left behind, named after her 
 sisters Katherine and Lettice, and the only son, Kildare, were 
 taken care of by their grandmother at Geashill, where Lord 
 Cork mentions that in 1637 he sent them a present of an 
 angel apiece by Lord Dungarvan, who was riding to visit 
 Lady Offaley. 
 
 1 Verney Memoirs, \. 232.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 THE REIGN OF THOROUGH 
 
 * As for the state, indeed, my lord, I am for Thorough.' 
 
 Laud to Went'worth. 
 
 WENTWORTH'S first year of office was by no means exclusively 
 occupied by ridding the east end of St. Patrick's of the Earl of 
 Cork's tomb. 
 
 The eagerness with which he attacked and overthrew that 
 stately erection was only an example of the energy which he 
 carried into every act of his administration. The day of 
 superficiality and routine was over ; the Deputy's favourite 
 watchword, Thorough, meant in truth a thorough revolution. 
 
 It is tempting to speculate what might have been the 
 course of Irish affairs if Wentworth had stooped to win over 
 Cork, who always admitted the great talent and energy of 
 the Lord Deputy. But Wentworth had already made up 
 his mind that nothing could prosper in Ireland till he had 
 brought down the mighty from their seats ; then, when all, 
 both great and small, had been tutored to submission, a 
 benevolent despotism should bring back the Golden Age. 
 But before this could be, every possible opponent must be 
 taught his proper place, and taught also the Lord Deputy's 
 opinion of him, his capacities, and his honesty. Strafford 
 said later on : ' Where I found a crown, a church, and a 
 people spoiled, I could not imagine to redeem them from 
 
 236
 
 THE REIGN OF THOROUGH 237 
 
 under the pressure with gracious smiles and gentle looks. 
 It would cost warmer water than so ! ' 
 
 While the Justices were walking in procession and flattering 
 themselves that the country was in an unexampled condition 
 of prosperity, Wentworth was writing back to England, 
 ' I find them in this place a company of men the most intent 
 upon their own ends that ever I met with, and so as those 
 speed, they consider other things at a very great distance. 
 I take the Crown to be very ill served.' 1 The army, he 
 vowed, was only an army in name ; and so far from there 
 being any attempt at a navy, the coasts were abandoned to 
 Algerine rovers and English pirates, from whom even he 
 himself had barely escaped, with the loss, he wrote, of ' as 
 much linen as cost me 500 ; and in good faith I fear I have 
 lost my apparel too.' In his impatience at the muddle of 
 public affairs, Wentworth did not pause to remember that 
 the much-abused Lords Justices had been besieging him ever 
 since his appointment with lamentations over unpaid soldiers, 
 ill-equipped vessels, and the ravages of the Algerine rovers 
 who had but just sacked Baltimore. 
 
 At first Wentworth appeared willing to distinguish between 
 the system, and the men who had carried it on ; and although 
 his reforms began at once, he endeavoured by formal com- 
 pliments and exchange of courtesies to show that no personal 
 ill-feeling dictated his policy. 
 
 In January 1634, the Earl of Cork and Lord Loftus both 
 dined and supped at the Castle, and saw a play acted by the 
 Lord Deputy's gentlemen. Puritans though the Lords Justices 
 had been called, they had no scruples concerning theatricals, 
 or against gambling for tolerably high stakes. Lord Cork 
 lost sixty-four pounds to the Deputy at ' quairter lo dicen,' 
 
 1 Straff or d Letters, i. 97.
 
 238 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 though the prudent Chancellor only lost five pounds. 
 Fortune, which was generally kind to Lord Cork, revenged 
 herself on him whenever he tried his luck in games ; in 
 earlier days he had sadly recorded that he lost 17, 135. 6d. 
 when he played at Mawe, and at a Christmas party in Went- 
 worth's time, * when myself, Dungarvan, and Lord Digby 
 only, came and dined, the Lord Deputy and I lost at Mawe 
 six pieces of five shillings each to Lord Moore and the Lord 
 Chancellor.' But his loss of thirty shillings was not the 
 worst of this story, for then more theatricals followed, and 
 ' we saw a tragedy in the parliament house, and which was 
 tragical, for we had no supper ! ' l 
 
 Lord Cork was indeed a jovial old gentlemen when he was 
 left in peace, in spite of bereavement and worries. He could 
 enjoy wagering a pair of silk stockings with roses and garters 
 to Lady Parsons, over the day on which Lord Westmeath 
 would return from his travels ; and in April 1 634 he was at the 
 Curragh races, when he backed Lord Digby's horse against 
 one of the Earl of Ormond's, and lost a new beaver hat 
 Sir Thomas Stafford had sent him, to Mr. Ferrers, one of the 
 Deputy's gentlemen. 
 
 The Deputy seemed anxious to advertise the fact that no 
 personal dislike moved him to his endless wrangles with the 
 old Earl. One evening as the Boyle family were at supper, 
 ' unknown to any, up comes the Lord Deputy, attended by 
 the Earl of Ormond and the Master of the Rolls [Wandesford]. 
 His Lordship, very nobly and neighbourly, sat down and 
 took part of my supper without any addition, and Cath. his 
 Lordship's daughter came and dined with me that day.' Yet 
 only two days after this friendly supper-party, the Deputy in 
 council ordered 5 costs against Lord Cork for having failed 
 
 1 Jan. 1636.
 
 THE REIGN OF THOROUGH 239 
 
 to put in an answer to some complaint, 'which 5 I paid 
 much against my will. God forgive the Lord Deputy.' 
 
 A good deal of Wentworth's thunder and lightning appears 
 to have been really bluff. He confided to Cottington that a 
 Lord Deputy was always better obeyed on his entrance than 
 on his departure ; * whilst they take me to be a person of much 
 more power with the King and of stronger abilities in myself 
 than indeed I have reason either in fact or in right to judge 
 myself to be, I shall, it may be, do the King some service.' 1 
 
 It was indeed necessary for a Deputy to rule with a high 
 hand if any conventionalities at all were to be observed. 
 Members of Parliament were still as ready for a free fight as 
 when Crofton, Boyle, and Barnaby O'Brien seated the Speaker 
 on Sir John Everard's lap, 2 and, respectable greybeards though 
 they were, Cork and Loftus still thought no shame of quarrels 
 that in the present day would have carried them both to the 
 police court ; and what is even stranger, Cork thought no shame 
 of writing down the squabbles, word for word, in his diary, 
 not veiled in prudent cypher, like Mr. Pepys's confessions, but 
 plain and clear for all who come after to read, and for his sons 
 to comment on in the margins, as they occasionally did. 
 
 One quarrel began during the pomp and circumstance of 
 an official procession. When the Deputy took up his appoint- 
 ment in Dublin, he was displeased at finding the nobility 
 did not present themselves to escort him on his state attend- 
 ance at church. He wrote to the King that he believed this 
 negligence did not come from any ill-feeling, but was a protest 
 against doing that as a duty which they held to be a matter of 
 courtesy. He therefore begged his Majesty to desire all to 
 attend, the bishops wearing their rochets, the noblemen and 
 councillors 'upon their footclothes, or otherwise, on horseback.' 3 
 
 1 Strafford Letters, i. 96. 2 See chap. vi. ante. 3 Strafford Letters, i. 200.
 
 2 4 o LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 The procession accordingly was formed on the following 
 Sunday, but its dignity must have been sadly marred by the 
 Lord Treasurer and the Lord Chancellor, who abused each 
 other like fishwives all the way to church, and then Cork went 
 home after sermon and wrote it all down. 
 
 The quarrel, of course, began about the mortgage made 
 long years before on Loftus's lands at Cre Eustace. Lord Cork 
 writes : 
 
 'August 1633. As the Lord Chancellor and myself this 
 day rode after the Lord Deputy to Christ Church, when he 
 came where the mayor and aldermen attended, there was 
 Sir James Carroll amongst them ; whereupon the Lord 
 Chancellor said to me, " Your Lordship hath furnished Sir 
 James Carroll with stores of money now." I told him I 
 had done what I thought meet to secure my interests in 
 Cre Eustace. He replied that there was neither honour nor 
 honesty in so doing. I answered I never did any thing that 
 was not both honourable and honest, nor hoped in God ever 
 to do, and wished his Lordship had been as careful to do 
 honourable and honest things as I have been, and that if he 
 would turn those his speeches to himself he should place them 
 righter than upon me, neither should he have any foot of 
 my lands, having paid nothing for them, when I had paid 
 over 4000 for them. He replied, " He tendered me the 
 mortgage." " Yes," quoth I, " but that was neither honour- 
 able nor honest " ; and that renewed the unkindness between 
 us. For that I would never have laid out my ^4000 in the 
 redemption of Cre Eustace to Sir Nicholas White if, after my 
 tender thereof to his Lordship and his refusal, I had not had 
 his consent to deal therein, and his promise to further me 
 therein. "I deny any such promise," quoth he. "I must 
 justify it then," said I, "and also prove it, and to whom you
 
 THE REIGN OF THOROUGH 241 
 
 thus acknowledged it." "Well," said he, "as long as you 
 and I were Justices I did forbear to sue you for it, but now 
 I will begin." " Even when you please," quoth I. " I will 
 entreat no favour from you therein." And so we alighted 
 and went into church.' 
 
 The quarrel with the Chancellor naturally ran through all 
 Cork's public and private business. At this time the suit 
 with Blacknoll's widow was still dragging on, and whether 
 from carelessness or as an intentional mortification, the Deputy 
 had again and again postponed the trial, or commanded a meet- 
 ing of the Council at which Cork was obliged to be present, 
 so as to clash with the hour of trial. The expense of keeping 
 his witnesses idle in Dublin was very great, and the difficulties 
 put in his way were a constant irritation to Cork. He knew, 
 however, that the Deputy was not his only adversary in this 
 matter, and one day, finding Wentworth walking alone in his 
 gallery, he took the opportunity to explain that their long- 
 standing quarrel made it impossible for the Chancellor to be 
 an indifferent judge in his cause. But the Deputy himself 
 was concerned in the matter, as Blacknoll had managed to 
 defraud him of ^400, and his friend Sir George RatclifF of a 
 like sum, so possibly on that account he declined to interfere 
 with the ordinary course of affairs. The Chancellor, therefore, 
 presided at the trial, when, as had been expected, * he made,' 
 Cork writes, ' a long impertinent speech. I replied I was not 
 of his opinion. His Lordship replied, I care not for your 
 opinion. Nor I for yours, quoth I, and his Lordship said he 
 cared not a rush for me, and so we disputed, till the Deputy 
 told us we were two great officers of his Majesty and prayed 
 us to be quiet. But we, multiplying our unkind conceits one 
 upon another, the Lord Deputy required and commanded us 
 to be quiet, and addressed his speech to the two judges, who 
 
 Q
 
 242 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 gave their opinions against the Chancellor, wherein the Deputy 
 concurred.' 
 
 But though the nobility might wrangle among themselves, 
 the drama that was now to be played out in Ireland soon 
 resolved itself into a duel between Wentworth and Cork ; all 
 the Deputy's lesser enemies were quickly swept out of the way, 
 only the indomitable old Munster Grandee held his place. 
 
 The chief matter to occupy the new Governor of Ireland 
 was finance, for the revenue that sufficed for the administration 
 of the thrifty Earl of Cork would not permit of the new plans 
 which Wentworth was resolved to inaugurate. 
 
 When the Privy Council met, Cork was slow to speak ; 
 he sat silent and wary, still uncertain whether the new Deputy 
 would be a friend or a foe. As the Treasurer made no motion 
 Sir Adam Loftus spoke, advising that the contribution then 
 paid by the country to the Treasury should be continued for a 
 year longer, and in the meantime a parliament should be called 
 to decide on a new system of taxation. The Master of the 
 Wards was then, after another long silence, called on to speak, 
 but ' answered the Deputy's expectation very poorly.' 
 
 ' I was then,' continued Wentworth, when describing the 
 scene to Coke, ' put to my last refuge, which was plainly 
 to declare that there was no necessity which induced me to 
 take counsel with them in this business, for rather than fail in 
 so necessary a duty to my master I would undertake upon the 
 peril of my head to make the King's army able to subsist 
 without their help,' and had only put this fair occasion in their 
 hands out of respect to them. But after this outburst he 
 condescended to agree with Sir Adam Loftus, and advised them 
 to offer his Majesty the next year's contribution, with their 
 desires for a parliament. Lord Mountnorris and the Chan- 
 cellor showed themselves very ready to support this proposal,
 
 THE REIGN OF THOROUGH 243 
 
 ' the Earl of Cork silent, till I had propounded a parlia- 
 ment, and then he did very effectually declare his consent 
 and delivered his opinion that there was all the reason and 
 justice in the world that the army should be maintained hence, 
 without charge to the crown of England ; not doubting but the 
 next year's contribution would be willingly paid and a course 
 settled for the future by the Parliament. As for Sir William 
 Parsons, first and last I found him the dryest of the company. 
 . . . For the present only I should humbly advise that in 
 some part of your next letter you would be pleased to give a 
 touch with your pen concerning Sir Adam Loftus, such as I 
 might show him, for he deserves it ; it will encourage the 
 well affected and affright the others when they shall see their 
 actions are rightly understood by his Majesty ; and also some 
 good words for the Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Cork, the 
 Earl of Ormond, and the Lord Mountnorris.' * 
 
 Lord Cork had the traditional English belief in a parlia- 
 ment, even if that parliament but represented the shadow to 
 which Irish independence had been reduced. The King, who 
 had no very pleasant experiences of meeting his faithful subjects 
 at St. Stephen's, was most unwilling that the Deputy should 
 call an Irish parliament together, but Wentworth knew that 
 Poynings' Law gave the Irish legislators into the hollow of 
 his hand, and that the King's fears and Cork's hopes were 
 equally vain. He assured his Majesty he need have no fear of 
 trouble, this parliament should be ' the basis and foundation of 
 the greatest happiness and prosperity that ever befell the nation.' 
 
 The writs were therefore issued, and Wentworth took 
 care that the elections should be to his mind. In July, when 
 Lord Cork was out driving, Lord Digby and Lord Esmond 
 being in the coach with him, he received six letters from the 
 
 1 Stratford Letters, i. 98-99.
 
 244 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Deputy, directing him what gentlemen to return as members 
 for his six boroughs ! This was truly to be a packed parlia- 
 ment ! All the members were the Deputy's friends or 
 dependants, save only that as Bandon returned two burgesses, 
 Lord Cork was permitted to send his cousin, Mr. Wiseman, 
 to represent it along with Sir George Wentworth. 
 
 But Lord Cork's compliance with the Deputy's commands 
 did not gain him any indulgence. He was astonished and 
 offended, during the sitting of the council in August 1634, to 
 be handed a packet of letters from some of his most intimate 
 friends, Falkland, Ranelagh, and Sir William Beecher, and to 
 find that some of them were dated two years back ! The 
 messenger who had detained them received no reproof; and 
 to make the case complete, the Deputy picked up the letters 
 from the table, opened and read them, without any remark or 
 excuse to Lord Cork ! Wentworth never condescended to 
 subterfuge ; it suited him better to open and read suspicious 
 letters, in the face of the man to whom they were directed, 
 than to intercept them after the ways of more wily diplomatists. 
 But it is no wonder that Lord Cork's eldest son wrote on the 
 margin of this narrative, * a strange injury.' 
 
 But even yet the council was not schooled to perfect self- 
 effacement, and after Lord Cork had been thus rudely set 
 down, it ventured to begin to discuss the subjects of the bills 
 that were to be laid before Parliament during the coming 
 session. On hearing of this audacity, Wentworth says, ' I 
 went instantly to them and told them plainly I feared they 
 began at the wrong end,' and silenced them so effectually that 
 * with all cheerfulness they professed they would entirely 
 conform themselves ' to his counsels. 1 
 
 When Parliament met, the Deputy took the earliest 
 
 1 Str afford Letters, i. 255.
 
 THE REIGN OF THOROUGH 245 
 
 opportunity to make the assembled members realise they were 
 only called together to endorse his commands. This oppor- 
 tunity was given to him by Cork's old antagonist Sir Vincent 
 Cooking, who had lately been publishing scathing criticisms 
 on, it would appear, everybody and everything in Ireland, 
 which remarks, the Parliament claimed, were a breach of 
 privilege ; but as the Deputy did not like to hear the word 
 c privilege,' and objected to their moving in the matter, 
 the houses meekly submitted, * praying his Lordship to take 
 his punishment unto his own guidance.' And the Cooking 
 cause was quickly forgotten in one of more interest to the 
 Deputy. 
 
 The Lords, Judges, and Commissioners were commanded 
 to attend in Castle Chamber, as they imagined to consider 
 Sir Vincent's case, when suddenly the Deputy turned on Lord 
 Cork, violently reproving him for not having sent in to him 
 certain deeds which he desired to see concerning the royal 
 grants of Youghal. By good fortune the Earl had the deeds 
 with him in a box and could exhibit them, but ' so,' he writes, 
 ' without any other motion it began and ended in me, and so 
 the council rose and I came home in my own and not in my 
 Lord Deputy's coach, into which I was invited and rode with 
 his Lordship to court' ; and, so far as Lord Cork's diary goes, 
 that was the end of the Cooking case. His own troubles 
 came on him too fast to allow him leisure to blame or pity 
 Sir Vincent, whom we never hear of again. 
 
 Parliament had, of course, only been called together in 
 order to vote funds for carrying on the affairs of the country. 
 The Lord Deputy asked for six subsidies, as those already 
 granted only provided for the current year 1634. To preserve 
 the form of consulting the council, five lords were summoned 
 to attend the Deputy ; Lord Cork relates, ' We, not knowing
 
 246 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 beforehand what we were sent for, the Earl of Fingal moved 
 to know if it were his Lordship's pleasure to have it communi- 
 cated to the Lords of the House, which was denied, or for 
 the Lords to have any meeting about it.' Lord Cork's share 
 of the subsidy thus imposed on the country was estimated 
 at 3600, which he protested was grossly overrating his 
 property. He was merely answered that when the rating had 
 been in his hands, he had underrated himself and his towns, 
 and the contribution must be paid. The account given of 
 the rating by Cork's supporters is that, when the Justices 
 took over the government from Lord Falkland, they had 
 * found the country generally exhausted and very poor, 
 occasioned by the levies of heavy taxes, the mortality of 
 cattle, scarcity of corn, and decay of trade. Most of the new 
 corporations in Munster were almost depopulated, particularly 
 Dingle, Tralee, Baltimore, Tallagh, Bandon, Ardfert, Lismore, 
 Cloghnakilty, Askeaton, and Dungarvan ; who, on the change 
 of government, sent up petitions to be eased of those taxes ; 
 setting forth that there were fifty-three corporations in the 
 other provinces that only paid with the country at large ; 
 upon which the council ordered that they should not, for the 
 future, pay more than rateably for what lands they had in 
 their liberties ; and the rather because the charge of the 
 country was, by the Earl of Cork's means, reduced from 
 40,000 to 20,000 a year, which was both a great ease to 
 the kingdom, and was also found sufficient to support the 
 army three years till Easter 1633 ; but when, in July follow- 
 ing, Lord Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford, came to 
 the government, he moved the Lords to give their consent, 
 and to signify the same by their letters through the kingdom, 
 that 20,000 might be raised to maintain the forces for 
 another year, to begin in January 1633, which the kingdom
 
 THE REIGN OF THOROUGH 247 
 
 consented to, the new corporations of Munster paying as 
 before only a fair proportion.' l 
 
 But when that proportion was paid, the Deputy, on his 
 own warrant, ordered the President of Munster to levy 
 ^1000 more on these towns, upon which Tallow ventured to 
 petition against the 144, i8s. which was laid on it in 
 addition to what it had already paid. The answer to the 
 petition was prompt. The Deputy quartered his troops on the 
 town till the principal citizens entered into bonds for the 
 payment of the assessment, and not till then were the horse- 
 men withdrawn ! The contribution demanded from Cork's 
 private property was only paid off by degrees, and it was 
 not till May 1638 that he wrote, 'The whole ^3000 which 
 the Lord Deputy (God never forgive his good Lordship) 
 taxed me withal, is fully satisfied and paid.' 
 
 1 Smith, ii. 61-62.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 MY LORD DUNGARVAN 
 
 * About me leaped and laughed 
 The modish Cupid of the day 
 And shrilled his tinsel shaft.' 
 
 The Talking Oak. 
 
 THE tension between Lord Cork and the Deputy was rather 
 increased than lessened by the treaty set on foot by Wentworth 
 for a marriage between Lord Cork's heir and his own niece, 
 Elizabeth Clifford, granddaughter and, with her sister, co-heir 
 to the old Earl of Cumberland. Her mother was a Cecil, 
 sister of the second Earl of Salisbury, so the match was as fine 
 a one as Lord Cork's heart could desire. 
 
 Whether Wentworth had taken a liking to young 
 Dungarvan, or merely considered him a good match, is not 
 very clear ; but when first proposed, Cork certainly took the 
 offer as a compliment, and a good omen for his future relations 
 with the new Deputy. 
 
 Young Dungarvan had spent a couple of years at Oxford, 
 but there he had grown very homesick, and begged his father 
 pitifully to let him leave, urging, * Good my Lord, I have a 
 longing desire to see you ! ' Dungarvan's petition was granted, 
 and he returned to Ireland in 1630, in time to be present at 
 his sister Joan's marriage to Lord Kildare ; and once at home, 
 his father seemed unable to part with him, and there was no 
 thought of his returning to Oxford. He fell into his natural 
 
 248
 
 Svj,*-,- 
 
 //I ir//ii /'tf . I /'.)<<>// /i / ./ t/t/i/i'/'i 'f /I 
 
 ,,//< );,>, /.I 
 (',,,/,/ /',,'/,,,,/. '/'l,l ,'/,',,,//<:,, .
 
 MY LORD DUNGARVAN 249 
 
 place at Lord Cork's side, riding with him to races and 
 assizes, and, save for a little extravagance in tailors' bills, 
 'Dick' seems to have been a model son. He had not the 
 brilliancy of his younger brothers Roger and Robert, but he 
 was a sensible, gallant young fellow, and no doubt had more 
 fun in him than he let appear in his letters to his father. 
 
 Just as the old Earl was congratulating himself on the 
 prospect of the Clifford alliance, he was much taken aback 
 when the King himself condescended to express a wish that 
 Dungarvan should offer himself to Lady Anne Fielding, a 
 maid of honour, and ' niece to our late servant the Duke of 
 Buckingham.' Lord Cork in a great hurry sent off his son to 
 England, under charge of his Swiss tutor Mr. Frey, to do his 
 best to slip out of the Fielding marriage and conclude the 
 Clifford match. 
 
 Dungarvan's accbunt of his interview with King Charles is 
 interesting. The Lord Holland who introduced him at court 
 was the son of that Deputy Mount] oy who had aided Carew 
 to pacify Ireland in the days when Boyle was but the clerk to 
 the Munster Council. 
 
 'July 16, 1632. LONDON. 
 
 * MY MOST HONOURED LoRDAND FATHER, What Our 
 
 proceedings were at York in my letter by Turlogh I fully 
 related unto you. Now I will give your Lordship an account 
 of my actions since my coming hither. The eighth of this 
 month we arrived here late, the ninth we rested ourselves all 
 day, and the tenth we went to Greenwich to wait upon the 
 King, but he being come to St. James', my Lord Ranelagh 
 and I followed him thither. 
 
 * As soon as I came to court I made my addresses to my 
 Lord Holland, and desired him to do me the favour as to
 
 250 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 bring me to kiss the King's hand ; he immediately went down 
 unto chapel where the King then sat to have his picture drawn, 
 and brought him up to where we were. As soon as I saw him 
 coming I fell on my knee, and the King [reached] his hand 
 and gave it me to kiss. After I was risen he called my Lord 
 Ranelagh into the gallery, and there discoursed with him a 
 quarter of an hour. What it was I leave to his own relation, 
 who I am sure will give you a perfect account of it, but the 
 King having ended with him called for me, and when I came 
 to him told me he had written a letter to your Lordship, 
 wherein he propounded a marriage between my Lady of 
 Denbigh's daughter and me, and desired that your Lordship 
 would understand him the right way it was meant, and believe 
 the letter was neither procured by importunity of friends nor 
 as a common letter, but his own well wishes to both your 
 Lordship and my Lady Denbigh's family made him first 
 make the proposition ; whereof he never received from your 
 Lordship an answer. I answered his Majesty that your Lord- 
 ship thought you could give him no greater testimony of your 
 obedience to his commands than in sending me over to attend 
 his will and pleasure. The King seemed with that very well 
 satisfied, and then told me he heard there was some engage- 
 ment between Mrs. Clifford and me, and therefore desired to 
 hear from me the truth of my proceedings there. I then 
 informed his Majesty that you received from the Lord Deputy 
 a proposition touching Mrs. Clifford which you declared unto 
 me, and advised me if it lay in my way to go and view her, 
 but commanded me strictly not to engage myself till I had 
 waited upon your Majesty and received your commands. 
 Then when I came into Yorkshire my Lord Clifford invited 
 me to his house, when I saw his daughter and presented my 
 humble services to her, but from all engagements I assured
 
 MY LORD DUNGARVAN 251 
 
 his Majesty I was free, and would be until I had satisfied him. 
 Then the King told me, for to urge my affections was against 
 his disposition and a way he never meant to use with any of 
 his subjects, much less with any of your children, he having 
 found your Lordship so faithful and honest a servant unto 
 him, but he desired I would rather match into that family 
 than any, it being the family which above all others he did 
 esteem and love. I answered his Majesty that nobody was 
 more a servant to that family than your Lordship, and for my 
 part I had the greatest desire to match there of any place till 
 my misfortunes made me vow the contrary. Then I told his 
 Majesty that about seven years since there was a proposition 
 of a marriage between Mrs. Anne Villiers and me, that I had 
 seen her and liked her as well as it were possible for one of 
 my age to like a woman, and that after this, the match was 
 between our parents broken off, and when I saw she was dis- 
 posed of another way, I made a vow unto myself that since 
 my misfortune was so great as to miss her, I would never 
 marry any of that family. This answer I think satisfied the 
 King more than any, as my Lord of Holland afterwards told 
 me. And then the King said : " My Lord, conclude upon 
 nothing suddenly, lay your hand upon your heart and give 
 me an answer as your affection moves you ; this much I will 
 assure you, whether you like or dislike the lady I will never 
 think the worse of you " ; and thereupon the King departed. 
 My Lord, I vow unto you I never saw a man express himself 
 more sweetly and nobly than the King did in this business. 
 On Wednesday I will attend the King at Oatlands and there 
 give him my answer, and desire leave of him to travel. I 
 hope to set forward on this day sennight. What answer the 
 King shall make I will write unto your Lordship, and then 
 advertise you of many passages here. I pray, my Lord, if I
 
 252 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 fail in any part of my relation to you, let me know of it and 
 I will mend it in my next letter.' l 
 
 It may perhaps be remembered that when Dungarvan was 
 a boy of thirteen -there had been talk of marrying him to one 
 of Sir Edward Villiers's daughters, a first cousin of the proposed 
 Denbigh bride. The King had truly good reason to assert he 
 would not force any one's affections, for the eldest daughter of 
 Lord Denbigh was now dying broken-hearted, the victim of 
 a loveless match made by royal command ; but the whole inter- 
 view gives an idea of a pleasanter, more cordial manner than 
 many reports credit to Charles the First. 
 
 Dungarvan's difficulties were not yet at an end. No 
 sooner had he won permission from the King to decline 
 one young lady than he found the other slipping out of 
 his fingers. Like a thunderbolt came a letter from Lord 
 Clifford, saying he heard rumours that the negotiations for 
 his daughter's hand were merely a bait held out by Lord Cork 
 to propitiate Wentworth, and were not entered into in earnest. 
 The suggestion was so dangerously plausible that only one 
 person was capable of having invented it : Dungarvan's 
 brother-in-law, George Goring, whether from idle ill-nature 
 or from sharing his wife's predilection for the Fielding match, 
 had determined to spoil Lord Cork's fine scheme of securing 
 the Clifford heiress, and he nearly succeeded in his design. 
 Lord Clifford was naturally deeply hurt by the report of 
 Lord Cork's dishonest intentions, and writing from Hatfield, 
 where he was staying with his brother-in-law, Lord Salisbury, 
 demanded an explanation. He became almost incoherent in 
 his desire to express his liking for Dungarvan without calling 
 Dungarvan's brother-in-law a liar ! 
 
 1 L. P.,\l 3. 184.
 
 MY LORD DUNGARVAN 253 
 
 ' NOBLE SIR, Since I cannot expect to see you before 
 your travels, and hold it fit (and so doth my Lord of 
 Salisbury) and most necessary to acquaint your Lordship with 
 some ill language which hath lately been repeated to my Lord 
 of Salisbury and myself by a person of no ordinary quality or 
 repute ; and your brother-in-law, Mr. Goring, was the man 
 who should say these words. . . . Mr. Goring said : " That 
 there was no such intention as to marry with my daughter ; it 
 was true that there was such a treaty which should be kept on 
 foot till your return, which was not like to be a good while, 
 and in the meantime my Lord of Cork would work his ends 
 upon my Lord Deputy, and for yourself (my Lord Dungarvan) 
 that upon the sight of my daughter you should say you never 
 liked a woman worse." My Lord, I am confident of your 
 nobleness that you never said this, but my Lord of Salisbury, 
 who is not so well acquainted with you, and his niece as near 
 to him in affection as in blood, and knowing the party that 
 told us this to be so worthy, as he is very confident these 
 words will be proved to Mr. Goring, but he spake them to that 
 other gentleman. ... I have engaged myself very deeply to 
 my Lord, how I think nothing can be further from your own 
 noble heart than such unworthy thoughts or words, for I hold 
 you to be a more brave cavalier than so.' l 
 
 Dungarvan naturally returned a vehement protest, of which 
 he sent a copy to his father : 
 
 ' MY NOBLE LORD, I received this morning your letter 
 which you sent on to me by Mr. Roberson your servant, 
 wherein I conceive there are some exceptions which I am 
 both in honour and honesty tied to satisfy. The first is 
 
 1 L. P.,i\. 3. 187.
 
 254 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 that I should speak slightly of Mrs. Clifford, your daughter, 
 and say that I never liked a woman worse in all my life. 
 This, my Lord, I protest to God is the falsest report that 
 ever was raised of any man, for as I profest myself a servant 
 unto her since I first had the honour to see her, so I do 
 continue constant in the same resolution, and in my opinion 
 my behaviour at court is a sufficient confirmation of it. 
 
 ' The second is that we meant to keep this proposition 
 afoot till my father could work his ends upon my Lord 
 Deputy. My Lord, as of the one side I am confident my 
 Lord Deputy will no way oppress my father, so of the other 
 I am certain my Lord will no way trouble his Lordship with 
 any unjust suits or demands, and therefore I shall beseech 
 your Lordship to say unto my Lord of Salisbury that my 
 Lord did neither at first entertain, nor doth now continue 
 this proposition out of any unworthy respect. What may 
 have passed from my brother Goring I conceive I am not 
 answerable for ; this much I may perhaps have said unto 
 him, as I have done to the King and others, that as I am a 
 free man from anything that may be called a contract, so my 
 resolution is not to marry till my return from my travels, 
 and that your Lordship knows always to have been my 
 resolution. 
 
 f Now, my Lord, that I have thus freely and ingenuously 
 exprest myself to give satisfaction, let me entreat you to 
 answer for my Father and myself that we are free from any 
 mean and unworthy thoughts, and for myself let me assure 
 your Lordship you shall always find me your humble servant, 
 
 ' DUNGARVAN.' l 
 
 The position was so exceedingly delicate that it is impos- 
 
 1 L. P., ii. 3. 189.
 
 MY LORD DUNGARVAN 255 
 
 sible for an ordinary mind to comprehend in what relation 
 Dungarvan stood to Lady Elizabeth, and his letter to the 
 young lady herself is equally cautious : 
 
 * SWEET MISTRESS, The honour which I received by the 
 admittance into your service hath made me thus ambitious to 
 express the happiness which by your company I enjoyed, as 
 now I do lament the loss of it by my necessary stay abroad 
 during my travels. Nothing can recompense that distance 
 but your good opinion of him that truly serves you and 
 undertakes this journey to make himself worthy of the title 
 which he desires to enjoy, by continuing, Madame, your 
 Ladyship's most humble and affectionate servant, 
 
 ' DUNGARVAN. 
 
 'LONDON the lyth August, 1632.' l 
 
 Dungar van's gentlemanlike letter appears to have satisfied 
 both the heiress and Lord Clifford, but the young man must 
 have drawn freer breath when he was safe in Flanders, out of 
 reach of kings, brothers-in-law, and irate parents ! 
 
 These little differences of opinion between the principals 
 and their parents, however, made not the least difference to the 
 Lord Deputy, who continued unmoved to discuss settlements 
 and dictate ' articles of agreement.' Lord Clifford had 
 authorised Wentworth to act for him, and Lord Ranelagh 
 usually represented the Earl of Cork at the debates ; for 
 debates there soon arose, both long and fierce. The agree- 
 ment between such high contracting parties was not likely to 
 be concluded in a hurry, and when the question developed 
 into a duel between Cork and Wentworth, the negotiations, 
 the meetings, and the letters became elaborate enough to 
 conclude a treaty of Utrecht or to draft a Petition of Rights, 
 
 1 L. P., ii. 3. 190.
 
 256 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 till Laud himself warned the Deputy that he was accused by 
 many of demolishing Lord Cork's tomb in St. Patrick's out 
 of revenge for the difficulties put in the way of Mrs. Clifford's 
 marriage. 1 There really seemed danger of a final breach when 
 Lord Clifford, who seems always to have been a peaceable, 
 sensible person, suggested that Dungarvan should come into 
 England to talk over the settlements quietly. 
 
 In the spring of 1634 the invitation was accepted, and 
 Garrard in his gossiping letters mentions that my Lord 
 Dungarvan was often at Lord Salisbury's, and very hot upon 
 his marriage with Mrs. Clifford. The atmosphere of England 
 was less electric than that of Dublin, and Dungarvan and 
 Lord Clifford found little difficulty in coming to an agree- 
 ment. Yet still the lawyers were kept hard at work, and 
 messengers were posting between Dublin and Cumberland 
 and Cork ; and it was not till the ist of July 1634 that 
 Dungarvan received the hand of his mistress in the chapel 
 of Skipton Castle, and Sir John Leeke carried back the first 
 dutiful greeting from the bride to her father-in-law. Dun- 
 garvan was twenty-two and Lady Dungarvan just of age. 
 
 When they arrived, two months later, in Dublin, she was 
 received with great affection by her father-in-law, who pre- 
 sented her with a cupboard of gold plate that glittered on 
 Lord Falkland's sideboard when he was Deputy, and had 
 been bought by Lord Cork for 2.02. 
 
 The Earl had provided a house in Dublin for his son, but 
 for a while the young people seem to have stayed with him, 
 and it was to Lord Cork's house that the Deputy came to 
 visit his niece and welcome her to Ireland. 
 
 Rich, young, feted and beloved, Lady Dungarvan might 
 seem to be a favourite of fortune, and yet her position in her 
 
 1 Sir afford Letters, i. 211.
 
 // <"/ . '~l ir/KI > - r/ f '//// ^'/ ( '/// />>!// /) II >- 
 
 /
 
 MY LORD DUNG ARYAN 257 
 
 new home was not an easy one to fill. Her uncle the 
 Deputy was now at open war with Lord Cork, and as he 
 was warmly attached to his niece, meetings between the war- 
 ring dignitaries were inevitable, and the decencies of social 
 usages could not prevent skirmishes from taking place even 
 in my Lady Dungarvan's parlour. Dungarvan naturally sided 
 with his father, but he was shrewd enough to see the hopeless- 
 ness of a contest with the despotic ruler of Ireland, and did all 
 he could to moderate the old man's vehemence. Lord Clifford 
 was naturally anxious to pour oil on troubled waters, and sent 
 much prudent counsel to Lord Dungarvan, and wrote wise 
 and peaceable letters to both the Earl of Cork and the Deputy, 
 which letters shared the usual fate of unasked advice and were 
 civilly neglected. 
 
 Lady Clifford wrote a few lines of thankfulness to Lord 
 Cork for ' your care and love to Bess,' and in his answer he 
 could not refrain from touching on the troubles that were 
 besetting him. It may be noticed that the quaint fashion of 
 those days was not only to drink to the health of a friend, 
 but to ' eat to the noble family.' 
 
 Lord Cork's letter, he says, is intended to give * some 
 acompt of our daughter and myself; 'for her ladyship, she 
 looks, and likes Ireland, very well, and every day more than 
 other her virtues and goodness attract unto her the affections 
 and respect of the best sort of people, and from her husband, 
 and me her father-in-law, most of all. Now the Parliament 
 is adjourned, we intend, God willing, to-morrow morning to 
 begin our journey towards my country house of Lismore, from 
 whence I have been absent almost seven years, and there, God 
 willing, we intend to keep a merry Christmas amongst our 
 neighbours, and to eat to the noble family at Skipton in fat 
 does and carps, and to drink your health in the best wine we 
 
 R
 
 258 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 can get, hoping at the spring to welcome your ladyship and 
 your noble lord both here and there, and the sooner ye both 
 come the more shall you endear you unto us. In the mean- 
 time I can only not without some resentment let your ladyship 
 know that for a pretended business of thirty years old I am 
 sharply pursued in his Majesty's Court of Star Chamber, 
 wherein neither mediation nor letter of any subject can work 
 me any pacification. God's providence which never failed 
 me, and my own innocence, only must deliver me. ... I wish 
 this attempt had been made upon me more seasonably than at 
 your daughter and her friends' first arrival.' 
 
 Lismore had been left so long unvisited by its lord, that 
 great preparations had been needed for this Christmas gather- 
 ing. Lord Dungarvan, when he came from England, had 
 been commissioned to bring new furniture and linen, all of 
 which was methodically entered in Lord Cork's book of plate 
 and household stuff. Two pair of large sheets and four 
 'pillow beers' cost the astonishing sum of ^32, 45., and the 
 bedstead and chairs for the chamber of the guest, Lord 
 Strange, were newly decorated with scarlet cloth and silver 
 lace. 
 
 The journey to Munster was an adventurous one, for in 
 the Four-mile Water, between Clonmel and Lismore, the 
 coach was overthrown, and not only were the horses in danger 
 of drowning, but the youngest of the party, little Robin 
 Boyle, was rescued with difficulty by one of the mounted 
 servants. However, no lives were lost, the coach and horses 
 were extricated, and the whole party arrived safe at Lismore, 
 after a progress that had taken four days and cost twenty-four 
 pounds. 
 
 Sir Randall and Lady Clayton came from Cork to join in 
 the festivities, bringing with them the Earl's two youngest
 
 MY LORD DUNG ARYAN 259 
 
 daughters, Mary and the baby Peggy. Christmas Day was 
 spent at Lismore, but the New Year was welcomed in at 
 Castle Lyons, where Lord Barrymore ' feasted the family for 
 two days.' Lord Cork, as usual, wrote in his diary a list of 
 the New Year's presents : he gave ' to my daughter Barry- 
 more her mother's purple cut velvet gown with those things 
 that belongeth thereto, to wear for her good mother's sake.' 
 Sir Randall Clayton had brought with him to Lismore a large 
 fair pearl that had been found in Bandon River by a poor 
 woman who had sold it in Cork for two and fourpence in 
 beer and tobacco. The buyer bartered it for two cows ; it 
 was next sold to a merchant for twelve pounds, and the Earl's 
 goldsmith cousin, Mr. Bardsley or Barsie, who was now living 
 in Bandon, counselled Sir Randall to buy it for the Earl for 
 thirty pounds. Lord Cork agreed to take it, and presented 
 it to Lady Dungarvan for a New Year's gift, and soon after 
 gave her twenty-five more large Bandon pearls, and about a 
 hundred and fifteen little ones, paying Mr. Bardsley thirty-five 
 pounds for the set. It is curious to think of green Ireland 
 being chiefly famed for its gold and pearls ; but records come 
 of pearls found in almost every stream, the Dingle pearls 
 being especially famed for their beauty. 
 
 It may be hoped that Lady Dungarvan proved the truth 
 of the old proverb, and was lucky in love. She certainly was 
 very unlucky at cards, and Lord Cork had to go into partner- 
 ship with her that Christmas to save her from bankruptcy. 
 He notes the terms of their agreement with due seriousness : 
 * My daughter Dungarvan having this Christmas lost ^40 at 
 play and being drained of money, I supplied her with twenty 
 pieces, and she to play them, and if she lost them, she to add 
 other twenty pieces of her own, and the loss again to be 
 equally divided till more be gotten, or that lost by her at play.'
 
 260 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 The heiress was in no ways a very economical lady, and 
 Dungarvan did not set her an example of thrift. It was not 
 long before his father had to pay a tailor's bill for him that 
 amounted to ^1000 for two years' dress. His allowance 
 from his father seems to have been ,1500, not a very large 
 amount considering the society in which he moved ; but there 
 is no mention of what fortune Lady Dungarvan brought with 
 her, which may have increased their income considerably. 
 But in 1635 Lord Cork had once again to have a serious 
 settlement of accounts with his son, and once again paid ^800 
 of debts, and lent him ^3000 to be repaid as a portion to his 
 little sister Margaret when she married. 
 
 Soon after, Lord Cork turned his thoughts to the final 
 division of his lands, settling a due portion of his estates upon 
 each of his sons. Unfortunately he could not do this without 
 reopening all the burning questions that had almost wrecked 
 Dungarvan's hopes of marriage. The Earl very naturally 
 wished the most important part of his property to go with 
 his title, and therefore entailed it strictly upon male heirs, 
 first to his sons, then nephews and other heirs-male of his 
 father, and only failing any male representatives of the Boyles 
 would Lord Dungarvan's daughters have a claim. 1 
 
 The Deputy, who looked on Lady Dungarvan's affairs as his 
 own, interfered in a very peremptory manner, being resolved 
 that the daughters of the Clifford heiress should have as fair 
 an inheritance as their mother had had. So the next day 
 Lord Ranelagh and Chief Justice Lowther were hurried off by 
 Lord Cork to discover ' how to give content to the displeased 
 Lord Deputy and his great favourite Sir George Ratcliffe ' ; 
 and not till there had been many meetings and endless debates 
 did the Deputy consent that the lands should pass to male 
 
 1 See Appendix II., Septpartite Indenture.
 
 
 MY LORD DUNG ARYAN 261 
 
 heirs, on condition that if Dungarvan died without leaving a 
 son, his eldest daughter should have ten thousand pounds 
 and the younger ones five thousand each, with a hundred a 
 year for maintenance during minority. 
 
 Dungarvan's eldest daughter, 'little Frank,' was born in 
 Lord Cork's house in Dublin in 1636, and when three 
 months old was established with her nurse and three women 
 servants in her own house at Trim. The second daughter 
 was born in England in October 1637, and christened by the 
 curious name of Catherine Verge, which can only be inter- 
 preted as ' Catherine Virgin and Martyr.' Possibly the baby 
 was not expected to support the whole title, but the note was 
 put in the grandfather's diary to remind him the name was not 
 borrowed from his dear dead wife or Katharine Jones, but, as 
 was fitting in the days of Laud, was that of a real saint whose 
 name was set in the Church calendar. 
 
 Little Catherine died two years after at Lord Salisbury's 
 house in London, but Frank grew up and eventually was 
 married to the Earl of Roscommon. But she did not inherit 
 the ten thousand pounds after all, for an heir to the united 
 glories of Boyle and Clifford was born at the Savoy in 
 November 1639. His proud grandfather 'bestowed a hundred 
 pounds on the christening banquet, to which the Queen and 
 great ladies of the court came.' The ceremony of baptism 
 was performed in the chapel of the Savoy, ' the King's 
 Majesty having promised to be present, and honoured the 
 child with his name of Charles.'
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL 
 16331638 
 
 * The toad beneath the harrow knows 
 Exactly where each tooth-point goes. 
 The butterfly upon the road 
 Preaches contentment to the toad.' 
 
 KIPLING. 
 
 IT has been said that the greatest of tragedies is a quarrel in 
 which both sides are right. Cork and Wentworth had each 
 good reason to believe his own side to be right, only their 
 standards and ideals of right were so completely different that 
 neither could do the other justice. 
 
 Cork honestly believed himself to be a pillar of the Church 
 in Ireland. His services to it were notorious, and his praise 
 was in the mouth of both archbishops. Wentworth and Laud 
 held him to be a robber of churches, an oppressor of the 
 clergy, and more or less of a hypocrite. 
 
 Bishop Bramhall was sent over by Laud to assist the new 
 Deputy in putting the Irish Church to rights, and was not 
 long in calling Wentworth's attention to the large number of 
 Church leases and livings that had come into the Earl of Cork's 
 hands. Wentworth eagerly took up the matter, and he and 
 Laud were never weary of elaborating jokes on the drastic 
 treatment they were preparing for the Earl of Cork. The 
 Archbishop wrote in 1633 to the Deputy : 
 
 262
 
 THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL 263 
 
 ' MY LORD, I did not take you to be so good a physician 
 before, as I see you are : for the truth is, a great many church 
 cormorants have fed so full on it that they have fallen into a 
 fever, and for that no physic better than a vomit, so it be 
 given in time ; and therefore you have taken a very judicious 
 course to administer one so easily to my Lord of Cork. Go 
 on, my Lord, I must needs say this is thorough indeed. . . . 
 
 ' Now for your question, what my Lord of Cork will say ? 
 I cannot tell : but sure I am so many of the Fraternity as 
 think it Popery to set the communion table at the end of the 
 chancel and for the Prebends to come in their formalities l to 
 church are either ignorant or factious fools. But I warrant 
 you the poor Vicar thinks very well of you, and so doth the 
 King, to whom I have told what physic you have given the 
 Earl of Cork.' 
 
 It may be remarked, in passing, that it is little wonder 
 that the old-fashioned churchmen, whom Laud contemptu- 
 ously called a fraternity of Puritans, were startled at some of 
 the innovations introduced by the new Church rulers in Ire- 
 land, for Lord Cork wrote in his diary for May 1635 : 'This 
 day being Whitsunday, in Christchurch, the Dean thereof 
 administered the Sacrament to the Lord Deputy. The Dean 
 kneeling down on his knees all the time he was speaking the 
 words both at the delivery first of the sacramental bread, so 
 likewise of the wine.' 2 
 
 The Archbishop and the Deputy might jest over their 
 onslaught on the Earl of Cork's Church lands, but they soon 
 found he was no easy man to deal with. He fought tena- 
 
 1 Official dress. 
 
 2 In the following century we are told that the nonjuring Bishop Cartwright was 
 accustomed to administer the Sacrament standing on the Lord's Day, but on week- 
 days kneeling. 'the Nonjurors, Overton, p. 366.
 
 264 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 ciously over every separate item, so that the ownership of 
 starveling vicarages, and tithes worth but a few pence, absorbed 
 an amount of time and attention that would have been pre- 
 posterous except for the principles involved. The reader need 
 not be wearied with more than a couple of examples of the 
 petty matters, which the Deputy thought worth contesting if 
 they enabled him to score a point against Cork, and which 
 the Deputy's enemies thought worth raking up when the day 
 of retribution came and StrafFord was brought to trial in 
 Westminster Hall. 
 
 One of the most fiercely contested of these cases was that 
 of one Arthur Gwyn, who had been presented by the Deputy 
 to three lapsed livings belonging to the Earl of Cork, 
 Ardfynnan, Rathronan, and Mortelstown, in Tipperary. At 
 Strafford's trial Pym described this nominee of the Deputy's 
 as 'Arthur Gwyn, who about 1634 was an undergroom to the 
 Earl of Cork in his stable : in the year after, Dr. Bramhall 
 preferred him to be a clergyman, and a parsonage and two 
 vicarages impropriate were taken from my Lord Cork and 
 given to this Arthur Gwyn ! I shall add no more patterns of 
 the clergy,' concluded Pym scornfully. 
 
 In 1635 the Earl had written in his diary that Arthur Gwyn 
 who pretended by grant from the King to be vicar of his 
 impropriate vicarage, ' preferred a forged invention and most 
 slanderous false petition against me to the Lord Deputy.' 
 The Deputy and Council had then ordered that Gwyn should 
 have possession and Cork should recover his rights, if he had 
 any, by law ; Gwyn giving his bond (' which,' Lord Cork 
 adds, ' is nothing worth ') that he would pay the damages if 
 the judge gave the case against him. At the Strafford trial, 
 Cork related that he had duly proceeded to endeavour to 
 recover his vicarage by course of law, but the Deputy had
 
 THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL 265 
 
 threatened if he did not call in his writs he would clap him 
 into Castle Chamber. ' I will not,' said he, * have my orders 
 disputed by law or lawyers.' The case finally was fought out 
 between Gwyn and a tenant to whom Cork had leased the 
 vicarage, from whom Gwyn recovered it and to whom the 
 Earl immediately made a new lease of it ! 
 
 When Strafford was asked about the case, he could at first 
 remember nothing of it ; but then, recollecting himself, he said 
 the rectory recovered to the Church from the Earl of Cork 
 was of so small and trivial value, that they knew not who to 
 get to serve the cure, and on that occasion the man (Gwyn) 
 was recommended. ' I think,' he concluded carelessly, ' thirty 
 pounds a year shall go far in his preferment.' As for the 
 interference with the Earl of Cork's writs, the Deputy had 
 done it because it was the King's command that all questions 
 of Church titles should be reserved for the decision of the 
 Council and not heard before the law-courts. 1 
 
 The case of yet another wretched vicar was brought up at 
 Straffbrd's trial. The poor man had fallen into debt and was 
 imprisoned, ' and the prison being very loathsome,' the Bishop 
 had written to beg the patron of the living, the Earl of Cork, 
 to permit him to raise money by leasing the glebe lands to a 
 tenant. Cork said he foresaw there would be trouble about 
 such a lease, and refused to have anything to say to it, till ' the 
 vicar's wife, poor woman, persuaded him to it, as an act of 
 charity.' When Wentworth came over as Deputy, he pounced 
 upon this lease, and had a bill preferred against Lord Cork in 
 Star Chamber (surely a slip of the reporter for Castle Chamber?) 
 accusing Lord Cork of having broken an Act enjoining that no 
 lease of glebe should be for longer than the acting incumbent's 
 life. Cork protested that he had never heard of such an Act, 
 
 1 Rushworth, Strafford Trial, 123 ; also Smith, i. 60.
 
 266 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 and he was certain it had never been published ; to which the 
 Deputy rejoined that Acts made by his Government should be 
 as binding as Acts passed and published by Parliament ! 
 
 The few pounds recovered for the Church by these 
 measures of the Deputy's can hardly have been worth the 
 bitterness of feeling they excited, and he had but little better 
 success in restoring the Church buildings in Ireland, than in 
 assisting the clergy who served in them. Possibly the venera- 
 tion cherished for the sites of shrines, destroyed many hundred 
 years before by the Vikings, made the sight of ' bare ruined 
 choirs ' less shocking to Anglo-Irish eyes than they were to 
 such newcomers as Wentworth and Bramhall ; certain it is, 
 that many of the finest Irish churches were in ruins then, and 
 in spite of Wentworth's zeal remain neglected ruins to-day. 
 
 Archbishop Laud was especially shocked by the reports 
 that reached him of the condition of Lismore Cathedral. It 
 appears that the building had been so completely wrecked 
 during the Desmond wars that Lord Cork had long hesitated 
 to undertake any work of restoration. However, in 1623 he 
 had paid ^23, 193. 2d. for wainscoting the part of the church 
 that was still standing, and 1 7 for making a pulpit and other 
 carved work, and breaking down the wall for windows. In 
 1627 he writes, at Lismore ' the charge of my chapel did cost 
 me ^117, 148., and this day I paid Catts the painter ^30 
 more for his work, besides stuff,' that is, building materials. 
 Then in January 1634 the Earl made larger plans and wrote, 
 * God bless my good intentions and endeavours in this work. 
 This day I resolved with the assistance of my good God to 
 reedify the ancient cathedral church of Lismore, which was 
 demolished by Edmund Fitzgibbon, called the White Knight, 
 and other traitors in the late rebellion. The chancel of which 
 church I did at my own charge rebuild, ^217, 143. 9d., and
 
 THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL 267 
 
 put a new roof covered with slates, and plastered and glazed, 
 furnishing it with ceiled pews and pulpit, and have given 
 orders to have the ruins of the body and aisles of that church 
 cleared and the same new built fair or fairer than ever it was 
 before.' 
 
 But the agitating years of Wentworth's rule left the old 
 Earl small leisure to plan the restoration of churches, and it 
 seems that little or nothing was done to carry out this pious 
 intention ; for Laud wrote to StrafFord, ' As for the building 
 of the church at Lismore I will believe it when I see it. Yet 
 this I must say, none so fit to build a new one by repentance 
 as he that pulled down the old by sacrilege.' It was enough 
 for Laud that Lismore belonged to Cork, for no mischief 
 could happen in Munster but Cork was to be considered 
 guilty of it. At any rate, he had neither time nor patience to 
 waste in measuring out praise and blame when crying evils 
 were waiting for reformation, and the Bishop of Waterford 
 and Dean and Chapter of Lismore, with all the authority 
 gained by the support of the Archbishop, made no suggestion 
 or request, but ' ordered ' that the ruins should be cleared 
 away by the Earl of Cork and a new church built in their 
 place. Some preparations were made in answer to this com- 
 mand, for the Earl noted in his diary for April 1638 that 
 he had that day begun pulling down the ruins 'with a godly 
 resolution to rebuild the cathedral church and mansions for 
 the vicars choral,' and in 1640 certain money coming from the 
 manufacture of scythes was set aside for roofing Lismore Church. 
 
 It is very probable that Lord Cork hesitated over spending 
 money at Lismore, because just then there arose a possibility 
 that Lismore might not long be his own. The chief instru- 
 ment in this assault was a kinsman of his own, Michael Boyle, 
 Bishop of Waterford. He and his brother Richard Boyle,
 
 268 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Bishop of Cork, were sons of the merchant Michael Boyle of 
 London, and owed their preferments in Ireland to their cousin 
 the Earl of Cork, who afterwards wrote bitterly enough of his 
 * unthankful kinsmen,' and when he stood godfather to Bishop 
 Richard Boyle's son, he did so ' praying he might be a better 
 man than his father.' Laud liked the Boyle bishops as little 
 as did their cousin the Earl, and as Michael of Waterford 
 unluckily came from Laud's own college, St. John's, Oxford, 
 the Deputy, who was a Cambridge Johnian, was delighted to 
 have such an excellent joke against the Archbishop, and tor- 
 mented him with hits at St. John's, Oxford, in season and out 
 of season, till Laud grew absolutely incoherent in his vehement 
 endeavours to defend his beloved college. 
 
 This little -loved Bishop Michael Boyle held the See of 
 Lismore joined with that of Waterford, and Bramhall reported 
 to Laud that the Lismore portion of the revenue was farmed 
 by the Earl of Cork, who only paid forty shillings a year to 
 the Bishop. 1 
 
 When the Desmond wars had left Lismore a heap of 
 ruins, Ralegh obtained a lease of it from the Bishop of 
 Waterford at a nominal rent, and it was sold with Ralegh's 
 other Irish possessions to Boyle. 2 In 1607, Lord Deputy 
 Chichester issued a warrant for a pardon to Boyle for all 
 alienations wherewith the manor of Lismore might be charge- 
 able, and a release and confirmation to him of all his lands, 
 pursuant to his Majesty's letters, dated Hampton Court, 
 1603. But when a new Bishop came to the See he was 
 naturally indignant at finding the church property alienated, 
 and as Ralegh was a prisoner in the Tower, Boyle, who 
 had merely bought Ralegh's rights, was, in spite of this 
 pardon, brought to book. The validity of Ralegh's lease and 
 
 1 Don. S. P. Charles /., ccxliv. 48. 2 See Appendix I.
 
 THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL 269 
 
 sale were debated in the Irish Parliament in 1614, when the 
 Bishop of Waterford's claims were, according to Lord Cork's 
 diary, ' by general clamour and consent cast out of the house.' 
 When the Ralegh grants were confirmed to Cork in 1629, the 
 Lismore Church leases were included with the rest. Cork 
 therefore held Lismore by purchase, by a grant from King 
 James in 1603, a parliamentary decision in 1614, and a fresh 
 grant sealed by the great seal of Charles the First in 1629. 
 Yet all these documents were ignored by the Deputy and 
 Archbishop ! 
 
 Unfortunately for Lord Cork, Laud, as has been said, 
 found an instrument ready to his hand. The very failings 
 of the Bishop of Waterford made him now valuable, for the 
 Archbishop knew that the mean and grasping Michael Boyle 
 would be too eager to increase his own income to feel any 
 compunction at moving against his generous kinsman the Earl 
 of Cork. 
 
 Laud wrote of him with contemptuous satisfaction : 
 ' I have known the Bishop of Waterford long, and when 
 he lived in the college he would have done anything or sold 
 any man for sixpence profit. It seems he carried the same 
 mind with him to Ireland, by which means Lismore and 
 Youghal have fared never the better by him. But since 
 Lismore was in huxter's handling before he came to Water- 
 ford, it may be, if he be handsomely wrought upon, he will 
 be brought to petition me about it, which will be an excellent 
 ground for us both to work upon. The Bishop of Waterford 
 was ever full of jests, and would at any time rather lose a 
 friend than spare it, and therefore it is no wonder if he 
 spare not the Earl his kinsman. But a passing good jest it 
 was that he brake upon him, and as like him as could be. 
 I could find it in heart to forgive him some errors if he would
 
 270 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 petition me about Lismore : but 'tis so easy a thing for the 
 Earl to keep him from it, that I shall not believe he will do it 
 till it be done, for if the Earl will feed him with a little money, 
 farewell Lismore and the petition too. . . .' 
 
 * I am sorry to speak it,' wrote the Deputy to the Arch- 
 bishop, ' but truth will out, the Bishop is a St. John's man, of 
 Oxford I mean, not Cambridge our Cambridge panniers 
 never brought such a fairing to market.' 
 
 'A St. John's man you say he is, and of Oxford,' cried 
 Laud, * and " your Cambridge panniers never brought such a 
 fairing to market " ! Yes, my good Lord, but it hath ! for 
 what say you of Dean Palmer ? who, beside his other virtues, 
 sold all the lead off his church at Peterborough, yet he was 
 brought in your Cambridge panniers ! I pray you examine 
 your Cambridge panniers again ! ' 
 
 The Bishop of Waterford fulfilled the hopes of Laud, but 
 the case was referred to arbitration and never came to open 
 trial. Bishop Bramhall and Cork's friend and kinsman Sir 
 William Parsons gave their decision in March 1638, when 
 Cork was obliged to pay down ^500 in gold, in return for 
 which the Bishop, Dean, and Chapter signed a release for 
 Lismore, Bewly, and Kilmolish, and made a sixty years' lease 
 of Kilbree and Affane at 1 2 rent. 
 
 But the recovery of certain Lismore and Ardmore leases 
 did not exhaust the serviceableness of the Bishop of Water- 
 ford. The Bishop also held the sinecure position of Warden 
 of Youghal College, and as such received a twentieth part of 
 its revenue. If he could be induced to disavow the agree- 
 ment entered into by the Earl of Cork when he obtained new 
 letters patent, and doubled the stipends of the warden and 
 fellows, there would be no choice but to condemn the great 
 Earl for fraud !
 
 THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL 271 
 
 The news of this tremendous charge against the Earl of 
 Cork was naturally a shock to all his friends. It was bad 
 enough that the grave and reverend seignor should be charged 
 with fraud ; but further, if the 'omnipotent Deputy' gained 
 the case and confiscated all the Youghal estates that Cork had 
 bought from Ralegh and Carew, the old man would be half 
 ruined. He was already hard enough hit by the subsidies that 
 had been laid on him, and the large settlement Wentworth 
 had obliged him to make on his own niece, Dungarvan's 
 bride. 
 
 Lord Clifford, the father of young Lady Dungarvan, 
 endeavoured to persuade Lord Cork, and himself, that the 
 Deputy was really a most benevolent person, who would ' do 
 nothing in your contrary but very unwillingly and upon con- 
 straint.' His warm-hearted lady did not pick her words so 
 carefully, and gave full sympathy to the father-in-law who 
 was so good to her Bess. She wrote in December 1635, 
 regretting that she could do so little : 
 
 ' I cannot tell what to think truly, but do plainly wish 
 your Lordship might have your desire, and if I were with my 
 Lord Deputy I should say so much to him, and do mean yet, 
 if I may have the least word from your Lordship, to try my 
 Lord Deputy in three or four lines, if I may do you service 
 at all.' l 
 
 The curious part of the matter is that Wentworth wrote 
 to Laud, from whom he had no secrets, that he never in all 
 his life undertook any business so much against his private 
 affections, and were it possible to conceal this business and 
 yet preserve those duties he owed to God, and the faith and 
 integrity which he must exercise towards his master, he would 
 gladly have done so. 2 Perhaps Lady Clifford's ' few lines ' 
 
 1 L. P., ii. 3. 236. 2 Strafford Letters, i. 459.
 
 272 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 had their effect in producing such an unusual display of 
 soft-heartedness from Wentworth, or possibly Lord and 
 Lady Dungarvan had been doing what they could to soften 
 him. But what Lord Clifford did not know, and Cork did 
 not know, was the true reason for the Deputy's attack on 
 Youghal. It comes out plainly in Wentworth's letter to 
 his royal master, May 1634 : l 
 
 * In that other great business concerning the Earl of Cork, 
 I have clearly set forth the state thereof in my letter to my 
 Lord's Grace of Canterbury, only I shall crave leave with some 
 assurance to deliver my opinion to your Majesty, that if in 
 your wisdom you shall think it good to entrust it with me, 
 I rest most confident out of his fine to discharge one-half 
 of the debts which press so heavily upon this crown, and 
 that with all honour and justice, without straining only one 
 point further than the merits of the cause will carry it ; 
 but then I must crave your Majesty would ground a full 
 resolution not to take it out of the hands of your justice 
 for any solicitation of himself or friends, which doubtless, 
 when he findeth himself pinched, will be very importunate 
 and instant.' 
 
 This letter makes credible Cork's report of a conversation 
 he had with the Deputy at the end of the struggle, which 
 otherwise we should have been tempted to believe was a cob- 
 web spun out of an angry old man's brain. ' I prayed him to 
 consider,' says Cork, f whether in justice he could impose so 
 great a fine upon me. Whereunto he replied, " God's 
 wounds, Sir ! When the last parliament in England brake 
 up, you lent the King fifteen thousand pounds, and afterwards 
 in a very uncivil, unmannerly manner you pressed his Majesty 
 to repay it you. Whereupon I resolved, before I came out 
 
 1 Straff or d Letters, \. 257.
 
 THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL 273 
 
 of England, to fetch it back again from you, by one means or 
 other. And now I have gotten what I desired, you and I will 
 be friends hereafter." ' l 
 
 Wentworth was nothing if not plain-spoken. He was 
 indeed too proud to deceive others, and too clear-sighted to 
 deceive himself. Laud might desire to enrich the Church, 
 Charles might even persuade himself that Cork deserved 
 punishment for sacrilege ; Wentworth's one object was to 
 serve the King. The tithes and the presentations to some few 
 livings, a small matter of some six or seven hundred a year, 
 which he wrested from Cork, certainly did go to enrich the 
 Church, but a string of parsonages, rectories, and churches, 
 settled on Dungarvan, were untouched ; the College House at 
 Youghal, whose ownership has blackened Cork's name with 
 the ban of sacrilege for two centuries, having been settled on 
 the Deputy's niece as a dower-house, was never restored to the 
 Church, and the vast fines with which Cork bought his estates 
 a second time over went to fill the royal purse, not to feed 
 the starving clergy. 
 
 It was fortunate for Lord Cork that he had all the College 
 deeds in his own hands, and was able to deposit before the 
 court the original founder's deed given by the Earl of Des- 
 mond in 1464, and bulls from many Popes to the Chapter, 
 as well as the royal grants, and the agreement as to the lease 
 entered into by the Bishop of Cork and the Warden and 
 Collegioners of Youghal on the one hand, and Sir Richard 
 Boyle and Sir Laurence Parsons on the other, in 1605. 
 Many of the deeds, Lord Cork relates, were so old as to be 
 almost rent in two. 
 
 The Attorney-General's first bill charged the Earl of Cork 
 with obtaining Church lands and tithes by unlawful oaths and 
 
 i L. P., ii. 3. 257. 
 
 s
 
 274 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 other inducements, with keeping men of straw as fellows of 
 the College at Youghal, and sometimes even failing to fill up 
 vacant fellowships ; he was further charged with having kept 
 and used the College seal for his own ends and refused to 
 return it to the fellows, and virtually of having himself sealed 
 the transfer of the College to himself ! Later on another 
 charge was added, as Laud doubted whether any lease of the 
 College to a layman could be valid. So far as the College 
 seal was in question, it does not seem surprising that when the 
 College documents and deeds were left with the Earl, he 
 should also have had the seal. He replied to this charge that 
 at the time the fellows asked him for it he was at some 
 distance from home, and did not choose to send it by a 
 common messenger and without a proper receipt. He entirely 
 denied that he had failed to fill up vacant fellowships, and 
 asserted that the churches in the gift of the College had all 
 been repaired during his occupancy, and better supplied with 
 ministers than they had ever been before. 1 He acknowledged 
 that he had used the College as his dwelling-house, but it had 
 already been turned into a private residence and occupied by 
 Sir Thomas Norris, Sir George Carew, and Mr. Jones for 
 several years before he gained possession of it. 
 
 Although Wentworth's motives could be very shortly 
 stated, the action dragged on for many a month. When 
 Lord Clifford had paid a visit to Ireland, he ventured after all 
 to write to the Deputy on the Earl of Cork's behalf. Went- 
 worth admitted that he laid himself open to the charge of 
 persecuting his nearest friends ; but, he said, if he did not press 
 the charges, not only would the Church lose Youghal, but the 
 
 1 The settlements on Dungarvan included the Church property of Skull, Killi- 
 more, Myros, Cahara, Ballymodane, Temple Guillan, etc. At the same time the 
 rectories and impropriate livings of Askeating, Ballingarry, Mallow, Kilbolane, and 
 Dromlariff were settled on younger sons.
 
 THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL 275 
 
 world would believe that great people were able to escape 
 punishment. f If the Earl did not prove the consent of 
 Warden and fellows to the grant of fee farm now in question, 
 then I judge it of absolute necessity the cause should proceed 
 to an open censure of justice,' that is, the Earl should be 
 indicted for either fraud or forgery. If, on the other hand, 
 continued Wentworth, Cork should succeed in proving that 
 the Warden and fellows were parties to the agreement, the 
 conclusion might be referred to his Majesty's goodness ; but 
 Wentworth hoped that the end would be that the Warden, 
 fellows, and choristers should be once more settled in the 
 College, his Majesty's piety making him a second founder, 
 and that the Earl should pay a fine of at least ,10,000. But, 
 he urged, one thing was all-important : the case must be 
 decided on Irish soil, under the Deputy's own authority, as it 
 ' imports his Majesty's service to preserve the credit of a 
 Deputy.' l 
 
 Important as it was for the Deputy to keep the case in 
 Ireland, it was equally important for Cork's safety that he 
 should escape to England, and lay his case directly before the 
 King. He had good friends at the English court, while in 
 Ireland he stood alone before the Deputy. 
 
 When Lord Dunluce was on his way to England in 1635, 
 he supped with Lord Cork, afterwards driving in his Lord- 
 ship's coach to the ship, and took on himself the rather 
 dangerous office of carrying letters from the Earl to the King, 
 praying leave to come over ; and answers were received the 
 following October, when the favourite servant ' Badnedge, 
 having left my two younger sons Francis and Robert Boyle 
 with Sir Henry Wotton at Eton, brought me over letters 
 from the Earls of Pembroke and Salisbury, with other letters 
 
 1 Strafford Letters, i. 459.
 
 276 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 from Mr. Secretary Windibank to the Ld. Deputy, signify- 
 ing his Majesty's pleasure that when all examinations in the 
 Star Chamber suit were taken and published, and the Lord 
 Deputy had certified the state of the cause and his opinion 
 thereon, that, then I should be licensed to carry them over 
 and present them to his Majesty and submit myself to his 
 censure.' That is to say, Wentworth was to have the odium 
 and the King the advantage. Wentworth on this wrote very 
 plainly to his Majesty complaining that Windibank's letter 
 flatly contradicted the directions sent him at exactly the same 
 time by Laud. 1 
 
 With reference to these letters it may be worth remember- 
 ing that Badnedge's accounts mention a silver ewer and bason, 
 costing ;66, i6s., presented to Mr. Secretary Windibank, 
 and ^40 to Mr. Reed, the Secretary's kinsman, to quicken 
 the despatch of the business, and also ^50 given to the Lord 
 Chamberlain's secretary. The Earl certainly did his best to 
 get him friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, but 
 once under Straffbrd's heel, neither silver ewers nor royal 
 letters had much avail. The diary goes on : 'I delivered 
 those letters to the Lord Deputy, who was very much offended 
 at me for procuring them, as if I had appealed from his justice, 
 affirming he would write to answer to his Majesty and alter 
 that direction if he could, and he would receive a new com- 
 mand from the King ere he would obey this. We discoursed 
 privately in the gallery three hours at the least, and in con- 
 clusion he promised me to forbear doing or writing any- 
 thing till his certificate was prepared after examination and 
 publication.' 
 
 Windibank's letter, one would have imagined, would have 
 pleased Lord Cork as little as it did the Deputy, for it 
 
 1 Strafford Letters, i. 477.
 
 THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL 277 
 
 described Lady Dungarvan's relations in England as acknow- 
 ledging him guilty, and merely crying for mercy and begging 
 that the matter might be hushed up for the sake of the family 
 name. Wentworth, as we shall see, had no objection to 
 hushing the matter up, so long as he could get what fine he 
 pleased out of Lord Cork ; but the old man himself, assured 
 of his own innocence, neither acknowledged himself beaten, 
 nor had any wish but to prove his case before all the world. 
 Probably the Cliffords and Salisburys, being lookers-on, saw 
 most of the game, and knew how it was being played and 
 how it would end. 
 
 The business now was to force Cork into this admission. 
 A complete history of the pressure put on him was written 
 down by Cork under the title ' The Earl of Cork's Remem- 
 brances of the ^ 1 5,000 imposed on him.' l His story opens 
 with a visit from the Lord Primate Ussher on the 23rd of April 
 1636, to ask him privately if all the papers relating to Youghal 
 had been delivered to the Attorney-General, as he had heard 
 the Deputy give direction they should be sent for ; ' and the 
 Lord Deputy,' writes Cork, ' told him that he hoped I would 
 disobey his command and not deliver up my writings, which 
 if I did not, he would that he might commit me to the Castle 
 of Dublin and not enlarge me till I had paid as great a fine 
 to his Majesty as the College of Youghal was worth ' ; but 
 fortunately the Earl's gentlemen Badnedge and Hynson had 
 already carried the papers to the Attorney-General. The 
 Archbishop further told Lord Cork that the Deputy had 
 said, ' If I would condescend to give the King thirty thousand 
 pounds, he would be my friend, and the suit in Castle Chamber 
 should be withdrawn.' 
 
 Two days later, therefore, Wentworth sent for Cork into 
 
 1 L. P., ii. 3. 247.
 
 278 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 his study, there being no one else there but his confidential 
 friends Wandesford and Ratcliffe, and proposed that the Earl 
 should appoint three friends to act for him and arrange the 
 matter privately for him, and he would then keep his promise 
 to the Lord Primate. Cork boldly answered he was resolved 
 to have a public hearing and acquittal ; ' then his Lordship 
 replied, " By God, that you shall never have." I aptly con- 
 ceiving that this meeting was not intended for any good unto 
 me, but only to gain from me the main point of my defence, 
 that he might be the better prepared against me, I told his 
 Lordship this treaty was only intended to gain a submission 
 from me.' 
 
 The Deputy then reminded the Earl that whether he were 
 proved guilty of forgery or no, there could be no question 
 that he was liable to censure for making the College authorities 
 take an oath never to trouble him. The Earl replied their 
 oath was a voluntary one, but even if it were illegal it was not 
 a matter for the decision of Castle Chamber. The Deputy 
 evidently was not ready with an answer to this bit of legal 
 acuteness, for he replied he would not discuss the matter 
 further in private and sent for Lord Ranelagh, Lowther, and 
 the Master of the Wards, to whom he made a long discourse 
 on his care to preserve the Earl ; and so having talked from 
 nine till two they really seemed able to talk the clock round ! 
 they all dined together, and his Lordship drank to the Earl 
 and showed him a great deal of respect. 
 
 Then there appears to have been a stay of proceedings for 
 a while. Perhaps this pause was made to permit Cork to pay 
 the large subsidy of ^3000 at which he was rated, before 
 making an even greater demand on his purse. 
 
 Then suddenly, in the course of a friendly visit, Wentworth 
 informed Cork that his case would be called the following
 
 THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL 279 
 
 Tuesday. On that day Lord Cork stopped the Deputy in the 
 gallery on his way into court to remind him of his promise, 
 given six months before, to grant him licence to go over to 
 England and plead his cause before the King, so that this 
 ' speedy day of hearing seemed vearie sodden and most strange 
 unto me.' On this Wentworth turned the tables by declaring 
 that if the case were brought to public hearing, it was all 
 owing to the Earl's wilfulness, who would never be advised 
 by him, Wentworth, who was the best friend he would ever 
 have. He then repeated his former offer, that the Earl 
 should depute three friends to act for him, Lord Ranelagh, 
 Sir W. Parsons, and Sir Gerard Lowther, and refer it to 
 them on one side, and to Wandesford and Ratcliffe on the 
 other, to decide whether or no the Earl were worthy of 
 censure. 
 
 So these gentlemen did meet at the Castle, and there they 
 debated from nine in the morning till two in the afternoon, 
 and came to the conclusion that Lord Cork ought to be 
 granted two days more in which to consider his position, and 
 then on the 2yth of April he attended the Lord Deputy on 
 the terrace between the two towers of the Castle, and once 
 more protested his own innocence : that he had never put a 
 seal privately to his lease of Youghal, but that the Warden, 
 fellows and patron met in the Chapter House and formally 
 sealed the deed. * I concluded,' says Lord Cork in his diary, 
 ' that as I had formerly left the marriage of my son and heir 
 at his disposal, and as my Lord Clifford had in his last letter 
 advised me to refer myself and cause to his Lordship,' and as 
 the Deputy had made so many offers and promises of favour, 
 ' I desired his Lordship to impart unto me, if I should refer 
 myself unto him, how he would deal with me.' Any hint of 
 compliance softened the Deputy, who answered graciously that
 
 280 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 it was too great a business for him singly to undergo, ' but he 
 would discuss the subject with the five gentlemen who had 
 been chosen to arbitrate.' 
 
 The Primate came the same evening to urge Lord Cork 
 not to let the case go to extremity, but the old man was 
 exceeding loth to buy his escape, besides fearing such an 
 escape would be equivalent to admitting his guilt and desire to 
 avoid a public trial. However, the Archbishop was not the 
 only friend who counselled submission, and the next day, the 
 29th, Lord Cork yielded so far as to send an ambassador. 
 
 ' This day I sent my son Dungarvan to Sir George 
 Ratcliffe, and then to his Lordship ; for that I saw my danger 
 approaching and the vehemency of his Lordship's [i.e. the 
 Deputy's] protestations, first by my Lord Ranelagh, then by 
 the Lord Primate, and afterwards that night by the Lord 
 President of Munster and the Master of the Wards, and 
 therefore to pacify and satisfy his Lordship I gave my son 
 order to tender him ten thousand pounds, and if that would 
 not be by him accepted, to raise my offer rather than incense 
 his Lordship higher, to fifteen thousand pounds Irish.' 
 
 But these offers were rejected and despised ; and then 
 Dungarvan on his knees, with tears in his eyes, entreated his 
 father to yield all the Deputy required, offering either to 
 surrender all the estates settled on him at his marriage to 
 make up the sum demanded, or else to arrange that it should 
 be charged on the inheritance to come to him at his father's 
 death, but Lord Cork absolutely refused to impoverish his 
 eldest son by accepting his generous offer, and still held out. 
 Then the next day came Sir Adam Loftus and Sir Gerard 
 Lowther to join their entreaties to those of Dungarvan ; but 
 he was firm, and spent all May Day in instructing his counsel, 
 who all assured him that legally he was liable to censure for
 
 THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL 281 
 
 nothing but the oath taken by the Warden and collegioners, 
 and that, having been voluntary and a customary thing in 
 Ireland, would be no serious matter ; but if it should prove to 
 have been illegal, it was a case for ecclesiastical and for not 
 civil courts. 
 
 Then at midnight, when the lawyers were but just gone, 
 came Archbishop Ussher once more, to suggest the Earl's 
 offering 10,000 English money. ' I told to him,' writes the 
 Earl, ' though I knew my innocency as clear as the sun at 
 noonday, yet I had made as great, or greater offer by my son 
 Dungarvan, and yet it was rejected,' and further that he believed 
 many of the messengers sent him by the Deputy were only 
 meant to ensnare him. The Primate then assured him that 
 the Deputy protested that, if Lord Cork did not make a liberal 
 offer, he would the very next morning impose a judgment of 
 30,000 on him, deprive him of his office of Treasurer, and 
 clap him up into the Castle of Dublin. Yet still the old man 
 sat unmoved, and declared he was so assured of the justice of 
 his cause, that he believed God would vouchsafe him a gracious 
 delivery, which the good Lord Primate could but pray might 
 be so, and then went home. Even Cork's enemies were 
 moved with pity and endeavoured to turn his mind, though 
 most men feared to speak out in the Deputy's hearing. Next 
 morning when Lord Cork arrived at the Castle, he found his 
 old adversary the Lord Chancellor sitting on a form, who 
 called him to sit down, and said, ' My Lord, you and I knew 
 one another when we were young men, and have both been 
 long loving friends, and although of late some unkindness 
 have happened between us, yet thanks be to God neither of us 
 have drawn blood of one another. . . . And after that used 
 many reasons and arguments to bring me to a private com- 
 position rather than a public hearing. I asked his Lordship
 
 282 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 whether he had perused the pleadings and examinations ; he 
 told me he had, and overread them and weighed every word 
 in them. I desired him to let me know what he conceived 
 of them. He protested unto me that he conceived me so 
 innocent that he thought there was no cause to blame me, 
 much less to censure me. Then I told his Lordship I hoped 
 he would deliver his vote for my clearing. " Nay, by my 
 faith," quoth he, " I will not promise you that ! " I replied 
 again that if he were in my case I would clear him if my 
 conscience did assure me he were not guilty. His Lordship 
 answered that it was very necessary for me to be exceedingly 
 careful of myself, for that it was not my cause, but my judges 
 that I was to fear.' 
 
 The Master of the Wards and Sir Adam Loftus, who had 
 meantime gone with Sir George Ratcliffe into the Deputy's 
 chamber, came out after half an hour's discourse and called 
 Cork in. ' As soon as I came in, the Lord Deputy asked 
 me whether I would have peace or war. I told him I did 
 pursue peace but it flew from me. Then he replied, I have 
 offered you peace and sent many messengers unto you, but 
 you will not embrace it, and therefore I must needs enter into 
 the lists against you, and repeated the threats he had made 
 before.' 
 
 Cork replied that as the offers he had made by his son had 
 been rejected, he had made a vow never to make an offer 
 again. Then said the Deputy, ' Let the Master of the Wards 
 make an offer for you, for he knows my mind.' So at last 
 the stiff-necked old Earl consented to retire into the gallery 
 and let his friends talk the matter out ; and then Sir George 
 Ratcliffe called him in and the Deputy told him his fate : that 
 Sir William Parsons had offered on his behalf a sum of 
 ^15,000, to be paid in three instalments ; and in return the
 
 THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL 283 
 
 Deputy promised a new grant from the King of the College at 
 Youghal, but the parsonage and tithes of the College were 
 to remain at the King's disposal. 
 
 Cork always asserted that he had only maintained this 
 long struggle for the sake of his good name. So far as the 
 mere money was concerned he paid it willingly, as it was to 
 go to his gracious master the King, for whose service he 
 would gladly sacrifice life and estate, but he was assured if the 
 King only knew how unjust this proceeding was, he would 
 never take one penny thereof; he prayed God forgive the 
 Deputy and his counsellor Ratcliffe, but the chief blame he 
 always laid on * the perfidious Lord Bishop of Cork, my faith- 
 less and unthankful kinsman, whom I have raised from being 
 a poor schoolmaster at Barnet when he had but a stipend of 
 twenty pounds.' 
 
 Yet even after the ransom was agreed on, and the Deputy 
 had condescended to promise he would hereafter be friends, 
 Cork's troubles were not over. On the second of July he 
 writes, * his Lordship made a fresh assault on me, which 
 troubled me more than all the payment of money. For he, 
 being that day to take shipping into England, came unex- 
 pectedly into my house and called for me, taking me along 
 with him into my gallery, where he fell into discourse touching 
 the Lord Mountnorris, charging me that I heard the Lord 
 Mountnorris say that he made his Lordship Lord Deputy.' 
 Probably every one in Dublin had heard Mountnorris utter 
 some wild speech or other, without feeling disposed to take 
 up the cudgels on behalf of the Deputy. But Cork goes on : 
 ' Whereon, when I could not give him satisfaction, he took 
 me along with him in his coach to the Castle. And, I waiting 
 on him to his study door intending to call for my own coach to 
 be ready to wait upon him to the ship side, he called me back,
 
 284 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 and in my hearing asked Sir George RadclirFe whether all 
 things were gone a-shipboard. He answered that all things 
 were, saving that casket of writings which he knew he would 
 not trust to any other, but would carry it along with himself. 
 But, quoth Sir George, my Lord of Cork hath not yet signed 
 his petition to the King. But it must be done, saith the 
 Lord Deputy, for I cannot go without it. Then he called me 
 to sign to a parchment that was ready prepared, telling me it 
 was a petition to the King for the new granting of the College 
 of Youghal. I told his Lordship, This is the first time that 
 ever I heard thereof, and that I made no suit for any such 
 thing, and therefore desired his Lordship that I might have 
 time to consider it, and that when I had so done I would 
 subscribe it and send it after him into England. Then came 
 his gentleman usher unto him and told him he would lose the 
 benefit of the tide and passage if he did not make haste ; and 
 thereupon the trumpet sounded and every man went to horse. 
 Whereupon his Lordship standing with one leg within the 
 study door and the other without, told me if I would not 
 trust him I might read it, which I beginning to do, he took it 
 out of my hands and said Sir George RadclifFe could read it 
 better than I, for he was better acquainted with it. And so 
 Sir George in a very hasty manner read it over and desired me 
 to make haste to put my hand unto it, whereupon I being 
 surprised made some stay in subscribing ; whereupon the Lord 
 Deputy was much offended, telling me that since I had put 
 myself into his hands I must trust him. And thereupon I 
 signed it conditionally that he should send me a true copy of 
 it under his own hand when he came into England, which he 
 faithfully promised me, and then clapped the writing into his 
 cabinet. But from that day to this I could never see that, 
 nor the copy of it, neither can I remember the contents of it,
 
 THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL 285 
 
 it was so postingly read over unto me ; which hath ever since 
 disquieted me.' * 
 
 Then the fluttered and hurried old man had to get into 
 his coach and solemnly join with the whole council, Sir Adam 
 Loftus and Lord Digby, in the escort of the Lord Deputy to 
 the shore, and on the road between Dublin and Howth the 
 Deputy knighted two gentlemen, and so departed from Ireland 
 in all state. 
 
 Can anything be more dramatic than the whole story ! 
 Grey-bearded Lord Chancellor Loftus sitting on a bench in the 
 gallery, and only daring to whisper his real thoughts ; the 
 stormy Deputy, wild with the memory of Mountnorris's 
 insolence, snatching the parchment out of the fumbling hands 
 of the Earl of Cork, and pausing half in and half out of the 
 door to order the old man to set his name to a petition whose 
 contents he did not know, ' the while, far off, a summoning 
 trumpet blew.' 
 
 Lord Cork's narrative may be obscure and his style 
 involved, but the very faults of his diary make it the more 
 obviously ' a human document,' that brings back to life for 
 us the men who were making the history of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 The Deputy's stay in England was of the shortest, and the 
 27th of this June 1637, Lord Cork was summoned to appear 
 at the Castle to conclude the business with his * three feofees 
 of trust,' Sir William Parsons, Sir William Fenton, and Sir 
 John Brown, to meet ' with the wicked Bishop of Cork and 
 Mr. Rugg, who signed for Michael Boyle, the Bishop's son, 
 being new made College owner, and surrendered the College 
 of Youghal, with the house, gardens, and all the possessions 
 thereof to his Majesty ; and the Lord Deputy who had assured 
 
 1 L. P., ii. 3. 259.
 
 286 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 me that he had procured and brought out of England his 
 Majesty's letters for regranting the house and lands to me and 
 my heirs for ever,' called the secretary in the hearing of all 
 these gentlemen and ordered him to fetch the letters and 
 deliver them to the Earl of Cork, and the secretary replied 
 that he had no such letters at all ! Next morning the Deputy 
 had to admit ' the King's letters I promised your Lordship 
 are either mislaid or forgotten, but I promise your Lordship 
 on my faith and honour that if Council draw up such a 
 warrant I will transmit it to his Majesty and procure it to be 
 signed.' 
 
 The last instalment of the immense fine laid on him was 
 paid by Cork in May 1636. He notes that he sent Badnedge, 
 Donell Duff the Queen's harper, and three servants to Dublin 
 to carry it, to complete the payment of the 15,000, 'God 
 knows upon what grounds, for I do not, which the Lord 
 Deputy by his omnipotent power hath laid on me.' 
 
 But the new grant of Youghal from the King does not 
 seem to have been signed till December 1640, when the 
 Deputy is said in the diary to have once more promised he 
 would procure it. The rough draft of this much-desired 
 warrant probably exists in the shape of a formal letter from 
 the King to the Deputy, preserved among the Lismore Papers. 
 It is corrected and amended all through in Lord Cork's hand- 
 writing. 1 The letter directs that an estate in fee-simple 
 should be granted to the Earl and to the trustees of Lady 
 Dungarvan of the Earl's dwelling-house, called the New 
 College House in Youghal, and all the messuages, edifices, 
 orchards, entries, etc. etc., except the old College House, 
 which was to be reserved for a dwelling-house ' for the parson 
 or vicar that is to serve the cure of the parish church at 
 
 1 L. P., ii. 3. 271.
 
 THE HUMILIATION OF THE GREAT EARL 287 
 
 Youghal and to his successors for ever.' All this estate to be 
 held of the Castle in Dublin in free and common soccage, and 
 not in capite^ or by knight's service ; as also the village and land 
 of Ballymulcask and other lands, at reasonable rents. And a 
 full release, acquittance, and discharge to the Earl and other 
 persons who had disposed or entered into any of the rents and 
 tithes of the said College, or any of the rectories or vicarages 
 belonging to it. This, in regard of the faithful services done 
 by the Earl of Cork, and in consideration that he had paid 
 10,000 into the Exchequer, and given bonds for 5000 on 
 the 24th of June ensuing. 
 
 ' I can with truth affirm,' said Cork at Strafford's trial, 
 'that I am the worse by 40,000 for him in my personal 
 estate, and 1200 a year in my revenue. . . . He hath 
 enforced me to pay 4200 within this five years for 
 subsidies which might have ransomed me if I had been 
 prisoner with the Turks, and was more than himself and all 
 the Lords of the Council in England paid for the last subsidy 
 in England.' l 
 
 1 L. P., ii. 4. 174.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A HAVEN OF REFUGE 
 1638 
 
 ' Where vice prevails and impious men bear sway 
 The post of honour is a private station.' 
 
 ADDISON, Cato. 
 
 DURING the winter days of 1637 the old Earl sat once more 
 by his own fireside at Lismore, and there while he summed up 
 the income his children would receive from the inheritance he 
 had allotted to them, the old man's heart overflowed with 
 thankfulness, in spite of his sorrows and losses, and he wrote 
 down in his diary his gratitude for ' the large revenue where- 
 with my good and gracious God hath, without any merit or 
 desert of mine, so bountifully with his all-giving hand blessed 
 me, for which bounty of our God to me and them, the 
 Almighty make me everlastingly and truly thankful, and that 
 we may enjoy and increase them with his blessing and with 
 all happiness and prosperity as given us by his divine hand. 
 Amen. Amen. Amen.' 
 
 Lord Cork's words of thanksgiving were even more 
 solemn than were his wont, for when he wrote he was not 
 sure that he might not be taking his last survey of the riches 
 he had gathered during his long life. That winter it had 
 seemed to all that yet another broken heart would be laid 
 beneath Irish sod, and that the name of the great Earl of 
 Cork would be entered, after Clanrickard and Desmond, in
 
 A HAVEN OF REFUGE 289 
 
 the roll of those who were too proud to survive the vicissi- 
 tudes of fortune. Directly after the record of lands and of 
 gold in the diary comes the entry, ' Given Mr. Jacob Longe 
 of Kinsale, my German physician, for his plaisters and pre- 
 scriptions to stay the encrease of the dead palsy which hath 
 seized upon all the right side of my body, God help me, ^5.' 
 
 All Lord Cork's children gathered to Lismore to tend and 
 console the old man. He wrote with pleasure how ' the 
 Earl of Kildare and my daughter, with their son and heir, and 
 Sir John Browne and his lady, and Stephen Crow and his wife, 
 came to Lismore to visit me in mine infirmity.' Lady Browne 
 and Mary Crow were, it may be remembered, the daughters 
 of the Earl's beloved brother, Bishop John Boyle, while Sir 
 John Browne of Awney, the nephew of the Earl's first wife, 
 must have brought to the old man memories of her, his first 
 love, to whose generosity he had owed the beginnings of his 
 wealth and prosperity. 
 
 Mary Boyle also came over with Lady Clayton for a ten- 
 days' visit, and her father wrote that he * gave Moll ten 
 shillings and her maid ten shillings,' and with the unfailing 
 delight in his treasures, which is pathetic enough under the 
 circumstances, he also wrote that he gave to her and to Lady 
 Kildare each ' a rich Indian coverlid for a bed, all wrought 
 with needlework, being well worth a hundred pounds apiece.' 
 
 But most welcome of all to Lismore must have beerr 
 Lady Barrymore, who came, not to pay a mere visit of 
 condolence, but to remain there and be installed as mistress 
 of her father's household ; in the autumn following he wrote 
 that he was paying her 10 a week for the charge of the 
 housekeeping, besides 1 8 paid to Sir William Hull for sugar 
 and other provisions. 
 
 It was no wonder that the old Earl had broken down
 
 2 9 o LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 under the humiliation that Strafford had heaped upon him, 
 but the care of his children and his own wonderful con- 
 stitution triumphed over the paralytic seizure. He was of 
 tougher fibre than that proud Earl of Clanrickard who had 
 not survived the mortification of his defeat by the Deputy. 
 The Earl of Cork had been taught endurance by many years 
 of struggle, and in an astonishingly short time the irrepressible 
 old man was once again plunging into the life of business and 
 politics as though age and sickness had no power over him. 
 If we had no other records to tell of the Earl's recovery, 
 the housekeeping accounts speak plainly enough, for from 
 ;io a week during the enforced quiet of his invalid days 
 the household expenses sprang to ^200 a week in the year 
 1639. 
 
 Even before his illness he had realised that Ireland was 
 not large enough to hold both the great Lord Deputy and 
 the great Earl of Cork, and had sought for an English place 
 of refuge beyond the reach of Strafford's heavy hand. From 
 this time forward his thoughts were chiefly turned towards 
 the estate in Dorset which he decided to purchase from Lord 
 Castlehaven. 
 
 This estate was near Sherborne, the castle where Ralegh 
 had lived in the days of his prosperity, and that had now 
 passed into the hands of that wise Lord Bristol who had 
 been Ambassador at Madrid. Lord Bristol was exactly the 
 old-fashioned type of politician that suited Lord Cork's 
 taste, and he was also the kinsman of Cork's son-in-law 
 Lord Digby, so there can be little doubt it was with the 
 advice of this sage friend that the Earl selected the Manor 
 House of Stalbridge for his English home, and prayed in 
 his diary 
 
 ' God of Heaven bless me in this my first English purchase.'
 
 A HAVEN OF REFUGE 291 
 
 The purchase cost him ^5000, paid in instalments, and 
 at one time he feared it might prove even more costly, as 
 the widowed Lady Castlehaven refused to consent to her 
 son's sale of the estate, without a present to herself of one 
 hundred pieces. Lord Cork seems to have had a particular 
 objection to paying dower on his land purchases, and was 
 disposed to do as he had so often done in Ireland, buy the 
 land as a speculation, on the chance that Lady Castlehaven 
 would give way, when it was discovered that the Countess 
 had already resigned her right of dowry from Stalbridge, 
 and the purchase was completed without any more ado. 
 
 In August 1637, having hunted the old man well-nigh 
 to death, the Lord Deputy graciously signified that Lord Cork 
 might crawl into a corner and be at peace, and signed a 
 warrant granting him leave for an unlimited stay in England, 
 carrying with him out of Ireland twelve saddle horses and 
 twelve post horses. But the great Earl of Cork had no mind 
 to hurry out of the country as though he were an escaping 
 criminal : he spent a whole year in setting his house in order, 
 and then on the last day of July 1638 he left Lismore in 
 his wonted patriarchal fashion. He had but one unmarried 
 daughter to accompany him to England, for baby Peggie's 
 short life was over. When Lettice Goring brought the 
 motherless child from England in 1631, she was at once 
 sent off to kind Lady Clayton, under the care of her maid, 
 Nan Roseen, while Lady Kildare lent her own children's 
 nurse to superintend the baby's journey ; but she was a 
 delicate little thing, and all their love only kept her alive 
 for a few years. In 1637, Lord Cork wrote, 'Gave Dr. 
 Higgins at Lismore $ in gold to give physic to my daughter 
 Peggie, which he never did.' And the following June is the 
 entry, ' God called to His mercy, out of this world to a better,
 
 292 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 my youngest daughter, the Lady Margaret Boyle, who de- 
 parted this life in Sir Randall Clayton's house near Cork. 
 Buried in Youghal.' 
 
 But now in 1638 Clayton was dead, and his widow was 
 diminishing her establishment, so Mary Boyle returned to 
 her father, and with Lord and Lady Barrymore and their 
 three children, Peggy Sherlock, Lord Barrymore's sister, and 
 Lord Kildare's little son and heir, sailed down the Blackwater to 
 Ballynetra with Lord Cork. There they dined and took leave 
 of the Smyths, and the same night they embarked at Youghal 
 on the King's ship, The Ninth Whelp. The wind, however, 
 was unfavourable, and the next day they came ashore again 
 to sup with a friend, but the following morning they ventured 
 to set sail, ' and, God be ever praised, had a very good passage 
 and landed all safely at Bristol, August 4, and I gave the 
 company of the King's ship ^20, and to the Captain Owens 
 a fair sword, a silver salt, and all that was left of a hogshead 
 of claret wine.' 
 
 The day after their arrival being Sunday, they rested to 
 praise God for their happy passage, and on the 6th of August 
 they left Bristol at ten in the morning, the Earl riding on a 
 gelding lent him by George Hillier, the merchant, who was 
 now Sheriff of Bristol. ' And,' writes the Earl, ' came in good 
 time to my house at Stalbridge in Dorset, being the first time 
 that ever I saw the place. My son Dungarvan met me six 
 miles on the road, and I found his lady and her daughters 
 here before me, and Mr. Robert Christopher.' Strafford had 
 certainly not succeeded in making an end of the Great Earl ! 
 The old man was now seventy-two years of age, and had been 
 struck by paralysis, and yet he chronicles as a matter of course 
 that he rode nearly sixty miles in one day. 
 
 Before Lord Cork fairly settled himself in his new home
 
 A HAVEN OF REFUGE 293 
 
 he paid a hurried visit to London, to make sure that his 
 position in England was secure. Sir Thomas Stafford had 
 been almost his first guest in Dorset, and probably it was 
 his advice that brought the Earl up to court, leaving home 
 on the 9th of October 1638, in company with Barrymore 
 and Dungarvan. They slept a night at Eton that Lord Cork 
 might see his two boys, and the visit to town, though short, 
 proved eminently satisfactory. Cork had a ' most gracious 
 conference with his Majesty at Whitehall, who gave me a most 
 comfortable acknowledgment of the many good services I had 
 done his royal father and himself, especially for my acceptable 
 discharge of the government of Ireland, which he would 
 reward to me and my children. Then I had the like from my 
 Lord of Canterbury, both in the hearing of the Lord Goring.' 
 
 Truly life is well compared to an April day : ' A little 
 sun, a little rain ! ' Can any transformation scene be more 
 abrupt than this, when my Lord of Canterbury is paying 
 compliments to ' Old Cork ' ? And perhaps the strangest 
 thing of all is to find Cork accepting all these fine phrases as 
 genuine ; but he knew they ought to be true, and therefore, 
 with dignified self-respect, he assumed they were. 
 
 Indeed the old Earl's wisdom and urbanity plainly made 
 a considerable impression on Laud, who wrote with surprise 
 and pleasure to tell Strafford * how discreetly and nobly the 
 old man spake.' The relations between the Earl and Arch- 
 bishop continued to be quite friendly, and when Laud was 
 making great efforts to raise funds to restore old St. Paul's, 
 Lord Cork sent ' thankful letters to my Lord of Canter- 
 bury, and jioo to present to him for the re-edifying of 
 Paul's Church.' The money was delivered at Lambeth by 
 Perkins the tailor, who usually acted as banker to the Boyle 
 family. A true Londoner, Perkins had no love for the Arch-
 
 294 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 bishop, and wrote a lively account of his proceedings to Lord 
 Cork : 
 
 ' I attended Sir T. Stafford to the Archbishop with ^100, 
 for so Sir Thomas would have it, and in a fair white purse 
 presented it to his Grace, after that Sir Thomas had presented 
 your Lordship's services to him. He took it very respectively, 
 and heartily thanked my Lord of Cork, and turning it out of 
 the purse on the carpet, said, " A man may tell money after 
 his father," and so himself told it and found it to be ^100 in 
 fair gold, and put it up into his purse and so into his pocket, 
 telling me that I should receive from him an acquittance for 
 so much, but he was full of business for the present.' 
 
 Lord Cork had not been long at Stalbridge before he 
 found the mansion was not large enough for his great family 
 and overflowing hospitality, so he was able to indulge his 
 Elizabethan passion for building with a clear conscience. He 
 wrote to Monsieur Decon, a French architect belonging to 
 my Lord Chamberlain, to ' draw a plot for contriving my new 
 intended building over the great cellar at Stalbridge.' The 
 architect was paid $ for his plans, and the business of 
 carrying them out was intrusted to a local builder, a * free- 
 mason,' Hyde of Sherborne. 
 
 We all know and admire the stately Jacobean stone 
 mansions of the West of England, so it is curiously interest- 
 ing to be actual spectators of the erection of one of these 
 houses, and hear how the builder was paid % for eight round 
 pillars with bases and capitals of Hampden stone to set up in 
 the cellar and support the first floor, and that one great beam 
 of twenty-four feet long cost forty shillings. The terrace 
 before the hall door was to be closed in with a stone balustrade 
 made of the same pattern as that of the staircase within the 
 house, only three inches higher, cramped with iron, and the
 
 A HAVEN OF REFUGE 295 
 
 balusters set so close that a dog could not creep through. 
 The same balustrade was to rail in the raised way from the 
 hall door to the front gate, the whole way to be paved with 
 freestone after the fashion of Lord Bristol's at Sherborne. 
 
 The same builder was to put up chimney-pieces ' of Mar- 
 nell quarry stone, with figures answerable or better than those 
 already in the Earl's bedchamber,' and was to keep six masons 
 at work till the building was complete. A skilled freemason 
 of Bristol, Christopher Watts, was commissioned to make 
 some finer chimney-pieces. A very superior one for the 
 parlour was to reach up close to the ceiling, with the Boyle 
 coat-of-arms on it, ' complete with crest, helmet, coronet, 
 supporters, and mantling and footpace, fair and graceful in all 
 respects,' costing ^10. He was also desired to make twelve 
 figures, each three feet high, to stand on the staircase ; but 
 there came to be a debate over the price of these, for the 
 sculptor asked twenty shillings for each figure, and the Earl 
 thought thirteen and fourpence would be enough. It was at 
 last agreed that he should cut two sample figures, one of Pallas 
 holding a shield, and one of the Earl's coat-of-arms, when it 
 would be seen what the work was really worth. 
 
 In August 1639 the Earl was able to improve the approach 
 to the house, by securing the life-estate of a poor woman ' in 
 the cottage and garden adjoining my orchard wall, to lengthen 
 the walk or career by me newly made and set with young 
 elms, called William Sidenham's Walk,' no doubt the raised 
 way that is elsewhere described as leading from the high road 
 to the hall door, through an avenue of elm-trees. 
 
 The following winter the Earl had a bowling-green laid 
 out, himself providing materials and carriage, and paying ^70 
 in all to the workmen. 
 
 The garden was also newly stocked with fruit : Daniel
 
 296 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Sullivan of Berehaven sent Harvey apples and Bon Chretien 
 and Bergamot pears over from Kerry, and also for the 
 shrubbery forty-four arbutus or cane apples, as they were 
 usually called, four of which were presented to Lord Bristol, 
 and four to his lordship's son-in-law, John Freke. Lord 
 Cork had perhaps discovered and admired the arbutus trees of 
 Kerry in his old campaigns under Carew ; he certainly made 
 a specialty of them, as they were among the first shrubs 
 planted in his pleasure-grounds at Youghal, and when Ralph 
 Verney wished to add some to his collection at Claydon, his 
 cousin, Magdalen Falconer, wrote from Castle Lyons that 
 none were to be got in that part of Ireland but from Lord 
 Cork ; but she made no doubt but to get some slips, and send 
 them over at the proper time for planting, in the beginning 
 of February. 1 
 
 The inside of the house at Stalbridge was not neglected, 
 and orders were given to Mr. Spence at the sign of the Grass- 
 hopper to send from London a new red embroidered satin 
 bed, and a tawny velvet carpet, chairs, stool, and couch. It 
 is interesting to find that Cowper's pity in the 'Task for our 
 sofaless ancestors was wasted, and the Earl of Cork at least 
 possessed a velvet couch. The new satin bed also acquires 
 fresh interest when we read that more material was provided 
 for it than was wanted, and the piece of red satin over was 
 given to Lady Mary Boyle as a New Year's gift to make her 
 a waistcoat ! 
 
 The house linen bought included ' two caddows for my 
 servant, io y 135.' Caddo is the Irish name for a rough 
 blanket, so it may be seen that the Earl could use an Irish 
 word or two, even though an interpreter was present when he 
 sat at Magistrates' meetings in Western Munster. 
 
 1 V. Mems., i. 29.
 
 A HAVEN OF REFUGE 297 
 
 But Lord Cork did not wait till his house was beautified 
 before filling it with guests. He did but rest two days after 
 his arrival from Ireland before riding over to Sherborne to 
 ' present my love and service to my noble friend the Earl of 
 Bristol,' and in a few days' time the Earl of Bristol returned 
 the visit, accompanied by his lady and his daughter-in-law, 
 Lady Digby, ' daughter to my much-honoured Lord the Earl 
 of Bedford,' Lord Cork is careful to note. On St. Bartholo- 
 mew's Day the whole family from Stalbridge rode over to 
 feast and pass two nights at Sherborne Castle ; and then the 
 lively old Earl went further afield for his junketing, for he 
 rode with Barrymore, Dungarvan, his nephew Dick Power, 
 and Mr. Christopher, to ' the Bath,' where they lay at the 
 mayor's house, and on the jist of August they rode on to 
 Badminton, where the Countess of Ormond was staying, and 
 spent the night there. They returned to Stalbridge on the 
 i st of September to find Lady Barrymore entertaining * Sir 
 Thomas Stafford, Sergeant Dendy and Mr. W. Perkins, 
 Mayor, who came kindly purposely from London, to pay me 
 a visit.' 
 
 It is perhaps fanciful to search for political intrigues in 
 these friendly visits, but it is impossible to avoid noticing how 
 StrafFord's enemies were made welcome at Stalbridge ; old Sir 
 Piers Crosby, who had dared to speak his mind concerning 
 the King's graces in the Irish Parliament, and had been clapped 
 into prison by StrafFord, paid Lord Cork a visit, and the Earl 
 lent him twenty pounds in gold without any bond but his 
 promise to repay it. Even Lord Mountnorris forgot his 
 ancient squabbles at the Council table in Dublin Castle, and 
 came to visit Lord Cork, and Lord Esmond was actually 
 staying at Stalbridge when an officer arrived from StrafFord to 
 arrest him, when Lord Cork gave bail for his appearance, and
 
 298 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 took Mountnorris and Esmond over to dine at Sherborne 
 Castle. Men of all parties were glad to take counsel with the 
 wise old Earl of Bristol ; but when he in his turn invited 
 Lord Cork purposely to meet Puritans such as Newport and 
 Essex, we cannot but suspect that the talk was of more serious 
 matters than apple-trees and terrace balustrades. 
 
 But plenty of cheerful visitors came to stay at Stalbridge 
 whose coming had no political significance. Old 'Cozen 
 Tompkins came out of Herefordshire purposely to visit me ' ; 
 smart friends arrived from London, and grandchildren from 
 County Cork who were scarcely younger than the Earl's 
 youngest sons, and with the merry party overflowing from the 
 great house into village lodgings and rooms at the rectory, 
 the good old days began again, and the old Earl was once 
 more the complacent provider, ruler, and counsellor of a tribe 
 of relations and dependants. His niece, Dorothy Smyth, now 
 married to the son of his old friend William Freke of Sareen, 
 came over that her first baby should be born and christened 
 at Stalbridge ; and Dorothy's sister Kate, whom the Earl had 
 married to his ward William Supple, was not long in following. 
 Even Kate's foster-sister away in County Waterford could not 
 get married without Lord Cork's help, and sent her brother 
 all the way from Ireland to beg for a dowry, when Lord Cork 
 directed that twenty pounds out of the forty due to him for 
 rent should be made over to the bride for her fortune, and he 
 gave her brother half a piece for his trouble and an order for 
 a horse out of the horse-herd at Lismore. 
 
 A lady of higher rank sent over on much the same busi- 
 ness. Sir John Leeke's widowed daughter Biddy Hals had 
 promised Lord Cork she would not marry again without his 
 approval, so although her suitor was Lord Cork's favourite 
 gentleman, Tom Badnedge, she would not give him an
 
 A HAVEN OF REFUGE 299 
 
 answer till she heard the old Earl's opinion. The match was 
 not exactly a good one for her, as her position in the county 
 would be lowered unless Badnedge were made a knight, while, 
 as her father proudly wrote to his Verney cousins, she was 
 * well worth two hundred marks, her debts paid, and her child 
 well provided for.' Evidently Lord Cork approved, and 
 Biddy's ambition was conquered, and her father wrote, ' She 
 will live happy, for she loves him.' Lord Cork made him 
 Captain of the town guard at Youghal, but Sir John confessed 
 that although the office ' was a credit, it was not a pound 
 profitable.' But Badnedge also was granted favourable leases 
 of lands about Tircullen, and the Earl bequeathed him an 
 annuity of 10 ; he did not, however, live to be an old man, 
 and Biddy had a third husband before she died. 
 
 Then Lord Cork, whose greatest joy in life was making 
 up a match, had the pleasure of marrying his favourite niece, 
 Kate Boyle, to William Tynte, the son of Sir Robert Tynte 
 and Spenser's widow, ' and,' writes the Earl, ' my servant 
 delivered her $o to buy clothes and linen. The Great 
 God of Heaven bless and prosper her with all happiness.' 
 The wedding was at Stalbridge Church in August 1639, 
 Lord Esmond and Sir Thomas Stafford and other fine folk 
 being present. She had arrived at Stalbridge the previous 
 spring, when Lord Cork had written with delight of ' Arthur 
 Jones and my daughter Katherine his lady, and my niece 
 Kate Boyle, who with their retinue were exceedingly welcome 
 unto me.' 
 
 It was also not long before Lady Kildare arrived at 
 Stalbridge, bringing the two youngest Boyles, Francis and 
 Robert, for their holidays from Eton, and then Broghill and 
 Kinalmeaky returned from making the grand tour with 
 Mr. Marcombes, their tutor, who had been recommended
 
 300 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 to Lord Cork by the great Provost of Eton, Sir Henry 
 Wotton. Mr. Marcombes, Sir Henry had written, was ' by 
 birth French, a native of the province of Auvergne, bred 
 seven years in Geneva, very sound in religion and well con- 
 versant with religious men, furnished with good literature 
 and languages, especially Italian, which he speaketh as 
 promptly as his own, and will be a good guide to your 
 sons in that delicate piece of the world. He seemeth in 
 himself neither of a lumpish nor of a light composition, but 
 of a well-tried mean.' Robin Boyle, who later on passed in 
 his turn into Mr. Marcombes' hands, describes his tutor as 
 ' a traveller and soldier, better read in men than in books, 
 not wanting in scholarship, but hating pedantry as he did 
 the seven deadly sins. He was thrifty, not from avarice, 
 but from prudence, desiring to live handsomely all his 
 life.' 
 
 In those days travelling was no easy or safe amusement 
 even for wealthy young lords who had all the conveniences 
 that money could supply, and the tour narrowly escaped a 
 tragic termination, for the two Boyles and their cousin, Boyle 
 Smyth, fell ill of a virulent type of small-pox at Genoa, and 
 in spite of the tutor's devoted care young Smyth died. 
 Mr. Marcombes' letters had given a vivid account of his 
 difficulty in nursing the three boys, none of whom could 
 understand a word said by their foreign doctors and servants, 
 and of his endeavours to prepare Boyle Smyth for death. 
 'The end of his life,' said Mr. Marcombes, 'was not the 
 end of my trouble, for I was afraid the Inquisition would 
 seize upon him and ourselves,' and would send the corpse to 
 be buried in the place where they bury their horses and their 
 dogs. Mr. Marcombes could not even buy a coffin, and was 
 driven to place his pupil's dead body in a trunk and pay a
 
 A HAVEN OF REFUGE 301 
 
 mariner to carry it to sea and cast it overboard ten or twelve 
 miles from land. 
 
 No wonder Lord Cork's heart overflowed with thank- 
 fulness when his boys came back to him, and he could write 
 in March 1629 : 
 
 ' This day, my true friend Sir Thomas Stafford brought 
 me home to Stalbridge in health and safety my daughter the 
 Lady Lettice Goring and my two sons, the Lord Viscount 
 Kinalmeaky and the Lord of Broghill, with Mr. Marcombes 
 their tutor. As they all departed from me together at Dublin, 
 so God of His great goodness brought them back together 
 to me this day, for which blessing may God make me and 
 them thankful to His divine Majesty.' 
 
 Lady Dungarvan and Lady Barrymore shared the re- 
 sponsibilities of housekeeping for this large family, assisted 
 by Thomas Langdale, Clerk of the Kitchen, and Thomas 
 Cross the Steward. They were allowed $o a week, out 
 of which they were to pay us. to the stables, and were to 
 have the produce of the lands and woods of Stalbridge, 
 besides powdered beef, salt salmon, bacon, and stalled oxen 
 brought from Ireland. There is something very stately in 
 importing your own fat oxen as though you were merely 
 sending for eggs from your poultry-yard ! 
 
 With so many coming and going, ^50 a week was found 
 to be insufficient to carry on the house, and Lord Cork soon 
 had to increase his daughters' allowance to ^200 a week, 
 paid beforehand. 
 
 The whole establishment reminds one of the housekeeping 
 of the ' old courtier of the Queen,' who ' kept a brave old 
 house at a bountiful rate.' But unlike the indulgent old 
 master and mistress of the ballad, the old Earl knew very
 
 302 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 well indeed ' what belonged to coachmen, footmen and pages,' 
 and wrote down the rules for the government of his servants 
 with his own hand. 
 
 'A FORM FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THE EARL OF CORK'S 
 FAMILY AT STALBRiDGE. 1 
 
 * i . First, All the Servants except such as are Officers or 
 
 are otherwise employed shall meet every morning 
 before Dinner, and every night after Supper, at 
 Prayer. 
 
 ' 2. That there be Lodgings fitting for all the Earl of Cork's 
 Servants to lie in the house. 
 
 * 3. That it shall be lawful for the Steward to examine any 
 
 Subordinate Servant of the whole Family concerning 
 any Complaint or Misdemeanour committed, and to 
 dismiss and put away any inferior Servant that shall 
 live dissolutely and disorderly either in the House 
 or abroad, without the especial Command of the 
 Earl of Cork to the contrary. 
 
 ' 4. That there be a certain number of the Gentlemen 
 appointed to sit at the Steward's Table, and the 
 like at the Waiter's Table, and the rest to sit in 
 the Hall at the Long Table. 
 
 * 5. That there be a Clerk of the Kitchen to take care of 
 
 such Provision as is brought into the House, and 
 to have an especial eye to the several Tables that 
 are kept either above Stairs, or in the Kitchen 
 and other places. 
 
 ' 6. That all the Women Servants under the Degree of 
 Chambermaids be certainly known by their names 
 to the Steward, and not altered or changed upon 
 
 1 Add.MSS., 19,832, f. 23.
 
 A HAVEN OF REFUGE 303 
 
 every Occasion without the consent of the Steward, 
 and no Schorers l to be admitted in the house. 
 ' 7. That the Officers every Friday night bring in their 
 Bills unto the Steward whereby he may collect what 
 hath been spent, and what remains weekly in the 
 House. 
 
 * Indorsed : Thomas Cross his Orders for the Keeping of 
 the House.' 
 
 The younger servants of the household were formally 
 apprenticed to their trade ; a poor ragged boy, John Wilmot, 
 was indentured for nine years to learn to become a cook, and 
 a garden boy was indentured for five years, receiving $ 
 wages and a suit of clothes. The footmen received livery 
 as well as wages, and the household musicians were dressed 
 in scarlet. 
 
 With so many visitors to Stalbridge from London and 
 Munster as well as from foreign countries, it soon struck 
 Lord Cork's country neighbours that he could conveniently 
 be used as a banker. Wherever he was, the chief currents 
 of life seemed to flow his way, and now in his retirement he 
 noted ' Mr. James Smith of Torrington hath this day, though 
 I never knew him or heard of him before, brought me hither 
 ^200 with request to receive it and give him my bill of 
 exchange to be repaid at Lismore, which I did,' and two 
 gentlemen going over to Munster to buy cattle gave him 
 ^100 to be repaid in Ireland on his bond. 
 
 And so the St. Luke's summer of Lord Cork's life set in, 
 and after the season of visits and country rides came a jovial 
 Christmas at Stalbridge, and a wonderful array of New Year's 
 
 1 Beggars ?
 
 3 o 4 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 gifts ; Lady Dungarvan's gloves lined with marten's fur, and 
 Lord Kildare's ' pantables overlaid with gold,' were chosen 
 with kindly thought for the old Earl's comfort, and his lady 
 friends overwhelmed him with home-made medicines. Lady 
 Stafford sent a little bottle of spirits of amber, sovereign 
 against the palsy, which the Earl's servant, William Chettle, 
 was to keep in his charge. Lady Stafford also sent a bezoir 
 stone, and the Countess of Kent three balls of cordial. The 
 good Countess of Bristol bestowed on him a ball of country 
 * yeartar,' but this mysterious remedy is not further explained. 
 Daniel O'Sullivan, however, took no thought of the wholesomes 
 and sent a ' Runlet of pickled scallops,' but these Lord Cork 
 passed on to the Countess of Manchester. Lady Stafford 
 made preparation for the season's festivities and sent a bale 
 of dice and a pack of cards, Lord Dungarvan gave his father 
 a book called the Practice of Piety, and Lord Kildare presented 
 his father-in-law with a fair Bible, a present he usually selected 
 when he had been getting into trouble and was promising to 
 reform. Some of the Earl's presents he passed on, as of old, 
 to other friends ; ' a very curious French watch all enamelled,' 
 that Lady Stafford sent him, he bestowed on his ' vocal wife, 
 Lady Marie Fielding/ a young lady who seems to have held 
 the position of the Earl's valentine. 
 
 The most serious New Year's presents were naturally 
 those offered to Royalty, and in the low state of the King's 
 finances these became less a present than a tax. The ubiqui- 
 tous Mr. Perkins wrote to the Earl in January 1639 tnat 
 having been to the court to present New Year's gifts to the 
 King, ' the master of the jewel house told me it was expected 
 from your Honour that you present the King as other Lords 
 do. I demanded of him if any Earls of Ireland did it, he 
 told me yes, and assured me that from My Lord of Cork it
 
 A HAVEN OF REFUGE 
 
 305 
 
 was expected upon his own knowledge ; and further told me, 
 he would see your Lordship had a bill of impost of eight 
 tun of wine for your housekeeping. If your Lordship please 
 to think well of it, it will be acceptable to the King, and the 
 charge will be borne by the remuneration that his Majesty 
 bestows upon you back again.' 
 
 u
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 ETON GENTLEMEN 
 16351639 
 
 * While some on earnest business bent 
 
 Their murmuring labours ply, 
 'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint 
 
 To sweeten liberty, 
 Some bold adventurers disdain 
 The limits of their little reign.' 
 
 GRAY, Ode on a distant prospect oj Eton College. 
 
 IT is to the Earl of Cork's youngest son that we owe our 
 knowledge of the Earl's theory of education, for Robert 
 Boyle himself, under the pseudonym of Philaretus, has left 
 us a charming little sketch of his own youth. 1 
 
 He relates that his father had a perfect aversion for the 
 prudence ' that would breed children so nice and tender that 
 a hot sun or a good shower of rain endangers them as though 
 they were made of butter or sugar.' ' He therefore intrusted 
 his children to country nurses ' ; that is to say, like most 
 children of the time they were sent to the house of native 
 foster-parents, where, as old Aubrey heard tell, Robert was 
 ' nursed Irish fashion, in a pendulous satchell instead of a 
 cradle, with a slit for the child's head to look out of 
 
 Many of the Munster gentry left their children so long 
 with the foster-parents, that the little heirs grew up ' sons of 
 the soil,' knowing nothing of the language or position of 
 
 1 Boyle's Works, \. 7-9 ; edit. 1774.
 
 ./I Of'*/'/ .
 
 ETON GENTLEMEN 307 
 
 their real parents ; but the Earl of Cork brought Robert 
 home as soon as the time for lessons came, and he, with his 
 three elder brothers, was educated by his father's chaplain, 
 Mr. Wilkins, who taught him, he says, all the Latin he 
 forgot at Eton, while French they learned from a French 
 tutor who bore the strangely English name of Mr. Francois 
 de Gary ! In 1 63 1 Lord Cork presented this gentleman 
 with a black silk cloak and suit lined with taffeta and laced 
 with embroidered satin. 
 
 Robert says he ever reckoned it among the chief mis- 
 fortunes of his life ' that he did never know her that gave it 
 him.' ' Her free and noble spirit had a handsome mansion 
 to reside in, making her so hugely regretted by her children 
 and so lamented by her husband.' No doubt it was for want 
 of his mother's care that little Robin, as he was called, got 
 into a habit of stammering, picked up from mimicking some 
 children with whom he played. He improved in ' smoothness 
 of speaking ' when he went to school, yet even after he had 
 grown to be a big boy he was so unable to speak when excited 
 that his tutor wrote ' he could scarce forbear laughing at him.' 
 
 But in all other respects Robin was a pride and delight to 
 his father. He says himself he does not know if he was the 
 favourite because he was the youngest, or if it was because 
 he was not of an age to run into debt and trouble the Earl 
 as his elder sons did. But he admits that his studiousness 
 greatly endeared him to his father, who also was wont to say 
 he never knew Robin tell a lie. Robert's own remembrance 
 of one instance of his childish truthfulness is quite as pretty 
 an anecdote as the threadbare tale of Washington's cherry- 
 tree. He modestly tells it of himself in the third person. 
 
 'As there was scarce anything he more greedily desired 
 than to know the truth, so there was scarce anything he more
 
 308 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 perfectly detested than not to speak it ; which brings into my 
 mind a foolish story I have heard him jeered with by his sister, 
 my Lady Ranelagh, how she having given strict order to have a 
 fruit-tree preserved for his sister-in-law, the Lady Dungarvan, 
 he, accidentally coming into the garden and ignoring the pro- 
 hibition, did eat half a score of them, for which he, being 
 chidden by his sister Ranelagh, for he was yet a child, and 
 being told by way of aggravation that he had eaten half a 
 dozen plums, " Nay, truly, sister," answers he simply to her, 
 "I have eaten half a score." 
 
 Lord Cork had sent his second and third sons to be 
 educated at Trinity College, Dublin, but as he found the 
 results anything but satisfactory, he decided that the two 
 youngest boys should follow their brother-in-law Barrymore 
 to Eton. He told of their departure from home in his diary 
 for September 1635 : 'This day, the great God of Heaven 
 bless, protect, and guide them, I sent my two youngest sons, 
 Francis and Robert Boyle, with Carew their servant, under 
 the charge of my servant, Thomas Badnedge, from Lismore 
 to Youghal to embark for England to be schooled and bred 
 at Eton, as my worthy friend, Sir Henry Wotton, Provost 
 of Eton, shall direct and order, to whom I wrote for that 
 purpose. I gave Badnedge ,50 in ready money at his de- 
 parture to defray their charges, and my letter of credit to 
 the now Lord Mayor of London, to supply him with any 
 monies he should demand, not exceeding ^300, and I gave 
 3 to my sons.' 
 
 The little fellows, who were making their first venture 
 from home, were aged twelve and eight. Robert remembered 
 afterwards that they had to wait a week at Youghal for a 
 favourable wind, and then on starting were beaten back again 
 and had to wait yet another week before they could set sail.
 
 ETON GENTLEMEN 309 
 
 They touched on their voyage at ' Ilford Combe ' and Mine- 
 head, and landed safely at Bristol. On the 23rd of October 
 their father chronicled, ' Badnedge delivered the boys to my 
 worthy friend and countryman, Sir H. Wotton, and the tuition 
 of Mr. John Harrison, chief schoolmaster. God bless and 
 prosper them in true religion and learning.' 
 
 Sir Henry Wotton, the statesman and scholar, will be long 
 remembered for his biting pun, that ' an ambassador was an 
 honest man sent to lie abroad for his country's good.' His 
 shrewd wit no doubt helped to endear him to the Earl of 
 Cork, who loved a jest ; but the two great men were especially 
 drawn to each other as both had been born in Kent, Sir 
 Henry, in his letters to Cork, constantly signing himself 
 ' a humble devoted servant with the old Kentish plainness.' 
 Wotton, it has been said, was not only a fine gentleman 
 himself, but was also skilled in making others so ; he was 
 wont to pick out the most hopeful scholars under his care 
 and have them to attend him at his meals, f out of whose 
 discourse and behaviour he gathered observations for the 
 better completing of his intended work on education.' x The 
 Boyle brothers were often honoured by the Provost's invitation 
 to dine at High Table, where he took much notice of them, 
 and was loath to have to tell Lady Dungarvan when her 
 favourite, ' sweet spirited Frank,' was not in strong health. 
 
 Robert had but just reached the age when, according to 
 the original statutes, students might be admitted to Eton. 
 He and his brother were entered as commensals, that is to say, 
 they received their education in grammar free with the scholars 
 on the foundation, but paid for their other expenses. They 
 dined in hall at the second table with the chaplain, the second 
 master, or usher, and the ' upper clerks who were skilled in 
 
 1 Walton.
 
 310 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 chaimt.* They were waited on by the lower clerks and 
 thirteen poor lads or servitors, who were being prepared to 
 take holy orders or become transcribers of books. During 
 dinner one of the scholars read aloud from the Bible or the 
 Lives of the Fathers. After the Loving Cup had gone round, 
 every one was commanded to leave the hall without loitering, 
 for as the statutes wisely say, men are more quarrelsome on 
 full stomachs than on empty ; but on saints' days and festivals 
 there was a fire in hall, and the scholars and fellows were 
 allowed to divert themselves with songs and other proper 
 amusements, and to discuss poems and the wonders of the 
 world. 1 Eton Montem was in full swing in those glorious 
 days, and the boys had other festivals ; on New Year's Day, 
 when they played for little gifts, and on Shrove Tuesday, 
 when verses in praise of Bacchus were composed, a theme 
 which some of the young poets found so inspiring that 
 Mr. Pepys saw them fill up rolls of paper as long as the 
 College Hall ! On May Day the Eton boys went out into 
 the woods to fetch home branches of hawthorn, after the 
 headmaster had solemnly cautioned them not to wet their 
 feet ; and in September they all went out nutting, and brought 
 home part of their spoils to offer to the masters. 
 
 The Boyles were known in college as 'a Boyle' and 
 'Boyle i,' the latter being Robert. At this time many 
 noblemen were taking advantage of the permission granted 
 by the Eton authorities and were entering their sons as com- 
 mensals. Among the Boyles' schoolfellows were Lord Henry 
 Ker, Lord Mordaunt, and the four sons of the Earl of 
 Northampton. All the students, commensals as well as 
 collegers, wore black frieze gowns, but Mr. Perkins sent 
 down very gay clothes to be worn by Lord Cork's sons ; 
 
 1 Maxwell Lyte, Hist. Eton Col., 500.
 
 ETON GENTLEMEN 311 
 
 possibly it was in the Montem procession, or on some 
 holiday junketing up to London to visit Lord Dungarvan, 
 that Francis and Robert appeared in their scarlet suits with 
 laced bands, or glittered in cloth of silver doublets. 
 
 The commensals did not live in Long Chamber with the 
 collegers, but had rooms in the house of the Provost or one 
 of the Fellows, which they furnished themselves and where 
 they were waited on by their own servants. The heir of Lord 
 Tyrone had come to Eton attended by a regular suite, but 
 the Boyles appear to have been content with the services of 
 young Gary or Carew, who was half tutor, half valet, and 
 altogether scamp. 
 
 Robert Boyle soon became a great favourite with Mr. 
 Harrison, the headmaster ; in his autobiography he relates 
 that Mr. Harrison * would often dispense with his attendance 
 at school at the accustomed hours, that he might instruct him 
 privately in his chamber,' and ' would often, as it were, cloy 
 him with fruit and sweetmeats and those little dainties that 
 age is greedy of, that by preventing the want, he might lessen 
 both the value and the desire of them. He would sometimes 
 give him unasked playdays, and often bestow on him such balls 
 and tops and other implements as he had taken away from 
 others that had unduly used them.' 
 
 It speaks highly for Robert's natural amiability and 
 modesty that he was not spoilt by this unusual notice from 
 the headmaster, and the charm which he always exercised over 
 those who knew him seems to have prevented any jealousy on 
 the part of his schoolfellows, so that even Francis did not 
 rebel when his small brother gravely ' exhorted ' him to be 
 industrious over his lessons ! Probably Robert's own strong 
 sense of humour saved him from becoming too hopeless a 
 little prig.
 
 312 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 The first letter from this most indulgent of headmasters 
 to the Earl of Cork is dated October 19, 1635, and sealed with 
 the familiar legend * Floreat Etona.' 
 
 ' RIGHT HONOURABLE, There were brought hither to 
 Eton the second of this present October, two of your honour's 
 sons, Francis and Robert, who as they endured their journey 
 both by sea and land beyond what a man would expect from 
 such little ones, so since their arrival here, the place hath 
 seemed to agree wondrous well with their tempers, and I hope 
 they will grow every day more and more in a liking and love 
 of it. The care of their institution Mr. Provost hath imposed 
 on me, by his favour the Rector at the present of this school. 
 I will carefully see them supplied with such things as their 
 occasion in college shall require, and endeavour to set them 
 forward in learning the best I can. And so, forbearing to be 
 any further troublesome to your Lordship at this time, I rest, 
 your honour's humble servant, JOHN HARRISON.' 
 
 Francis also wrote to tell his father of their arrival. His 
 beautifully written epistle is dated the iyth of October. 
 It is as formally correct as any good little boy's letter could 
 be, and he loved letter-writing as little as any other schoolboy. 
 Fortunately Cary had an Irish readiness of pen and tongue, 
 and lightened the task of correspondence for his two charges. 
 
 ' Francis Boyle to his father, October 17, 1635 : 
 
 ' DEAR FATHER, With bended knees and hearty prayers 
 I importune the Almighty for a long continuance of your 
 health and happiness, and that I may not be deprived of so 
 great a felicity as your blessings, which I do most earnestly 
 crave: and as for news which your Lordship will expect from 
 me, I have scarce any, but some things which I observed in
 
 ETON GENTLEMEN 313 
 
 my travels which I will leave to the bearer's relation, in regard 
 I am incited by my school exercise. Only I must humbly 
 entreat your Honour to take notice of this kindness of Sir 
 Henry Wotton toward us, and how lovingly he did entreat 
 us and entertained us this first day of entrance at his own 
 table. He hath also lent us a chamber of his own with a 
 bed furnished, afore our own will be furnished, all which I 
 leave to your Lordship's consideration. 
 
 ' We are much bound to the young Lords, and especially to 
 the Earl of Peterborough's son, with whom we dine and sup. 
 My other occasions call me away, therefore I beg pardon for 
 not imparting more of my mind, but must remain your most 
 obedient son to command, FRANCIS BOYLE. 
 
 'We have been kindly used by Mr. Badnedge in all our 
 travels, and he sent us linen after our coming here, for which 
 we are much bound unto him.' 
 
 Francis having evidently exhausted his stock of elegant 
 phrases in this epistle, left it to Gary to give all the real 
 information about their position, as follows : 
 
 * Robert Gary to the Earl of Cork. October 19, 1635 : 
 ' I pray deliver this in the sign of the Ship in Fleet Street 
 
 at Mr. Perkins' house to be conveyed to Ireland by Mr. 
 
 Badnedge or his man. 
 
 ' RIGHT HONOURABLE, Whereas I am hereunto induced 
 by the importunateness of my masters, I do not only implore 
 your honourable acceptance, but beg a pardon for so high a 
 presumption. . . . They are very well beloved by their civil 
 and transparent carriage towards all sorts, and especially my 
 sweet Sir Robert, who gained the love of all. Sir Harry
 
 3 i 4 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Wotton was much taken with him for his discourse of Ireland 
 and of his travels, and he admired that he would observe or 
 take notice of those things that he discoursed of. He is 
 mighty courteous and loving towards them, and lent a chamber 
 furnished, until we could furniture so their own chamber ; we 
 enjoy it yet, which is a great favour ; and did invite my 
 masters to his own table several times. Thanks be to God 
 they 're very jocund, and they have a studious desire whereby 
 in short time they will attain to learning. They have very 
 careful and reverend masters. It is their only grievance to 
 be exempted from your Lordship's sight and the society of 
 their brothers and sisters. 
 
 * Touching my masters' essence, they dine in the hall with 
 the rest of the boarders, where sit the Earl of Southampton's 
 four sons, the Earl of Peterborough's two sons, with other 
 knights' sons. They sit promiscuously, not observing of any 
 place or quality, and at night they sup in their chambers, 
 but my masters, in regard our chamber is not furnished, do 
 sup with my Lord Mordaunt, the Earl of Peterborough's 
 son, where they are most kindly entertained, but we have 
 our own commons brought thither ; yet they take it a great 
 kindness to be so lovingly used, they are very familiar with 
 one another. And, my Lord, there is to be observed the 
 fasting nights, whereupon the college allow no meat, Fridays 
 and Saturdays. We must upon those nights have the cook's 
 meat, which is sometimes mighty dear, for we must have his 
 own rate, not the college price, as also for breakfast, for every 
 day they have a poor breakfast at two pennys apiece. This 
 will come to money, beside their chambers, accoutrements and 
 clothes which your Lordship must furnish them withall. 
 
 * The school exercise would admit no vacancy (vacant time 
 to write) for my master Robert to present his duty to your
 
 ETON GENTLEMEN 315 
 
 Honour, for they are up every morning at a half-hour before 
 six, and so to school to prayers, and their hours for writing 
 be these, from nine to ten in the morning and from five to 
 six in the evening.' 
 
 It will be noticed how much finer the servant's language is 
 than that of the Earl and his friends : ' my masters' essence ' 
 is worthy of Dogberry himself. 
 
 He writes again a little later to tell more of their doings. 
 His description of Robert's theatrical debut reminds us that 
 plays were part of the usual festivities of an Eton Christmas, 
 and a box of players' clothes kept in the masters' room. The 
 plays were usually in Latin, but sometimes a witty English 
 piece was chosen. 1 
 
 Gary mentions that he had been alarmed about his 
 employer's health by the ' relations of malicious informers,' 
 two Irish vagabonds having spread a report that Lord Cork 
 was dangerously ill. * I concealed it from my masters, but at 
 last they had some intelligence of it which made them much 
 to lament if I had not encouraged them, for my hope was in 
 the Almighty whose favour I perpetually wish unto your 
 Honour in soul and body. ... As for my masters' private 
 and public devotion, their civil and courteous carriage towards 
 all men accordingly, their neatness in apparel, combing, and 
 washing, and my tender care of their health and prosperity in 
 learning and all other noble education, I leave to the appro- 
 bation of their noble friends Sir Harry Wotton and Mr. 
 Harrison, whose vigilant care over them requires no less than 
 your honourable favour, and my masters do in all matters 
 obey and observantly perform their mandates. . . . They will 
 neither chop nor change a book nor any thing that is theirs 
 
 1 Maxwell Lyte.
 
 316 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 without my consent, who will not see any disadvantage or 
 deceit used against them. . . . Mr. Francis is grown mighty 
 tall since he came hither and very proportionable in his limbs, 
 graciously imitating that brave patron of virtue my Lord 
 Dungarvan, more and more ; he is not so much given to his 
 books as my most honoured and affectionate Mr. Robert, 
 who loseth no hour without a line of his idle time, but on 
 schooldays he doth compose his exercises as well as them 
 of double his years and experience. They are under the 
 tuition of the usher in regard they were placed in the third 
 form ; a careful man he is, yet I thank God I have gained 
 their love so far that I can get them to do more than their 
 school exercise in the chamber, and am authorised to do so by 
 Mr. Harrison, who sees that they do so with much willingness 
 and facility. They write every day most commonly a copy of 
 the French and Latin besides their versions and dictaments 
 [dictations ?] more than any two of their rank in the school 
 can do. They practise the French and Latin, but they affect 
 not the Irish notwithstanding I show many reasons to bind 
 their minds thereto. Mr. Robert sometimes desires it and is 
 a little entered in it. He is grown very fat and very jovial 
 and pleasantly merry, and of the rarest memory that I ever 
 knew ; he prefers learning afore all other virtues or pleasures. 
 Mr. Provost doth admire him for his excellent genius. He 
 was chosen in a play the 28th of November. He came upon 
 the stage ; he had but a mute part, but for the gesture of his 
 body and order of his pace he did bravely. . . . Mr. Francis 
 is sickly, which is a grievous thing for me to relate, but praises 
 be to God, it 's no vehement sickness whereat your Lordship 
 should conclude any grief. It did proceed from a cold that 
 he took in school, for his clothes are very little for him, he 
 growing so, blessed be God. And he writ divers times to
 
 ETON GENTLEMEN 317 
 
 Mr. Perkins for a new suit, yet we can see none come, for 
 Mr. Badnedge told him they had sufficient clothes as he doth 
 allege, which was an ungrateful office. His sickness continueth 
 these sixteen days, yet did not hinder him of writing and 
 studying in his chamber, being kept warm. He is very 
 pleasant and merry and wants no kind of attendance nor 
 comfort and good counsel from Sir Harry Wotton. ... Sir 
 Harry Wotton hath made choice of a very sufficient man l 
 to teach them to play on the viol and sing ; he doth also 
 undertake to help my master Robert's defect in pronunciation, 
 which is a principal reason that they should bestow any hours 
 in that faculty, for it is a thing that elevates the spirits and 
 may hinder their proceedings in matters of greater moment. 
 Here are two Frenchmen, the one waiting on one of Lord 
 Dover's sons, the other on the Earl of Northampton's sons, 
 and men of good life and conversation, and God being pleased 
 I shall make choice of one with Mr. Provost's approbation 
 after Christmas ; in the meantime they shall do as they did 
 hitherto, read a chapter most commonly every night in a 
 French testament afore they go to bed, besides their private 
 prayers. I get the one to read in the English testament and 
 th' other in the French, and so mutually as may appear. God 
 forbid that I would relate anything to my most honoured 
 Lord and best benefactor but the plain truth. Mr. Badnedge 
 kept a Bible that the virtuous Lady Dungarvan sent to my 
 master Francis, which I am nothing capable of.' 
 
 Probably the other members of the Earl of Cork's house- 
 hold felt some jealousy of his Lordship's prime favourite, 
 Badnedge, and Cary never let slip a chance of a sly hit at him. 
 A little later on Lady Dungarvan and Lady Barrymore 
 were of the same way of thinking, and got their housekeeping 
 
 1 Said in a letter of Sir Henry's to be the Master of the Choristers.
 
 3i 8 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 accounts into sad confusion through their dislike to employing 
 the paragon Badnedge. 
 
 It will be seen that the boys took private lessons in French 
 and music, the regular school- work being of course classical. 
 They used the time-honoured grammars which have survived 
 to the present day, the Eton Greek grammar having been 
 introduced by Wotton's predecessor, Savile, and the Eton 
 Latin Grammar having been compiled by the famous Lilly in 
 the time of Henry vm. Robert remembered that it was his 
 chance reading of Quintus Curtius that * conjured up in him 
 that unsatisfied appetite of knowledge that is yet as greedy as 
 when it first was raised.' 
 
 The exact order of the day's study in the seventeenth 
 century has not been recorded, but in the conservative Royal 
 College it probably varied little from the routine in Elizabeth's 
 day, when the boys rose at five, and at six o'clock the usher 
 read prayers in school. At seven the headmaster came in, 
 and work went on till nine, when there was an hour's interval 
 before ten o'clock chapel, and probably the boys breakfasted, 
 as Cary mentions Robert having once made himself ill by 
 going to church without his breakfast. At eleven o'clock 
 came dinner, and at noon they went into school again till three, 
 when there was an hour's play, known to-day as ' after four.' 
 Then came an hour's work, and supper at five. Preparation 
 lasted from six to eight, relieved by a * bever ' of bread and 
 beer at seven, and all went to bed at eight. 
 
 In January Cary explains that he cannot give an exact 
 account of the boys' yearly expenses, as ' I was not thereto 
 authorised by Mr. Badnedge who had power from your Honour 
 to manage all my masters' affairs,' but he has entered all the 
 expenses he knows of in his book. The list of necessaries 
 for the schoolboys is rather interesting. Mr. Perkins supplied
 
 ETON GENTLEMEN 319 
 
 the bedding, ' one fleild bedd ' (perhaps camp bed ?), ' curtains 
 and valance of blew perpetiana,' a feather bed, bolster, two 
 pillows, four pillow covers and two pairs of sheets. One rug, 
 two blankets, two table cloths and a dozen of diaper dinner 
 napkins, the latter very needful as no forks are given in the 
 list. Two knives, two spoons, a tankard, a salt cellar, and 
 two pewter porringers and a dozen trenchers furnished their 
 table, with three pewter dishes bought by Mr. Harrison. 
 Their bedroom also was supplied with a looking-glass and six 
 towels, a brush and two wooden combs, two stools, two chairs, 
 a carpet ' suitable to the bed,' fire-irons, shovel and tongs, 
 bellows and snuffers. Mr. Gary had a flock-bed, a bolster, 
 two coarse pairs of sheets, a rug and two blankets, and 
 doubtless slept on a truckle bedstead in the corner of his 
 young masters' chamber. 
 
 The commons were at the rate of five and sixpence a week, 
 besides the extra suppers on fasting nights, which possibly varied 
 according to the chances of getting fish. Their breakfasts were 
 fourpence a day, the washing sixteen shillings a quarter. Rent 
 of chamber 5 a year. Wood and coals are a heavy item, 
 Mr. Harrison laid out thirty-four and sixpence on them. 
 ' Candles I received from Mr. Harrison sixteen pound, and 
 thinks myself very sparing in not spending more, for this 
 month past was an expensive time for candles, by reason of a 
 sport they use in the hall every night and every recent [comer] 
 must find candles. For my masters, a half pound every night 
 and on play nights a whole pound. For their tuition the 
 ordinary custom is ten shillings a piece, yet they leave it to 
 your honourable bounty.' 
 
 When Lent came the boys boarded at the usher's in the 
 town at seven and sixpence a week apiece, for no meat was 
 dressed in the college in Lent. ' Mr. Provost bids that they
 
 320 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 and the Lord Mordant should dine and sup together and I 
 will not be against it, but I know there may be something 
 saved without any prejudice to their honour if they had been 
 private in their own chamber.' 
 
 Gary writes, Feb. 29, 1636, to 'inform your Lordship in 
 some measure ' of the boys' dispositions. 
 
 ' Mr. Francis, who is endued with the excellentest dis- 
 position that was created in man, even his meekness of heart 
 causeth such a bashfulness in him that he is not able to make 
 any outward expression of his good intention to anybody he 
 hath indeed diverse times hidden from me, who am his most 
 humble respective and transparent servant, those things that 
 would be better discovered, as being in a fit of extreme pain 
 he concealed it from me for no other reason as he afterwards 
 confessed, but because I took it so grievously, and told me if 
 he had seen me cry it would add to his grief. . . . He is 
 grown in tallness very much, and straight but poor in body. 
 He is of sweet and decent carriage, comely in visage and a 
 lover of pious books and of the scripture. He is active in his 
 recreating exercises, in which Mr. Provost commends him and 
 exhorts him thereunto for his bodily health, provided it be at 
 his spared hours. He loves learning, but he is much inferior 
 to Mr. Robert's virtue, an please your Honour. His body is 
 soon distempered either with the alteration of diet or by 
 crossing his good nature, which I, to prevent those motives 
 and his inclination to melancholy, do endeavour to keep him 
 in a temperate diet, and I spoke to his tutor to use a cherishing 
 not a severe way in his teaching, which he hath very well 
 observed, howbeit there was no occasion to the contrary, yet 
 his tutor's love and affability did encourage him to perform 
 his exercises. He is of a quite apprehensive wit, yet all his 
 delight is in hunting and horsemanship, from which desire
 
 ETON GENTLEMEN 321 
 
 Mr. Robert often dissuades him, and exhorts him to learning 
 in his youth, for, saith he, there can be nothing more profitable 
 and honourable, and in such a manner that your Lordship 
 would admire of it, or think it incredible what flowing virtues 
 my poor wit can find in him. He is wise, discreet, learned 
 and devout, and not mere devotion as is accustomed in 
 children, but with all sincerity he honours God and prefers 
 Him in all his actions. He is of a fair amiable countenance, 
 grown much in thickness and tallness and very healthful. 
 Praised be God, during his residence here he had but one fit 
 of sickness, which came by a casualty, not any innate infirmity. 
 The loth of January he took a conceit against his breakfast, 
 as he is always curious of his meat, and would go fasting to 
 church. It being a cold morning the piercing air entered into 
 his tender stomach and caused a grievous griping for the space 
 of two days, and Mr. Provost would have him take physic ; but 
 I was against it, and desired respite till next day, and in the 
 mean space he was well recovered, thanks be to God, and 
 continues, still increasing in virtues. His delight is in his 
 learning, and as well in all other noble faculties, for he takes 
 no delight in playing with boys nor running abroad but when 
 I wait on him, and to talk Latin he hath much affected. 
 This quarter he learned to play on music and sing, but he could 
 not proceed far, for his teacher had much employment abroad 
 in the country this quarter. My most honourable Lord, what 
 a happiness it is to me to see how lovingly they live together 
 that never yet two ill words pass between them, which is rare 
 to see, and especially when the youngest exceeds the eldest in 
 some qualities. Then most commonly there is an emulation 
 between them, as I see in this college between two brothers 
 and nobleman's sons ; there is such envy between them always 
 that their servants cannot live quietly for them, but the peace 
 
 x
 
 322 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 of God is with my masters : they live in such natural fraternity 
 and amity that all the college of all degrees take notice of 
 them, and as well for that as for their brave courteous carriage 
 to all men, they are highly respected and well beloved. And 
 there passed some discourse at these grave fellows' table of 
 the college boarders how they behaved themselves, and the 
 Vice-provost, which is my masters' landlord, protested that 
 never he saw sweeter nor civiller gents in the college than 
 Mr. Boyles. ... I could not get Mr. Francis to write this 
 time, for he alleges that his hand shakes as it did at the writing 
 of his last letter, and my Master Robert's thumb is sore, 
 wherefore he could not write.' . . . And so their ' humble 
 respective and transparent servant ' had to do his best to fill 
 the gap, and please all parties. 
 
 Robert said in after days that he had never cared much 
 for games, excepting tennis and mall ; the little philosopher 
 would not condescend with Gray's schoolboys ' to urge the 
 circle's rolling speed,' although he did ' chace the flying 
 ball.' 
 
 The Eton boys of the time had Christmas holidays ex- 
 tending from the 2Oth of December to Shrove Tuesday, 
 but it does not appear that many of them went home. In 
 the summer the scholars ' being carried away by the desire 
 of visiting their parents and friends ' were permitted by the 
 rules to take a holiday of three weeks from Ascension Day 
 to the eve of Corpus Christi. 1 At the time the Boyles came 
 to Eton the summer holidays had grown to be a month in 
 length, and the journey to Ireland was too adventurous a one 
 to be lightly undertaken, so the good Provost had to arrange 
 where Francis and Robert should spend their vacation. He 
 wrote to their father in June 1636 : 2 
 
 1 Maxwell Lyle, 141. 2 L. P., ii. 3. 262.
 
 ETON GENTLEMEN 323 
 
 * . . . Concerning the two nearer pledges of your trust 
 under my care, I received some days since from my Lady 
 Goring, their sister, some few lines expressing a desire to 
 have them with her at this time of our vacation, when our 
 school breaketh up two weeks before Whitsuntide and pieceth 
 again a fortnight after, which just and kind motion was to be 
 an absolute command. And so I sent them to her at Lewes 
 in Sussex, together with the Captain of our school, a well- 
 learned and well-tempered boy, whose friends dwell in that 
 shire, so as he may serve them both for a good guide and 
 companion. It will be a solace for my Lady, and for them 
 a fine refreshment. And I am glad to tell your Lordship 
 that she will see Frank in better health and strength than 
 he hath been in either kingdom before. And Robert will 
 entertain her with his pretty conceptions now a great deal 
 more smoothly than he was wont. We expect them both 
 again under God's favour on Saturday come seven night.' 
 
 Cary wrote on the o,th of June to describe the holidays 
 at Lewes. ' The boys,' he says, ' have been this vacation 
 with their dear sister, where there was nothing wanting to 
 afford a good and pleasant entertainment, if my honourable 
 Lady had not been visited with her continual guest, grief and 
 melancholy : which is incurable while she lives among those 
 unhappy plants which yield her nothing but vexation of 
 mind, yea, have already sucked from her all comfort. My 
 wit is not able to make a full relation of her estate, but my 
 mind is capable of grief to know the truth of it. She prays 
 incessantly that she may enjoy your honour's presence here, 
 as there. My masters did comfort her as much as they could, 
 but her languishing heart could not receive much comfort, 
 so that it made them cry often to look upon her. They 
 were, since 8th of May until the yth of this present, being
 
 3 2 4 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 admonished by Sir H. Wotton, their tutor and schoolmaster, 
 who went all into the country this breaking time, to recreate 
 themselves in the country at their pleasure : and it was not 
 without some relation to the book, for most commonly every 
 morning they compose a piece of Latin, and sometimes they 
 write verse, but the rest of my Master Robert's time was 
 employed in reading some pleasant history, wherein he takes 
 no small delight, and reaps thereby much profit, for what he 
 reads takes such impression in him that it cannot easily get 
 away, and not only the method, but the same phrase, he runs 
 without book.' 
 
 Unless the neighbourhood of Lewes was still a primseval 
 forest, it is difficult to imagine what ' unhappy plants ' Gary 
 alluded to. It is just possible however that he wrote 
 c plaints ' for ' complaints,' and Dr. Grosart failed to decipher 
 the abbreviation. ' The pleasant histories ' to which Gary 
 alludes were doubtless Amadis de Gaul and other romances 
 which Robert had been given to read, to while away the 
 hours when sick with the ague. In later life he considered 
 that he had wasted too much time over such idle reading ; 
 it may seem to us that it was not entirely waste of time 
 to cultivate the imagination of which he afterwards made 
 such a * scientific use,' but he declares these ' fabulous and 
 wandering stories ' so unsettled his mind that he became 
 unable to fix it on any work, and only succeeded in curbing 
 his volatile fancy by extracting cube and square roots and 
 working at algebra. 
 
 This ague Robert had caught during a visit to Lord 
 Dungarvan in London, which seems at that time to have 
 been as constantly the home of malaria as of the plague. 
 All that the doctors could prescribe had no effect, and even 
 the Queen's physician could only suggest his being sent back
 
 ETON GENTLEMEN 325 
 
 to Eton to try the effect of good diet and good air. But 
 the sweet air of the playing fields did not restore little 
 Robert to health, and he suffered many things from his 
 doctor and grew no better, till at last his cure was worked 
 by a happy accident. A good-natured maid heard him 
 lamenting bitterly over the nauseous medicines with which 
 he was drenched, and was so moved that she secretly threw 
 away the potion, and filled up the bottle with the syrup 
 of stewed prunes. As Robert was convinced that physic 
 must needs be loathsome, he heroically swallowed down the 
 syrup, and never realised that it had been changed till the 
 maid ' acquainted him with the cozonage,' when, whether it 
 was his mirth that cured him, or whether the ague had worn 
 itself out, he could never say, but from that hour he com- 
 pletely recovered. It would have been but fair if the maid 
 had had the fee, but Robert proceeded with due formality 
 to ' thank and reward the physician,' and although he found 
 it very difficult to keep his countenance when the doctor 
 laid all the credit of his recovery to the last prescription, he 
 enjoyed tricking the learned man as thoroughly as any * lower 
 boy ' would to-day. 
 
 He had good reason for disliking medicine ; once he was 
 given a wrong one by mistake, and very nearly died of the 
 blunder. Nor was this his only escape ; once when out riding 
 his horse threw him and trod upon him, and one night he 
 and Francis narrowly missed being crushed to death, for the 
 wall of their chamber fell in, half burying them in falling 
 rubbish mixed with the furniture and books from the room 
 above. Fortunately ' a lusty youth ' who was sitting talking 
 with Francis by the fire, pulled him out of the ruins, while 
 Robert, who was in bed, had the presence of mind to wrap his 
 head in the sheet, which ' served as a strainer for the dust and
 
 326 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 preserved him from suffocation.' We must not for a moment 
 think that the little philosopher was frightened and hid his 
 head under the bed-clothes ! 
 
 But other and worse dangers lay in wait for the two boys, 
 of which unsuspecting Sir Henry Wotton knew nothing. In 
 some way or other Lord Cork's suspicions were aroused, and 
 he began to doubt whether Cary, for all his warm heart and 
 elegant epistolary style, was quite a satisfactory companion 
 for the children. He wrote to ask Sir Henry's opinion, but 
 Cary seems to have known how to get round the excellent 
 Provost, who answered, ' We are all here so well persuaded 
 of young Mr. Gary's discretion and temper and zeal in his 
 charge and in the whole carriage of himself, as it will be hard 
 to stamp us with any other impression, yet because your 
 Lordship's letter was so confident, I bestowed a day in a 
 little inquisitiveness, and found indeed that between him and 
 a young maid, daughter to our undertaker (and I do not 
 altogether, I must confess, think unhandsome, nor so far 
 otherwise as she thinks herself) there had passed long since 
 certain civil, which she was content to call amourous, language.' 
 The Provost had evidently learned the maxim ' Cherchez la 
 femme,' as he laid all the blame of the flirtation on the 
 undertaker's conceited daughter. He continued warmly, 
 'Truly there cannot be a more tender attendant about your 
 sweet children, insomuch as when Frank was sick of no deep 
 infirmity, [when] he was out of his sight [there was nothing] 
 but tears distilling, no doubt from a good nature.' 
 
 Alas ! the boys could have told a different story. Robert 
 related afterwards that Cary ' wanted neither vices, nor cunning 
 to dissemble them, especially he had a dotage upon play which 
 brought him into ill company and other excesses.' 
 
 In August 1638, as soon as Lord Cork arrived in England,
 
 ETON GENTLEMEN 327 
 
 Lady Kildare brought down Francis and Robert to spend their 
 summer holidays in their new Dorset home, and then their 
 father discovered that Gary was indeed not a man to be trusted 
 with the care of the boys, and that Eton was doing no good to 
 either of them. Frank had been induced, either by Gary or 
 by an Italian servant of the Provost's, to back a bill, while a 
 new headmaster had replaced kind Mr. Harrison, and Robert's 
 progress in learning had suffered in consequence. Lord Cork 
 did not take long in making up his mind that his sons' Eton 
 days must come to an end. We do not hear how he broke 
 the decision to the good old Provost, we only hear abruptly 
 that he halted at Eton on the 23rd of November on his way 
 home from London, c Whence I took my two younger sons, 
 for whose expenses for three years for diet and tutorage and 
 apparel I paid 914, 35. o.d.' Mr. Harrison, who still had 
 some connection with Eton, was asked to send their bed-linen 
 and furniture down into the country, and their school life was 
 at an end. 
 
 Gary went abroad, and the last we hear of him is from 
 Mr. Marcombes, the tutor of Lewis and Roger, who came on 
 the foolish young Irishman in Paris, ' in poor equipage,' and 
 gave him twenty-five French livres to bring him home. 1 
 
 Francis and Robin's education was carried on by the 
 clergyman at Stalbridge, Mr. Douch, who received them and 
 their servant into his house for fifteen pounds a quarter. 
 Mr. Douch ' instructed them with care and civility,' and 
 Robert recovered his Latin, which he had almost forgotten 
 under f the new rigid fellow ' who had replaced his beloved 
 Mr. Harrison. He now began to write Latin verse and 
 prose, and also had lessons in singing and instrumental music. 
 
 But the next summer a glorious prospect dawned before 
 
 i L. P., ii. 3. 217.
 
 328 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 the school-boys. Their three elder brothers were riding to 
 join the King's expedition against the Scots, and Lord Cork 
 seriously thought of letting Francis and Robert also offer their 
 swords for his Majesty's service. It was characteristic enough 
 that the Earl should be proud to show, that he not only had 
 gold to give to his King, but that he had bred up five noble 
 sons to serve him, even though Robin's twelve years' old arm 
 could hardly yet * lay on like a butcher ' in the royal cause. 
 
 But alas ! Francis fell ill, and Robin was needed by his 
 playfellow, and to their desperate disappointment the two saw 
 their elder brothers ride away without them. But Robin 
 consoled himself, and in after years would often recall that 
 ideally happy summer in green Dorset. His father trusted 
 him with the keys of all his orchards and fruit gardens, but 
 what the boy loved best was to steal away alone into the woods 
 and meadows, and there weave day dreams of romance, where 
 no doubt the comrades of Amadis of Gaul mingled with half- 
 remembered heroes of Irish nursery lore. Who knows what 
 sweet influences those peaceful days may have shed over 
 Robert's future life ? Perhaps among the horrors of war, 
 or the tawdry gaiety of the Restoration court, he found that 
 even kind Mr. Harrison's lessons were less inspiring than 
 those he had learned when 
 
 * His daily teachers had been woods and rills, 
 The silence that is in the starry sky, 
 The sleep that is among the lonely hills.'
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 SAVOY WEDDINGS 
 
 1638 1640 
 
 ' Paint to her mind the bridal state, 
 That bluff King Hal the curtain drew, 
 And Catherine's hand the stocking threw.' 
 
 Marmion. 
 
 FOR ten months Lord Cork enjoyed the company of all his 
 children, and was able to devote himself with undisturbed 
 satisfaction to negotiating weddings, and selecting the carvings 
 for his new staircase. 
 
 But elsewhere history was being made, and the discontent 
 that was simmering throughout all the three kingdoms came to 
 a head in Scotland, where a General Assembly established 
 Presbyterianism, and all classes united in opposing the 
 Crown, and in signing a solemn Covenant to withstand the 
 religious innovations advocated by the King and Archbishop 
 Laud. Lord Cork had little sympathy with such irregular 
 methods of supporting national liberties, and writes on the 
 2yth of April 1639 : ' This day his Majesty left the court and 
 began his journey from Whitehall toward York to reduce his 
 rebellious subjects in Scotland, wherein I beseech God to bless 
 his army.' 
 
 Dungarvan instantly offered to raise one hundred men for 
 the royal service. The old Earl was not much pleased at his 
 usually docile son making such an independent move * without 
 
 329
 
 330 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 his privity,' but after a little grumbling he consented to 
 advance the necessary 2000 for equipping the troop, on 
 the understanding that Dungarvan should repay it, with 
 interest, to the two daughters of Lord Barrymore, the two 
 daughters of Lord Digby, and Katherine Tynte, for whose 
 portions it had been laid by. 
 
 Although he did not care to have his hand forced, the 
 Earl was ready enough to do his duty to his sovereign, and 
 proposed, as has been told already, to send all his five sons 
 to serve under the royal banner ; but Francis falling ill, he 
 and Robert were kept at home and given the keys of the 
 Stalbridge fruit-gardens to console them for the laurels they 
 might not gather on the Scottish border. 
 
 On the 4th of May, Lord Cork writes : ' This day my 
 son Dungarvan's waggon and carriages began their journey 
 from Stalbridge to go to his Majesty's camp at Newcastle 
 or York. God speed them well to return. Dick Power, 
 Dungarvan's coronet of horse, arrived at Minehead out of 
 Ireland yesterday and came this night to Stalbridge, leaving 
 the horsemen and horses to come hither after him.' The 
 Earl had bought saddles, horses, and armour of proof for 
 ' Lewis and Hodge,' and his list of accoutrements ends with 
 the prayer, ' The God of Heaven bless, guide, and protect 
 them. God, I beseech Him, return them safe, happy, and 
 victorious to my comfort. I have promised to allow each of 
 them, besides their own and their servant's diet, $oo apiece 
 in money for apparel and charges.' And so, on the 9th of 
 May the old man's three sons rode away to the north, 
 Dungarvan mounted on his father's own saddle-horse, Grey 
 Coote, Broghill on Grey Muskerry, and Kinalmeaky on Bay 
 Eddow, a horse bred no doubt by Lord Cork's servant John 
 Eddow.
 
 SAVOY WEDDINGS 331 
 
 Perkins commented with cynical freedom on the young 
 lords' departure, ' It were best for them to be with your Lord- 
 ship at Stalbridge, for nothing is to be had of them [the 
 Scots] but knocks, and ragged knaves if they will not be ruled, 
 as I hope there will never be blood drawn in the quarrel.' 
 
 Lord Barry more hurried back to Munster to beat up 
 recruits for a regiment of foot among his tenants, but one 
 young Irishman lingered on in London after the army had 
 marched north, for in June Perkins reported that Lord Kildare 
 was still in town, ' branching it out as brave as may be. I 
 hear his lady sent him over ^300 lately, and that is bravely 
 bestowed and I believe gone ; for some few days since I was 
 at his Lordship's lodging to speak with Mr. Freke, and his 
 Lordship asked me to furnish him with ^1000. His garb 
 that he lives in, never merrier, for he sings about the Strand 
 as merry as mulled sack, and that the boys know well enough, 
 for they flock about him. . . . This day a gentleman who is 
 gentleman usher to the Duke of York showed me a pair of 
 pistols that the Little Mad Lord gave the Duke not long ago, 
 who makes excellent sport with him/ 
 
 Perkins was spiteful. Kildare might easily have been worse 
 occupied than in sporting with the seven years old prince ! 
 
 Dungarvan wrote on the 29th of May from Duddoe, near 
 Berwick, to describe the march north to his father : 
 
 ' The King daily visits the camp, where his affability to the 
 soldiers has gained their hearts ; for he dines amongst them, 
 and the other day marched eight miles with the foot, distri- 
 buted his own dinner amongst the soldiers, and six or seven 
 waggons of cold meat. He is truly infinitely careful in their 
 accommodation, and grows daily expert in martial discipline.' 
 
 But no word came of battles fought and won, only rumours 
 of the inexperience of the English army, and of astute negotia-
 
 332 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 tion carried on by the Scots' leaders, and then, as Midsummer's 
 Day dawned, the household at Stalbridge was awakened by 
 the clatter of hoofs on the avenue and Broghill's voice as he 
 sprang from his horse and shouted that he had ridden all 
 night to bring the news of peace declared. Joyful as were 
 the tidings, the old Earl's pleasure was a good deal dashed 
 when he heard the terms granted by the King, that the Scots 
 had been promised that all their grievances in matters ecclesi- 
 astical should be determined by an assembly of the Kirk, 
 and in matters civil by the Scottish Parliament ; and that the 
 Assembly and the Parliament were already summoned for 
 the following August, when the King himself would honour 
 them by his presence. 
 
 Lord Cork confided to his trusted friend Lord Ranelagh 
 that he could not but wish that the King's service had required 
 his sons' longer stay in Scotland, ' and that his Majesty had 
 not dissolved his army so soon, for it had been a more brave 
 and safe work to have given them laws with an army and his 
 sword drawn, than to have stood upon capitulations as this 
 enclosed proclamation will show you to be the present case.' 
 
 Soon after George Goring arrived with his brothers-in-law 
 at Stalbridge, and on the 23rd of August came Lord Barry- 
 more and several of his officers, with heavy hearts enough, 
 for, as Lord Cork explains, the King had only allowed 2000 
 to Lord Barrymore, for ' the expense of raising and bringing 
 out of Ireland fifteen hundred Irish soldiers, to serve against 
 the covenanting rebellious Scots. But the King having con- 
 cluded a peace before they could come to his camp they were 
 dismissed, with command to return to Ireland, to the great 
 loss of Lord Barrymore, for to content them he was enforced 
 to bestow more money among them than the King gave him.' 
 Such was the royal gratitude to the poor chieftain of the
 
 SAVOY WEDDINGS 333 
 
 Barrys, for all his exertions in raising his regiment ! What 
 wonder that the Irish soldiers were discontented ! The real 
 wonder was that there should be any loyalty left in Ireland 
 at all. 
 
 When his sons came back to him from the Scotch war, 
 Lord Cork decided to emerge from his retirement and spend 
 the winter of 1639 in London. There were many matrimonial 
 projects on foot that aided in drawing him thither. 
 
 Sir Thomas Stafford had by this time married a court 
 lady, the widow of Sir William Killigrew, and when the 
 StafFords came to pay their summer visit to Stalbridge, they 
 had brought with them Lady Stafford's daughter by her first 
 husband, a pretty minx named Mrs. Betty Killigrew. Mrs. 
 Betty, though little more than a child, was already a maid of 
 honour, and her pretty face and her court graces quite turned 
 the head of the gentle Eton boy, Francis Boyle. But this was 
 all as it should be. Early in the summer Lord Cork writes 
 that he and Lady Stafford had ' conferred privately between 
 ourselves touching our children, and concluded ' ; and in 
 September came royal letters urging the match, for Betty's 
 father had been Vice-Chamberlain to the Queen, and her 
 Majesty was graciously desirous to support Lady Stafford's 
 wishes. 
 
 Lord Cork had come to dislike boy and girl marriages, 
 but Lady Stafford wrote very urgently to press that there 
 should be no delay : 
 
 * I have given the King and Queen a just relation of your 
 favour to me and mine, and found them much pleased with it. 
 ... If there be no other goodness in this place but fair 
 promises I am most unhappy, for my desire to serve you 
 is beyond my expression, which your Lordship may easily
 
 334 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 believe when you call to remembrance the noble way you have 
 obliged me ; wherein for ever I must study to deserve by 
 being faithful to you and yours. And if your Lordship 
 thinks fit, I beseech you send my dear Fs. straight away, for 
 we long to see him ; and your Lordship must resolve to be 
 governed by the King and Queen, for they will have it at 
 court, believing that to be the more honour for your Lord- 
 ship ; and now I have done, so you will pardon these lines, and 
 believe me to be the humblest of your Lordship's servants, 
 
 MARY STAFFORD.' 
 
 Mary Boyle long afterwards described my Lady Stafford 
 as a ' cunning old woman.' She certainly was an experienced 
 woman of the world, who knew how to take advantage of 
 every turn of court politics, and who had no intention of 
 letting such a good match for her pretty daughter be lost for 
 lack of hurrying matters on. But the old Earl was not easily 
 to be talked over, and when Francis went up to town he 
 carried a very serious and touching protest from his father to 
 Lady Stafford. 
 
 'Mv MUCH HONOURED LADY, I will forbear all tedious 
 discourse and lay all compliments aside, for that my intents to 
 your Ladyship and yours are real, without any ceremonial 
 mixture, and so the effects shall speak me, for I hold it the 
 more essential part of an honest man to do their promises. 
 
 ' I am satisfied and consequently most thankful for the 
 noble offices you have vouchsafed me to his Majesty and his 
 gracious queen, whose person I am obliged to honour, and to 
 whose services my heart is devoted. 
 
 ' I do now send the bearer to offer his service unto you, 
 and to be commanded and governed by you. My faith
 
 SAVOY WEDDINGS 335 
 
 assures me that God gave him me that I might bestow him 
 upon you, and so I do with all my heart and best blessing, 
 desiring you to dispose of him for your own honour and his 
 best advantage, and to remember that he was born upon the 
 25th of June 1623, and that he is now but upon the worst 
 side of the sixteenth year of his age. And I intend to spare 
 neither care nor charge to give him a noble breeding in 
 foreign kingdoms ; and whether an unripe marriage may not 
 hinder his corporal growth, or his proficiency in learning, or 
 raise higher thoughts in him than to be ordered and governed 
 by a tutor, I pray you to take into more than ordinary con- 
 sideration, for I send him unto you as a silken thread to be 
 wrought into what sample [sampler ?] you please, either flower 
 or weed, and to be knotted or untied as God shall be pleased 
 to put into your noble heart. Yet in my best understanding, 
 a good and sure contract is as binding as a marriage, especially 
 when all intentions are real as mine are and ever shall be, 
 which are accompanied with a strong assurance that this child 
 of mine will prove religious, honest, and just, though he be 
 modest and somewhat over bashful, but good company and 
 foreign travels will I doubt not in time breed greater con- 
 fidence in him. What he is, is with himself and yours, and 
 therefore I pray, guide him to the best improvement of himself 
 and yours. 
 
 ' I will detain you no longer, for that I purpose very 
 shortly to do myself the honour as to gain the happiness of 
 waiting upon you, and in the mean time and ever, make it 
 my suit unto you to esteem me as I am, your Ladyship's 
 most affectionate and humblest of your faithful servants, 
 
 R. CORK.' 
 
 The King and Queen, who looked on Mrs. Betty as a
 
 336 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 pretty plaything, were eager to give her a gay wedding 
 without delay, and Lord Cork's scruples had to give way to 
 the obedience due to royalty. 
 
 The share of his Munster estates destined for Francis had 
 already been settled by the septpartite conveyance, and now 
 at the right moment an estate was offered for sale that would 
 provide an English residence for the young couple near to 
 Mrs. Betty's inheritance in Devonshire. Captain Arscott, the 
 grandson of the last St. Leger of Annory, desired to sell that 
 historic mansion near Bideford, and after some negotiations 
 Lord Cork bought it for ^5000. He wrote to Whalley at 
 Lismore describing the new purchase as * one of the goodliest 
 houses in the western parts of England, and I can put my 
 foot in a boat at Youghal and land at my own door. It is 
 very well wooded and watered, with goodly gardens, orchards, 
 and fisheries. It is nearer Youghal by many leagues than 
 Mine Head, and the fittest place in all England for me, con- 
 sidering how my land lies in Ireland, and with what conveni- 
 ence all things may be brought from one house to another.' 
 Although the estates were offered to Lord Cork in 1639, the 
 purchase was not concluded till 1641, when Lord Cork 
 calculated that the hop-gardens, fishings, lands, and woods 
 were worth 3000 a year. On the 3rd of August 1641 he 
 sent by carrier to Bristol, to be forwarded to Annory by boat, 
 twelve ' back chairs ' and twelve high stools of Turkey work, 
 four feather beds, and two flock beds, with pewter, brass, and 
 other necessaries. 
 
 It may be suspected that even if he had not wished to get 
 an English house for Francis, Lord Cork could not have 
 resisted buying a place that charmed him so greatly ; after 
 living so long in the bustle of a seaport town, perhaps he 
 grew a little weary of the ' sweet inland tones ' of Stalbridge,
 
 SAVOY WEDDINGS 337 
 
 which in after years his son Robert described as a very- 
 hermitage of retirement. 
 
 With Frank's wedding in prospect, Lord Cork and his 
 family prepared to leave Stalbridge, and take up their abode 
 in the lodgings in the Savoy Palace which Carew had 
 bequeathed to Sir Thomas Stafford. Francis was already 
 there, with his brother Kinalmeaky and the Gorings, not a 
 very staid party, and Sir Thomas Stafford hinted that Lord 
 Cork would do well not to leave the young people too long to 
 their own devices. He wrote from Whitehall oft the 26th of 
 August : 
 
 ' MY LORD, When I consider how ill arithmeticians 
 young ladies are, confirmed by that [opinion] of my dear 
 Lady Katherine, makes me again wish that your Lordship 
 would hasten your coming hither, or at least my Lady Dun- 
 garvan, who will prove a good Mareschal de Logis to dispose 
 to everyone their part of your old Savoy house, that if I may 
 have the happiness to know when you begin your journey I 
 will not fail to wait on you.' 
 
 Alas ! Sir Thomas's belief in Lady Dungarvan's powers as 
 Mareschal de Logis was not entirely justified by her house- 
 keeping at Stalbridge. It will be remembered that she and 
 Lady Barrymore had been given a regular allowance with 
 which to carry on the household ; but Lord Cork writes, 
 { Now, however, when I was to go to London, promising 
 myself to be clear and out of all debts, they and Thomas 
 Langdale, who they wholly employed in disbursing of my 
 moneys, baulking Thomas Badnedge, made it appear they had 
 grown in debt to diverse merchants, vintners, brewers, graziers, 
 in the sum of 700, which for the preservation of their credit
 
 338 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 and mine in the country I fully discharged with ready money, 
 to all such as were present to receive it.' 
 
 We cannot but imagine the scene the coach and six 
 waiting at the great gate, and the brewer and grazier and 
 vintner dunning the two trembling ladies and the unlucky 
 clerk of the kitchen, and how the great Earl looked when he 
 demanded the cause of the delay, and what the great Earl 
 said when he sent his trusty and slighted Badnedge to fetch 
 the money-bags from the iron chest. It really was happy 
 that the old gentleman did not have a second paralytic fit ! 
 But his indignation seems to have been soon appeased. They 
 arrived that night at Salisbury without any further incident, 
 and the fourth day, ' God be praised, I and mine came safely 
 to London, where Sir Thomas Stafford had prepared his house 
 of the Savoy bravely furnished with all things save linen and 
 plate, which I brought with me.' 
 
 Sir John Leeke had announced the arrival of the Boyles to 
 his Verney cousins as ' the greatest family that will live in 
 London ; I pray God the old man hold out.' l The family 
 was indeed so great that many of them had to lodge in other 
 houses, but all met for meals at Lord Cork's table. Lettice 
 Goring afterwards lamented the fatigue that so much bustle 
 and noise must have caused her father, but she probably was 
 not pleased at the authority of the house being taken out of 
 her hands. Not only were Lady Dungarvan and Lady Barry- 
 more there, but Sir Thomas Stafford's much-admired Lady 
 Katherine joined the party. Sir John Leeke sent a formal 
 announcement of her arrival to the Verneys, describing her as 
 a paragon of goodness and cleverness, and only hoping that 
 London would appreciate her. Before leaving Dorset Lord 
 Cork had written to entreat Lord Ranelagh to spare his son 
 and Katherine for a prolonged visit in England. 
 
 1 Ver. Mem*., \. 204.
 
 SAVOY WEDDINGS 339 
 
 * MY NOBLE LORD AND BROTHER, I should long since 
 have given you many thanks for having permitted my 
 daughter to see me, after the long absence of three years from 
 me, but that at her first coming she talked of so speedy a 
 return that I thought she would have been the first convenient 
 messenger I could have sent them by.' He proceeds to give 
 an account of the birth of his daughter's baby ' ffrank,' and to 
 entreat that Katherine and her husband might remain in 
 England for the winter, ' for the doctors are of opinion she 
 will not be in case with safety to travel till then and to divide 
 them were an unpardonable sin. And for him to return and 
 leave her behind, in the weak estate she is in, would be such 
 an affliction unto her as she will never endure ; for if be so, 
 no persuasion can work in her to stay behind. . . . They 
 shall both be lodged and dieted in my house and heartily 
 welcome. And I dare confidently affirm unto you that I 
 observe Arthur to be so discreet and careful that he will make 
 the best use of his time. And that his winter stay here will 
 render him unto you much improved ; he being more eager 
 to study serious things than to be carried away with levity and 
 youthful vanities. . . . And that the expense of his time in 
 London will much better him in all respects, now he hath 
 given over immoderate play in corners. I must now conclude 
 this suit, that if anything in the managing of this affair seem 
 in your better judgment to be in error that you will lay it to 
 my charge and not to your son's. . . .' 
 
 As soon as the ' great family ' were settled at the Savoy, 
 Francis was married with all the pomp and strange ceremonies 
 of the time. Lord Cork, when he wrote it down, felt the 
 royal favours showered on his family were some compensation 
 for the humiliations he had endured.
 
 340 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 October 24, 1639. 
 
 * This day my fourth son Francis Boyle was married in the 
 King's chapel at Whitehall, to Mrs. Elizabeth Killigrew, one 
 of the Queen's Majesty's maids of honour. The King with 
 his own royal hand gave my son his wife in marriage and 
 made a great feast in court for her, whereat the King and 
 Queen were both present, and I with three of my daughters 
 sat at the King and Queen's table amongst all the great Lords 
 and Ladies. The King took the bride out to dance, and 
 after the dancing was ended the King led the bride by the 
 hand to her bedchamber, where the Queen herself did with 
 her own hands help to undress her. And his Majesty and the 
 Queen both stayed in the bedchamber till they saw my son 
 and his wife in bed, and they both kissed the bride and 
 blessed them, as I did, and I beseech God to bless them.' 
 
 The next day * My daughter-in-law and my son Francis 
 having both this day presented their humble thanks to their 
 Majesties for the great favours and grace done them, and 
 kissed their hands, came from court to my house at the Savoy 
 with me, accompanied with the Lord and Lady Elizabeth 
 Fielding, the Mother [of the maids of honour] and all the 
 maids of honour, Sir T. Stafford and his lady with diverse 
 courtiers, on whom I bestowed a feast where there was great 
 revellry.' 
 
 After but three days of married life the poor boy bride- 
 groom was bidden take farewell of his bride and was packed 
 off to Geneva with his tutor, going as sadly and unwillingly as 
 a Cinderella leaving the court ball to return to her kitchen. 
 He had, however, the comfort of his inseparable brother 
 Robin's company, and all too many letters followed him from 
 Mrs. Betty for his tutor's approval. 
 
 Sir Thomas Stafford did not pay over her fortune at once,
 
 SAVOY WEDDINGS 341 
 
 but gave the Earl 40 a quarter, as interest on the 2000 and 
 to pay for her maintenance. Betty took up her abode in her 
 father-in-law's house, and became the chamberfellow of her 
 youngest sister-in-law, Mary, with whom she struck up a 
 schoolgirl intimacy that led both silly girls into sad scrapes. 
 
 Betty, for the time, seems to have been very much attached 
 to her husband, and to have shared his indignation at their 
 separation. So before many months were past the harassed 
 tutor reported to Lord Cork that he had heard from ' Some- 
 body (which did reveal it presently unto me) that Mrs. Boyle 
 hath desired Mr. Francis oftentimes by letters to return into 
 England for some special business, and that he should stay but 
 a while ; and that I must confess I did not approve, but 
 rather I did dissuade him by strong reasons (but speaking 
 always in the person of others as if I had known nothing of 
 the contents of his letters), never to undertake such a thing, 
 alleging at last that a wise governor is obliged to prevent 
 such a thing by his authority when his reasons cannot prevent. 
 Assuring yourself that I did not give him so much money as 
 once I used to do, for if I had not looked very narrowly 
 upon him, he had done I do not know what. But now there 
 is no danger till we come to Paris, and therefore I think your 
 Lordship would ^do very well to command me in all your 
 letters to say unto Mr. Francis that if ever he should under- 
 take to return into England or Ireland without your Lord- 
 ship's special order, or if he doth not dissuade by all his letters 
 his wife to undertake any journey out of the kingdom with 
 whatsoever person of the world, not excepting her own 
 brother Mr. Thomas Killigrew^ by whose counsel she must 
 not be ruled, but rather that if he do not persuade her to 
 go into Ireland or else to stay with her own mother, in that 
 case you will disinherit him, and not acknowledge him for
 
 342 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 your son. And take my word, my Lord, that that will much 
 prevail with him, and he with his wife ; for as it should be a 
 ridiculous thing that she should undertake to come to meet 
 him, so it should be a great pity that he should return home 
 without those qualities that befit a gentleman of his quality ; 
 and that he could not get in any other place as well as he 
 shall in Paris.' 
 
 Lord Cork was indeed wise to send his younger boys to 
 finish their education far from the follies and extravagances of 
 the court and the gaieties of the Savoy, where Mary said 
 afterwards her father ' lived extraordinarily high and drew a 
 great resort thither.' The after lives of Francis and Robert 
 owed much to Mr. Marcombes' training. Lord Cork's elder 
 sons, alas ! came too late under his care for him to acquire 
 much influence over them, and Broghill led a fast enough 
 life, if contemporary gossip may be trusted, while poor 
 Kinalmeaky before long had hardly a shred of character left 
 him ; and yet, sad to admit, save for the bitter shame and 
 anger with which his father made one or two entries about him 
 in his diary, which are too outspoken to reproduce, no one in 
 society seems to have thought a whit the worse of the young 
 fellow, and he was considered as desirable a match as if he had 
 been a Sunderland or a Falkland. 
 
 Very soon after Francis' wedding Lord Cork and Sir 
 Thomas Stafford 4 being in private conference with the 
 Countess of Denbigh, the Queen's Majesty came unlocked 
 for in upon us, whose gracious hands I had the honour to 
 kiss, and she vouchsafed to give me thanks for obeying her 
 desire in her letter touching the marriage of my son Francis 
 to Mrs. E. Killigrew.' 
 
 This solemn conference in Lady Denbigh's rooms of 
 course concerned another marriage, and soon after, Lord and
 
 SAVOY WEDDINGS 343 
 
 Lady Denbigh came with their son-in-law the Marquis of 
 Hamilton, the cousin of the King, and Lady Victoria Gary, 
 Lord Falkland's sister, and ' invited themselves to supper, 
 when the Marquis and Countess treated with me for a 
 marriage to be had between Lady Elizabeth Fielding and my 
 son Kinalmeaky, which, till the King's Majesty had expressed 
 himself to the Lord Marquis and the Countess, what marriage 
 portion and preferment he would give me with that lady, was 
 deferred ; and I bestowed a good feast upon them.' 
 
 The King took a special interest in the Fieldings, as Lady 
 Denbigh was sister to his early favourite, the great Duke of 
 Buckingham ; he had arranged Lady Mary Fielding's semi- 
 royal marriage with the Marquis of Hamilton, and it was to 
 be expected that he would do all in his power to forward her 
 sister's match with the son of the rich old Earl of Cork. No 
 time was lost, and evidently the King's dowry was all that 
 could be desired, for a week after, the Earl's confidential 
 servant, William Chettle, was sent ' to carry ^100 to Lewis, to 
 provide him with apparel fitting for his marriage with Lady 
 Elizabeth Fielding, one of the ladies of her Majesty's privy 
 chamber.' ( And I,' ends the economical Earl, ' lent him my 
 son Frank's wedding-shoes, which were delivered to him the 
 1 8th of this month.' 
 
 The day after Christmas Day was the wedding, which 
 eclipsed that of Francis and Betty, with ' much revelling, 
 dancing, and feasting, and the Queen presented the bride 
 with a rich necklace of pearl valued at ^1500, which the 
 King's Majesty put about her neck, and it was and is and 
 shall be my prayer to God to bless, guide, and preserve them 
 with health and long life, and to make them fruitful in virtuous 
 children, in good works, to His glory. Amen, Amen.' 
 
 Lady Kinalmeaky was greatly beloved by the old Earl.
 
 344 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 She was a beautiful and fashionable woman, and doubtless 
 knew how to make herself agreeable to him. We never hear 
 of her doing or saying anything especially charming, but 
 any one connected with the Villiers family had a sort of 
 glamour for Lord Cork, and he probably endeavoured to do 
 all in his power to make up to her for the want of happiness 
 in her married life. One of the allusions to her in his diary 
 describes with emotion her escape from a serious danger in 
 passing under old London Bridge, where the tide swirled in 
 rapids through the narrow arches. 
 
 { July 1641. This day Mrs. Kirke was drowned coming 
 through London Bridge. The Earl of Denbigh and his 
 daughter, my dear dear daughter-in-law the Lady Kinalmeaky, 
 through God's good providence and mercy, being also cast 
 away in the Thames, were miraculously preserved : for which 
 great delivery God make me and her ever most thankful.' 
 
 In January 1640 Lord Cork wrote to give Mr. Marcombes 
 all the family news, and, most joyful tidings of all, that a son 
 and heir was born to Lord Dungarvan. He writes : 
 
 ' On the 1 2th of December it pleased the King's Majesty 
 to christen the child by the name of Charles, being assisted 
 by the Marquis Hamilton and Countess of Salisbury. Your 
 friend Broghill is in a fair way of being married to Mrs. 
 Harrison, one of the Queen's maids of honour, about whom 
 yesterday a difference happened between Mr. Thomas Steward, 1 
 the Earl of Berkshire's son, and him, which drew them into 
 the field. But thanks be to God, Broghill came home without 
 any hurt and the other gentleman not much harmed ; and 
 now they have clashed their swords together they have grown 
 good friends. I think in my next I shall advise you that 
 
 1 Evidently a slip of the pen for Howard.
 
 SAVOY WEDDINGS 345 
 
 my daughter Mary is nobly married and that at the spring I 
 shall send her husband to keep company with my sons at 
 Geneva.' J 
 
 But Mary would none of the * noble marriage.' In the 
 course of his long life the Earl of Cork only met with one 
 person who finally got the better of him ; the great Lord 
 Deputy's triumph over him was but for a season ; it was 
 reserved to a girl of fifteen to do battle with the Earl and 
 come off final victor. 
 
 Lady Mary Boyle was but thirteen when she was taken 
 from the motherly care of Lady Clayton, as she herself says 
 ' much to her own dissatisfaction,' to find herself at Stalbridge, 
 lost among a crowd of grown-up brothers and sisters who 
 were too busy over their own affairs to take much interest in 
 the clever and spoilt little girl. If we may guess anything 
 from her father giving her a copy of Sidney's Arcadia, she 
 probably inherited the literary tastes of her grandfather, Sir 
 Geoffrey Fenton, and she certainly inherited her father's 
 tenacity of purpose. Lord Cork wished her first appearance 
 in England to be worthy of her rank, and before she left 
 Lady Clayton, he had sent Ned, Lady Barrymore's tailor, to 
 Cork, with e ten yards of scarlet ingrain plush, at twenty-four 
 shillings and sixpence the yard in Dublin, an ell and a half of 
 taffeta and fourteen yards of silver bonelace spangled, weighing 
 seventeen ounces, to make Mary a new gown withal,' and he 
 allowed her a hundred a year for her dress, besides a little 
 meadow of four acres ' to buy her pins.' 
 
 A marriage had been already arranged for Mary with the 
 son of Lord Clandeboye, a grandson of the great Lord Deputy 
 Perrot, but alas ! when the suitor presented himself at Stal- 
 bridge, Mary took such a violent dislike to him, that although 
 
 1 Printed in Smith, i. 81.
 
 346 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 the whole family united in advising and scolding her, the little 
 girl in her red plush frock withstood them all. 
 
 Her discomfited father wrote : * This day my daughter 
 Marie did, as she had done many times before, declare a 
 very high aversion and contradiction to our council and 
 commands touching her marriage with Mr. J. Hamilton, 
 although myself and all my sons and daughters, the Lord 
 Barrymore, Arthur Jones, and all other her best friends did 
 most effectually entreat and persuade her thereto, and I 
 command.' 
 
 Mary, in after days, was convinced that her dislike of Mr. 
 Hamilton had been inspired by Providence, as the poor man 
 not long after lost all his fortune, and Mary's theology was 
 so accommodating as to anticipate temporal rewards for inde- 
 pendent spirited young ladies, in defiance of the fifth command- 
 ment. But Mr. Hamilton was not the only rejected suitor. 
 One gallant after another presented himself in vain, and her 
 irritated father at last tried what a little adversity would do, 
 and stopped her dress allowance ; but in spite of having to 
 make a piece of the best bed-curtains do for a winter waistcoat, 
 Mary stuck to her resolve, ' living,' she says, ' so much at my 
 ease that I was unwilling to change my condition ' ; and she 
 continued of the same mind after the family came up to 
 London. Sir John Leeke introduced her to Lady Verney as 
 'a young peer that stands in fear of you already, she holds 
 down her head a little, and my Mistress (Lady Barrymore) 
 tells her that when you see her you will not spare to chide 
 her. She is a sweet-disposed lady,' concludes the good- 
 natured old gentleman, and begs Lady Verney to use her 
 influence in favour of a match between the girl and the ' new 
 Earl of Thomond.' 
 
 But Mary would listen to no counsels from older people,
 
 SAVOY WEDDINGS 347 
 
 and it was not till Betty Killigrew came into the family that 
 Mary began to look with other eyes on young gentlemen ; 
 for Betty spent all the time she could spare from ' exquisite 
 and curious dressing ' in reading romances and going to see 
 plays, and soon made her shy Irish sister-in-law as sentimental 
 a damsel as herself. 
 
 It must be admitted they had every encouragement to 
 sentiment, for Broghill's passionate wooing of Mrs. Harrison 
 was going on under their eyes. Mr. Charles Rich, Lord 
 Warwick's younger son, and Mr. Howard, the heir of Lord 
 Berkshire, were also at the feet of the court beauty, but they 
 sank their rivalry in their fear of the rich and fascinating 
 Munster suitor, and Mr. Rich carried the challenge from 
 Howard to Broghill. As Lord Cork related to Mr. 
 Marcombes, the duel came off without much damage being 
 done, and the fair cause of debate gave her promise to the 
 victor. Lord Cork did not share Broghill's admiration of 
 the lady, but he could not refuse his son's vehement entreaties, 
 and the wedding-day was settled and the wedding-clothes 
 bought. Then suddenly, Mrs. Harrison changed her mind, 
 and in spite of the remonstrances of all her friends, gave her 
 hand to Mr. Howard. 
 
 Dorothy Osborne, one of the most charming letter-writers 
 of the day, retailed all the gossip about this match with great 
 amusement, for the benefit of her own lover, William Temple. 
 She says : * The Queen took the greatest pains to persuade 
 her from it that could be, and as somebody says, I know 
 not who, Majesty is no ill orator, but all would not do. 
 When she had nothing to say ror herself she told her Majesty 
 she would rather beg with Mr. Howard than live in the 
 greatest plenty that could be with either my Lord Broghill, 
 Charles Rich, or Mr. Neville, for all these were dying for
 
 348 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 her then. I am afraid she has altered her opinion since 
 'twas too late, for I do not take Mr. Howard to be a 
 person that can deserve one should neglect all the world 
 for him.' 1 
 
 Betty naturally had many friends among the court 
 gentlemen, and was very intimate with Charles Rich, who, 
 when there was no further question of rivalry with Broghill, 
 made friends with him, and soon became a constant visitor at 
 Lord Cork's house. There he consoled himself for his loss of 
 Mrs. Harrison by paying attention to Mary. He was, Mary 
 says, a very cheerful and handsome, well bred and fashioned 
 person, and Mrs. Betty did all in her power to further his 
 suit, which was kept a romantic and profound secret between 
 the two girls. At last Mary caught the measles, and Mr. 
 Rich's manifest anxiety made the rest of the family suspect 
 that something was going on, so old Lady Stafford got the 
 whole history out of Betty and told the Earl, who promptly 
 packed Mary off to Hampton out of the way. Broghill 
 drove her down in his coach, and he and his elder brother 
 Dungarvan came to visit her more than once and urge her 
 to give up such a detrimental suitor, but Mary answered like 
 a heroine of romance that if she could not have Mr. Rich 
 she would never marry anybody. No chaperon seems to 
 have been put in charge of the young lady, and her lover 
 was not slow in following her from town and urging his 
 suit. Then old Lord Goring very good-naturedly came 
 forward and tried to bring Lord Cork round, and at last his 
 persuasions, joined with those of Lord Holland and Lord 
 Warwick, induced the irritated father to consent to an engage- 
 ment, but he marked his displeasure by only promising a very 
 moderate fortune to his troublesome daughter. Then Mary 
 
 1 Letters, Dorothy Osborne, 129.
 
 Jftff//, ffff fr/ft /('/ , //f'ffffff/
 
 SAVOY WEDDINGS 349 
 
 was brought home and fell on her knees and promised to be 
 a good girl, and directly after, went off with Mr. Rich and 
 was privately married at a village church near Hampton ! 
 She says she was averse to a public wedding, but it may be 
 suspected that the romance of an elopement had as much to 
 do with the escapade as her modest hatred of display. 
 
 Lord Cork was naturally very angry, but he made the 
 best of it when he wrote to Whalley, saying : ' The marriage 
 of my daughter Mary, unlocked for, to the Earl of Warwick's 
 son, occasions me to pay him 5000 of the 7000 portion 
 before I leave this town, praying you to be very careful to 
 get in all my rents and debts and arrears, for I shall come 
 home like a spent salmon, and as weak and empty as may 
 be.' 1 This is the solitary allusion to Mary's wedding to be 
 found among the Lismore records ; the Earl was too much 
 hurt to make any note in his diary on the subject. 
 
 Lord Cork must, however, have found some consolation 
 in the end of BroghiU's love affairs. He indeed * gained a 
 loss' when he lost Mrs. Harrison and won Lady Margaret 
 Howard, third daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, the radiant 
 creature whose wedding is celebrated in Suckling's well-known 
 poem, when 
 
 4 No sun upon an Easter-day 
 Was half so fine a sight.' 
 
 They were married in Lord D'Aubigne's house in Queen 
 Street, Co vent Garden, on the 2yth of January 1640. The 
 bride's portion was ^"5000, to which Lord Cork added another 
 5000. Possibly this was in land, as most of the Munster 
 estates already assigned to Broghill by the Septpartite convey- 
 ance were brought into the marriage settlement, and a rent- 
 charge of ^500 a year secured to Lady Margaret with the house 
 
 1 L. P., ii. 4. 210.
 
 350 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 at Broghill. For an English home Lord Cork bought them 
 the Manor of Marston Bigot in Somerset, paying ^10,350 for 
 it to Sir John Eppsley. Lord Cork told Whalley, c it hath a 
 fair house, with orchards, gardens and pleasant walks about it. 
 1 durst not but give you this account for my great disburse- 
 ment of money for fear you should think London hath made 
 me unthrift, and I spend my money as my son Kinalmeaky 
 does.' 
 
 The generosity of the settlement shows that Lord Cork 
 was well pleased with Roger's choice, and t Lady Peg,' as her 
 brothers-in-law called her, proved to be as good as she was 
 beautiful, and in Robert Boyle's words was f the great support, 
 ornament, and comfort of the family.'
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 THE OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 
 
 ' StrafFord called this Parliament, you say ? 
 But we Ml not have our Parliaments like those in Ireland ! ' 
 
 BROWNING, Strafford. 
 
 THE peace which the King patched up with the Scots in the 
 autumn of 1639 was so manifestly hollow, that both sides 
 continued their warlike preparations without any disguise, 
 and the King called to his help the one strong man in 
 whom he could trust. Wentworth came over from Ireland at 
 his summons and gave him an unexpected counsel ; he advised 
 the King to call a Parliament. The Irish Parliament had 
 been taught to grovel at his feet, and he vowed that England 
 should now learn the same lesson, even though Sir John Eliot 
 should come to life again to oppose him. The King agreed, 
 and even marked his approval of the policy by creating his 
 councillor Earl of StrafFord, and raising him from Deputy to 
 be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, all of which favours Cork duly 
 noted in his diary, but made no comment. 
 
 The party that was forming to oppose the growing 
 influence of StrafFord upon English afFairs naturally hoped to 
 have the support of Lord Cork, who knew better than any 
 man what the rule of Thorough had been in Ireland. But 
 Cork was wary, and did not betray his real opinions even to 
 the pages of his private diary. It is possible that he saw that 
 StrafFord was necessary to the King, and loyally refused to 
 
 851
 
 352 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 oppose the man whom his Majesty delighted to honour ; on 
 the other hand it is quite probable that Cork suspected that 
 Straffbrd's rash meddling with English politics was sufficient 
 to bring ruin on his head without any interference from the 
 Irish nobility. Whichever case was the true one, it is certain 
 that Cork knew very well that he was still in Strafford's power. 
 The permission granted him to reside in England might be 
 revoked any minute, when he would have to creep back to 
 Ireland into the very jaws of the lion. The new grant of his 
 property at Youghal was not yet signed, and his western estates 
 and castle of Beleek were threatened by the Plantation which 
 Strafford was busily carrying out in Connaught. The great 
 Earl of Cork was not so childish as to risk his liberty and 
 lands for the mere pleasure of gossiping about the Lord 
 Lieutenant. 
 
 In fact, ever since he arrived in England, Cork's attitude 
 had been so diplomatic and his language so urbane that Laud had 
 written with surprise and pleasure to tell Strafford, that Lord 
 Cork * coming to take his leave of me before his return into 
 Dorsetshire, where he means to expect the spring for the use 
 of the Bath, we had a little more free discourse ; and truly, 
 my Lord did to me speak as much good of your Lordship as 
 any friend you have could, for your prudence, your indefatig- 
 able industry and most impartial justice, with a protestation 
 that he never spake any other language since his coming over, 
 nor ever meant to do, and concluded with all this that you 
 were the best servant of the Crown that ever came into those 
 parts ; he hath likewise promised me some money for St. 
 Pauls'. This I thought fit to let you know, the rather because 
 if I be not much mistaken, he hath been solicited to speak 
 other language.' l 
 
 1 Strafford Letters, ii. 245.
 
 OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 353 
 
 Strafford cared as little for praise as for blame, and acknow- 
 ledged Laud's account of Cork's compliments with haughty 
 condescension. 1 
 
 ' As for my Lord Cork, I cannot deny but that his carriage 
 therein is more noble than I expected, it must be confessed 
 (howbeit nothing but just and honourable on my part, and that 
 singly with respect to the matter, not prejudiced against the 
 person), his Lordship hath in a judicial way had more taken 
 from him than any one, nay, than any six in the kingdom 
 besides ; so as in this proceeding with me, I do acknowledge 
 his ingenuity as well as justice.' 
 
 It was only by special grace of the Lord Lieutenant that 
 Cork could be excused from returning to sit in the Irish 
 Parliament which Strafford was now summoning together. 
 Cork when writing to acknowledge this favour took the 
 opportunity to beg the Lord Lieutenant to deal mercifully 
 with his Connaught estates : 
 
 ' March 16, 1640. 
 
 'MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP, Mr. Raylton 2 in the 
 evening of the I4th of this month sent me his Majesty's 
 writ of summons to appear the :6th of the same month at 
 the Parliament now to be holden in Dublin. And therewith 
 his Majesty's gracious letter dispensing my appearance in 
 pursuance of your noble promise, together with a blank 
 warrant of proxie for me to fill up. And when I had humbly 
 made known to his Majesty that I had made choice of the 
 Earl of Ormond to answer for me in Parliament and that my 
 two sons who had received the writs [Kinalmeaky and Broghill] 
 were both under age, his Majesty was pleased to approve of 
 my choice of the Earl of Ormond and to express his pleasure 
 that in regard my sons were both minors, and not of years to 
 
 1 Strafford Letters, \i. 271. * StrafFord's English agent. 
 
 Z
 
 354 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 grant proxies, that those writs of summons should be void and 
 no further proceedings upon them. ... I humbly beseech 
 your Lordship to give me leave to put you in mind of the 
 noble professions you vouchsafed unto me of your favour in 
 all my just and honest causes, and to be so indulgent unto me 
 as that I may find the like respect to be given unto me as unto 
 other noblemen of my quality, whose Connaught lands are 
 fallen within the compass of plantations, as mine there are, the 
 rather that I purchased them for valuable considerations and 
 have enjoyed them this forty years. And in the general revolt 
 of that province, maintained my then besieged castle of Belleck 
 with a strong ward at my own charge, until the Queen's force 
 under Sir Robert Fowle, Provost Martial of Connaught, were 
 employed to relieve it, and were defeated by the way, and he 
 slain ; yet John Floyd who was my constable there, with my 
 ward, defended it and killed sundry of the rebels who besieged 
 it, which caused the enemy to begirt it so straitly as they took 
 away from them their water, and thereby compelled them by 
 laying sheets on the top of the castle to get the dew to stint 
 their thirst. And in conclusion when they were hopeless of 
 all relief, they were promised if they would yield up the castle, 
 they should go away without any drop of blood to be drawn 
 upon them. But when the rebels were on those terms pos- 
 sessed of the castle, they took my ward and hanged them all, 
 except the constable, in revenge of their fellow rebels whom 
 they had slain and demolished. Whereupon I rebuilt my 
 castle which had the honour to receive your Lordship one 
 night in your Connaught progress ; which I humbly offer to 
 your Lordship the better to induce you to continue me therein 
 during my leases, and not to suffer the Lord Lambert ... to 
 have the rendition of it. ... But I hope your Lordship will 
 be so gracious unto me that if I may not have all my Con-
 
 OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 355 
 
 naught land confirmed unto me by this Commission of grace, 
 yet at the least your Lordship will deign to let me be tenant 
 of the other fourth part thereof that is to fall to his Majesty 
 by course of plantation, I paying such increase of rent as a 
 new planter should do, otherwise my tenants and farmers will 
 be much disappointed on part of their several farms, and I 
 thereby driven to make them new leases at proportionate rent ; 
 which will be great vexation to them and trouble to me.' 
 
 In April 1 640, the much desired English Parliament met, 
 but instead of taking the preparations for the Scotch war into 
 consideration, the Houses proceeded to count up the ecclesias- 
 tical and political grievances that had accumulated during the 
 long eleven years of Charles's personal government. The 
 irritated King made short work of their complaints. On the 
 5th of May Lord Cork wrote: 'This doleful Tuesday the 
 Parliament was dissolved before any Act was past, to my 
 great grief of heart, as also to the deep sorrow of many good 
 subjects, it having continued but three weeks and one day.' 
 
 Lord Cork's ' grief of heart ' only arose from the condition 
 of the kingdom, his own affairs were prosperous. On the 
 28th of June he writes : 
 
 ' This Sunday I was in the Council Chamber in the Court 
 of Whitehall sworn of his Majesty's most honourable Privy 
 Council of England with great grace and favour from his 
 Majesty and all the Lords ; for which addition of honour 
 God make me everlastingly thankful to my God and King.' 
 
 Possibly this favour was done to the Earl with some 
 thought of conciliating the moderate and old-fashioned party 
 among the nobility, possibly with an eye to certain favours to 
 come from him in return, for Cottington immediately bent 
 all his powers of persuasion to induce him to promise to lend
 
 356 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 $ooo for the royal necessities, no doubt pointing to the large 
 loans already given by the other members of the English Privy 
 Council when Coventry, Manchester, and Newcastle each 
 subscribed ,10,000. 
 
 It was not easy for Lord Cork to refuse such a demand ; 
 but the difficulty of raising the money, and the unreasonable- 
 ness of asking him for it, in view of the great sacrifices he had 
 already made, drove him to appeal to the King himself. 
 
 On the 6th of July he sent for a hackney coach, and drove 
 out with Lady Dungarvan and Betty to Oatlands, where the 
 court was spending the summer. There Lady Denbigh pro- 
 cured him an audience with both their Majesties, and he 
 recounted to them all the vast sums he had disbursed for the 
 public service, ^f 36,000 as his share of the subsidies raised in 
 Ireland, and ^2400 for that now due, besides the ^15,000 
 fine imposed on him for his possession of Youghal, and ^5000 
 he had spent in furnishing his sons for the Scotch war. Even 
 the King was obliged to admit that Lord Cork had borne no 
 small share of public expenses, and was graciously pleased to 
 free him from lending the 5000, when Lord Cork entreated 
 his Majesty to accept a free present of one thousand gold 
 pieces the next Michaelmas, ' which he did.' 
 
 Two days later, the 8th of July, being the day appointed 
 for a national fast, Lord Cork left London with Broghill very 
 early, and drove to Egham, and ' came to the beginning of 
 prayers, and there kept our fast and devotion.' They did not 
 return to London, for the King was going north to the army, 
 and most of the nobility were collecting troops to follow him. 
 Barrymore once again was straining his slender means to bring 
 men to the royal standard. He came out to Egham ' to 
 bemoan himself to his father-in-law ' that except I did now 
 supply him with another hundred pounds he could not follow
 
 OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 357 
 
 his regiment of twelve hundred to Scotland, nor free his wife, 
 children and servants out of England,' so of course Lord 
 Cork provided the money, and also gave Lord Barrymore 
 f one of my own coach horses, Grey Purdan, for his baggage 
 waggon.' 
 
 In August Broghill started for the north. * I have this 
 day sent my son Broghill towards York with ^1000 in gold, 
 to be by him presented to his Majesty as my free gift and 
 tribute of my duty and humble respect to his Highness in these 
 troublesome times wherein I am neither able to wait upon him 
 in person nor lend him monies as I desire, but of this my 
 poor gratuity I expect no repayment.' 
 
 Half the treasure Broghill carried on his saddle-bow, 
 riding his father's own horse Grey Coote, the other five 
 hundred was carried by his kinsman, Jack Travers, who rode 
 with him. Kinalmeaky did not accompany them, but went 
 round by London. 
 
 It has been said that when the historian Macaulay wished 
 to please his father, he filled his letters with anecdotes on the 
 slavery question, just as Frederick the Great conciliated his 
 own terrible parent by presents of extra tall recruits for his 
 famous Potsdam Guards. 1 Kinalmeaky was certainly a past 
 master in the craft of propitiating a father, and knew 
 exactly when to slip in an anecdote about the King or 
 a jeer at Strafford, to divert his irate parent's attention 
 from his tailor's bills or debauches. The result is that 
 his are the only amusing letters among the piles of family 
 correspondence. His letters from York give some good bits 
 of gossip. 
 
 * MY MOST HONOURED LORD FATHER, My last certified 
 
 1 Trevelyan, Life of Macaulay, i. 139.
 
 358 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 your Lordship the irremediable cause that stayed me so long 
 in London ; this assures your Lordship that, God be praised, 
 I arrived safe at York the 29th of last month (September). 
 Nor could I expedite my journey sooner, my horses being 
 pursey, the way long and almost unpassably ill, by reason of 
 the great abundance of cattle driven from these parts into 
 those : I myself having met at least 80,000 head of Northern 
 and Scotch cattle. The extreme rains did also very much 
 deepen the ways and raise the waters. . . . The night of his 
 Majesty's return (from Hull) my Lord Denbigh presented 
 me to my Lord Marquis 1 who received me with very noble 
 and courteous gesture and words and immediately brought me 
 to kiss the King's hand. I am all day, unless it be when his 
 Majesty goes into the field, at court, waiting on the King or 
 on my good Lord Marquis, to whose kind respects I am 
 infinitely bound : he allows me at all hours free access to him 
 when he is abed, lends me his horses and is very noble to me. 
 I waited often on my Lord Duke 2 at piquet till this sad mis- 
 chance which he heard of yesterday and is extremely sad. I 
 carry a musket next my Lord Denbigh in my Lord Marquis 
 (who hath a gallant regiment of 1600 able and expert men, 
 for the King's guard at quarters at York, and the only 
 regiment here) his own regiment. The King being th' other 
 day in the field, viewing my Lord Marquis his company, and 
 seeing there my Lord Denbigh, little Will Murray and I, said, 
 " There are three musketeers that I know, and by God," said 
 he, " they are three hot shots." The King when he is neither 
 in the field, where he is constantly every fair day, nor at 
 council, passes most of his time at chess with the Marquis of 
 
 1 The Marquis of Hamilton and Lord Kinalmeaky, it may be remembered, 
 had married sisters. 
 
 2 Duke of Lennox.
 
 OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 359 
 
 Winchester. Some three days since the King, long studying 
 how to play a Bishop, the Marquis of Winchester blurted 
 out, " See, Sir, how troublesome these Bishops are in jest 
 and earnest," the King replied nothing, but looked very 
 grum. . . .' 
 
 Then follows an account of a squabble of the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant of Ireland with the Earl of Newport and Colonel 
 Aston, which no doubt pleased Lord Cork well to hear. 
 Strafford at this time was racked by gout and dysentery, and 
 it was natural that the King should graciously desire to save 
 him fatigue, but this simple act of royal kindness only 
 increased the jealousy with which the great favourite was 
 eyed by the court. 
 
 ' Yesterday,' writes Kinalmeaky, ' in the afternoon the 
 King walking in the garden attended only by the Lord Duke, 
 the Lord Denbigh and myself, the Lord Lieutenant sent to 
 know when his Majesty would allow him the honour of 
 waiting upon him to inform him of some business that con- 
 cerned him, his indisposition not permitting him to wait 
 being the cause of his presumption. The King bid him take 
 his own time and he would expect him, and immediately sent 
 my Lord of Denbigh to expect his coming and to desire him 
 not to give himself the trouble of coming to the garden, but 
 to go into the King's bedchamber where he would come to 
 him. The King waited two long hours in the garden before 
 my Lord Lieutenant came. The King immediately went with 
 him and there talked hand to hand some three hours, until 
 prayers. My Lord Bristol gets small countenance from the 
 King, and his good looks from the Lord Lieutenant.' 
 
 Kinalmeaky then goes on to repeat the King's criti- 
 cisms on a pamphlet drawn up by the Scots to give their 
 reasons for taking arms. The King said, * it was the simplest
 
 360 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 thing that ever he read, so uncivil that he wondered much 
 they would own it, and so peremptory, that unless they said 
 to the Lords, to whom it was doubtless intended, We come 
 hither by divine inspiration, and therefore unless you co- 
 operate with us, that is,' said the King, ' become as arrant 
 traitors as we, and ranker there are not, by God, in the world, 
 we will cut your throats.' 
 
 The King had a shrewd enough wit, and he usually had 
 logic on his side ; but alas, when it came to the arbitrament of 
 blows, the ' arrant traitors ' were too much for the royal forces. 
 They crossed the Tyne at Newburn, and routed the English 
 with such ease that the first skirmish practically ended the 
 war. It was obvious to all the King must make terms, and 
 the Council of English peers, whom he called to his assistance 
 at York, unanimously agreed that the only resource was at 
 last to summon a parliament in Westminster. 
 
 When the welcome news that the King had consented to 
 call a parliament reached London, Lettice Goring quickly 
 forwarded the good tidings to her father, writing on the 
 2yth of September : 
 
 'My MOST HONOURED LORD AND DEAREST FATHER, If 
 
 I had not with chance met with Terrence going speedily 
 towards your Lordship I had, in obedience to your command 
 of sending you what news I heard from the army, dispatched 
 a letter purposely to your Lordship to let you know I have 
 this day received a packet of letters from Mr. Goring which 
 are full of good news and great hopes of a speedy conclusion 
 to all things and the King's speedy return. The Lords and 
 his Majesty agree so well that he consents to all they desire. 
 A parliament we shall have very speedily. I have sent your 
 Lordship the names of the Lords that are to go Com-
 
 OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 361 
 
 missioners to the Scots, who do great injuries to the people in 
 and about Newcastle. This gentleman, who came post from 
 Mr. Goring, tells me that they have taken all their money, 
 but that they still enjoy their goods, but were forced to give 
 the Scots an inventory of all the goods they have in their 
 houses, and that they have taken all their mills into their 
 hands, and their corn, and will not suffer them to grind a grain 
 for their own use, but they grind and bake all the corn, and 
 they must buy bread of them and pay two pence for a penny 
 loaf. They also take their fat oxen, and for them they give 
 them half a crown in money and a ticket for the rest. ... I 
 cannot express to your Lordship how much the City is joyed 
 at the news of a parliament. I hope your Lordship will be 
 speedily here, my Lady Goring commanded me to tell your 
 Lordship she desires it extremely. I let her know your Lord- 
 ship's favour to my Lord which she is very sensible of, and 
 extremely kind to me. I beseech your Lordship make haste 
 to town, which will very much joy, my Lord, your Lordship's 
 all obedient daughter, L. GORING.' 
 
 Dungarvan had been elected member for Appleby in the 
 coming Parliament, and his father was exceedingly anxious to 
 obtain leave to sit among the Lords, which, as an Irish peer, 
 he could only do by courtesy. As usual, Lord Cork turned 
 for help to his old friend Stafford, and Sir Thomas wrote to 
 say he was delighted to do all in his power. It grieved him 
 and his wife, he continued, to hear that the fatigues of the 
 gay season of the previous year had tried the Earl so much 
 that he would not again set up house at the Savoy. * But 
 when it shall please the All Disposer to give yours (i.e. your 
 children) a happy return into Ireland, and that your Lord- 
 ship's occasions call you to reside here, rather than you should
 
 362 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 lodge under any roof but ours, I would serve you and be a 
 steward, cook, cater or anything, and may the Savoy House 
 be reduced to a heap of ashes, if you be not as really and 
 heartily welcome there as to those in the world that love you 
 most heartily.' 
 
 Lord Cork was granted his desire, and ' was by writ called 
 into the Upper House by his Majesty's great grace,' not as a 
 member, but to take his place with Lord Wilmot, Lord New- 
 burgh, and the Master of the Rolls as * Assistants, sitting on 
 the inside of the woolsack.' l 
 
 This winter Lord Cork decided to board with Lettice 
 Goring. She was thrown into a great flutter of excitement by 
 the prospect, for although she was enchanted at the thought 
 of getting her father to herself, and out of the hands of her 
 older and cleverer sisters, she was rather alarmed at the 
 responsibility of caring for such an important guest. Her 
 letter is dated London, September 27, 1640. 
 
 * MY MOST HONOURED LORD AND DEAREST FATHER, 
 
 My heart was never so much nor so truly joyed as it hath 
 been since the receipt of your Lordship's last letter, which 
 assures me, to my very great content, that your Lordship is 
 pleased truly to understand and accept of my true and hearty 
 desires to serve your Lordship in all things my power can 
 reach to, which I call God to witness I do as willingly as ever 
 I did anything in my life, and if it were possible your Lord- 
 ship could see my heart you would there find it more loving 
 and dutiful to you than either my pen or words can express 
 here. In my last I was very loth, but since I have thought 
 fit to let your Lordship know, that you have somebody about 
 you very false to you and very true to somebody else, for 
 
 1 Lords Journals,
 
 OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 363 
 
 about six hours before I received your Lordship's first letter 
 of coming hither, my sister Jones told me that your Lordship 
 was resolved to live with me this winter. And when I pro- 
 tested to her that I knew no such thing, she did not believe it, 
 but thought I dissembled, for she said she knew it was true, 
 and she told it to all her servants before I received your 
 Lordship's letter, which was the cause I spoke to my Lord 
 Goring of it ; for as soon as he came in I guessed by his 
 speech that he had heard of it. So I told him, fearing he 
 would take it ill, and truly he was the most joyed man in the 
 world with the content he promised himself this winter with 
 your Lordship's company, for he says he could not endure to 
 come to you last winter there was such a crowd of ladies and 
 other company. Yesterday as soon as I received your Lord- 
 ship's letter I went to wait on him, but did not find him or 
 my Lady at home, and I am just now come from them but 
 again missed him, for he was gone abroad with the Queen, so 
 that I cannot by this post send your Lordship an absolute 
 answer for my sister Marie's coming hither till I speak with 
 him. . . . He is extremely kind to me, he has made me a 
 present of seven the best coach horses in England.' 
 
 She explains then that her sister Kinalmeaky has some 
 plate of the Earl's ready to deliver to him, and encloses a note 
 of the things he will need to bring from the country, ' to 
 furnish the wardrobe withal.' 
 
 ' As for plate we have but a dozen of dishes, whereof I have 
 but three here, the rest Mr. Goring hath at York, for none of 
 his things have come back, nor shall till the peace be con- 
 cluded. Therefore, if your Lordship please, I desire you 
 would bring with you a dozen and a half of the very biggest 
 dishes you have, and no little ones. Two dozen of plates and 
 three pair of silver candlesticks, for I have but one pair and
 
 364 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 two voyders. 1 If your Lordship had not rather lie in your 
 own sheets than any other, I have very fine ones, which I shall 
 never think so well employed as to lay in your Lordship's bed. 
 Your Lordship's chamber here will be very quiet, far from the 
 kitchen or any offices of the house that may offend it, and 
 nobody lies either over or under it, but Will Barber hath a 
 chamber with a chimney close by it, and back stairs very con- 
 venient, and your Lordship may be very confident I will not 
 have more care of my life than I will have to please you. . . . 
 For the expense of the house I will against your coming to 
 town cast it up to a certainty . . . but I call God to witness 
 that only your Lordship's quiet and content is the reason that 
 I desire the honour of your company, for I do not, like others, 
 desire to save by you, for I will spend to the uttermost farthing. 
 More I am not able to do ; if I were, God knows I would do 
 it very willingly, for as I formerly writ to your Lordship, it 
 grieved my very soul to see you so troubled the last winter. 
 . . . My sister Jones hath taken so ill a house for my brother 
 Dungarvan in the worst side of St. Martin's Lane that I 
 cannot but wonder at it. The best rooms look on the dung- 
 hill of my Lord Salisbury's stable, and the coach and horses 
 come under the dining-room like any inn, so that they will 
 have perpetual noise. Besides, the rooms are all extream 
 little, but I beseech your Lordship to take no notice of it from 
 me, though I cannot but choose wonder at it, so doth my good 
 sister Kildare, who presents her humble duty to your Lordship.' 
 Clearly there was no love lost between Lettice and her 
 ' sister Jones,' that ' good arithmetician ' who was even trusted 
 with the keys of her father-in-law's money-box, and whom 
 Stafford held up as a model housekeeper to the rest of the 
 family ! 
 
 1 Baskets for broken meat. Johnson.
 
 OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 365 
 
 It was all very well to settle how many silver plates his 
 Lordship would need to eat his dinner off, but there was some- 
 thing far more difficult to be settled before he could leave 
 Stalbridge ; what was to be done with Mrs. Betty ? One 
 cannot but spare a little sympathy for the pretty creature who 
 had been the spoilt child of the court, and was now imprisoned 
 in a dull country mansion with a severe and aged father-in- 
 law ! It appears that it would not have been etiquette for her 
 to return to her mother's house, so Sir Thomas Stafford wrote 
 in some anxiety : ' For Betty, I have commission from my 
 dame to wish that she might be left in good hands in the 
 country till the spring. If that cannot be done with con- 
 venience, then she bids me tell your Lordship that she will use 
 her best care to enquire out some fit place for her to sojourn.' 
 
 The difficulty was solved by Lady Dungarvan taking 
 charge of both Betty and Mary and their maids, for whose 
 diet for six months Lord Cork paid sixty pounds. 
 
 After reading these chronicles of small beer, and hearing 
 of these tempests in teacups, it is with a strange thrill that we 
 remember what it was they were so eagerly hastening up to see. 
 
 One's thoughts go back to the days of Noah when ' they 
 were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, 
 till the flood came and took them all away.' For ten years the 
 personal rule of the King had dammed back the rising tide 
 of popular discontent ; the meeting of the Long Parliament 
 opened the floodgates. The England of Elizabeth and James 
 was to be swept away, and few of those who were now hurry- 
 ing up to London with gay anticipations or heroic resolves, 
 would survive to see the new world emerge from the chaos of 
 the great rebellion. 
 
 The stateliest figure was the first to disappear. Lord Cork 
 writes :
 
 366 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 'February n, 1641. This day the Earl of Strafford, 
 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was by a committee from the 
 House of Commons by Mr. Pym, accused to the Upper 
 House in Parliament for high treason, which he said was not 
 only the complaint of that House presented in the name of the 
 Lower House, but in the name of the whole kingdom, with 
 humble request that his Lordship might not only be seques- 
 tered from the place of a peer in Parliament, but might also 
 be committed to prison, which the Lords taking into deep 
 consideration, his Lordship was called into the House as a 
 delinquent and brought to the bar upon his knees (I sitting in 
 my place covered), when the charge of high treason being 
 objected against him, he not being permitted to speak in his 
 defence, was presently committed to Sir J. Maxwell. And 
 this his dejection shows the uncertainty whereunto the greatest 
 men are subject unto.' 
 
 ' I sitting in my place covered ! ' Time had indeed 
 brought the revenge he desired to the Earl of Cork ! Never- 
 theless, fortune is proverbially fickle, and the doom of 
 Strafford was not yet certain. It was still possible that, 
 strong in the royal favour, he might prove too much for his 
 enemies, and might return again to his former greatness. 
 Whether from caution, or from a certain grim sympathy with 
 a ' foeman worthy of his steel,' is not clear, but Cork begged 
 that he might not be called as a witness early in the trial, and 
 sat silent while Lord Wilmot and Sir Piers Crosby told their 
 tale of the Deputy's oppressions. When, however, Strafford 
 in his defence repeated all his former charges against Lord 
 Cork, the old man eagerly seized the chance he had so long 
 prayed for in vain, and vindicated his character to the King 
 himself. The diary relates : 
 
 'Feb. 24th, 1641. The Earl of Strafford brought in his
 
 OPENING OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT 367 
 
 answer in writing, consisting of eighteen skins of parchment, 
 into the House of Peers, his Majesty, contrary to the advice 
 of his Lords, being personally present. Where among many 
 untruths [he] did charge me with having a pardon for having 
 caused unlawful oaths to be taken concerning the College of 
 Youghal. In which great untruths, I gave his Majesty full 
 satisfaction on the 2Qth of this month.' 
 
 Cork was outraged by the suggestion that he had ever 
 needed or craved a pardon, and further that he had so dreaded 
 his crimes being brought to a public trial, that he had petitioned 
 that the bill against him should be taken off the file ! He 
 therefore now demanded that public trial as his right, entreat- 
 ing that search might be made in the Dublin office, to prove 
 whether any such pardon had ever passed the seals there, and 
 whether the bill against him did not still stand on the file. 1 
 
 On the i st of March he writes again : 
 
 ' March i . I petitioned to the Lords of the Upper 
 House [for leave] to disprove the false and scandalous asper- 
 sions which the Earl of Strafford in his answer impertinently 
 and injuriously had endeavoured to blemish me. My petition 
 was delivered to be read by the Earl of Bath, who pressed 
 effectually to have the Lord Primate, Lord Ranelagh, and my 
 son Dungarvan all in court to be examined, to dispose his 
 false objections and my justification, but in regard all the 
 Lords did declare themselves fully satisfied, and that my 
 honour was vindicated and cleared, the examination of my 
 witnesses was deferred till his trial.' 
 
 ' May 3. This day, after many long debates and several 
 hearings, the oppressing Earl of Strafford, Lord Lieutenant of 
 Ireland, was by Parliament attainted of high treason, where I 
 sat present, but eleven voices of all the Lords declaring non- 
 
 1 Smith, i. 60. See also Lords Journals.
 
 368 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 content, and the rath of this month he was beheaded on the 
 Tower Hill of London, as he well deserved.' 
 
 So perished Cork's great enemy. 
 
 An epitaph which was much circulated at the time was 
 preserved by Lord Cork among the Lismore Papers, and very 
 possibly sums up his real opinion of the Earl of Stratford : l 
 
 Here lies wise and valiant dust 
 Huddled up twixt fit and just, 
 Strafford, who was hurried hence 
 Twixt treason and convenience. 
 He past his time here in a mist, 
 A Papist and a Calvinist. 
 The Prince's nearest joy and grief 
 He had, yet wanted all relief. 
 The prop and ruin of the state, 
 The people's violent love and hate, 
 One in extremes, loved and abhorred. 
 Riddles lie here, or in a word 
 Here lies blood, and let it lie 
 Speechless still, and never cry. 
 
 1 L. P., ii. 4. 187.
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 
 
 * When as mishaps that seldom come alone 
 Thick in the neck of one another fell. 
 The Scots began a new invasion . . . 
 The Irish set the English Pale upon. 
 At home the Commons every day rebel.' 
 
 DRAYTON. 
 
 STRAFFORD was gone, and in his place reigned two incapable 
 Lords Justices, whose chief idea of governing Ireland was to 
 undo everything that the great Deputy had done. The reforms 
 that he had begun were abruptly abandoned, the clergy he had 
 censured were picked out for promotion, the army he had 
 raised was to be promptly disbanded, with the result that the 
 confusion he had endeavoured to settle became worse con- 
 founded, and the discontent which he had aroused was fanned 
 into rebellion. 
 
 Lord Cork can scarcely be blamed for not observing any 
 unusual signs of danger. Munster was still happy in the 
 peace which it had enjoyed for half a century, and the delegates 
 of the Irish Parliament, with whom he had been sitting in 
 Committee in London, were now returning home in triumph 
 with the King's promise that the long-promised graces should 
 be ratified and many grievances redressed. Lord Cork gave 
 the Irish Lords and gentlemen a parting feast at the hostelry 
 of his cousin Croon in Cheapside, at a cost of 22, 2s. 
 
 But up in the north were gathering clouds. The Scots 
 
 2 A
 
 370 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 settlers in Ulster were watching how their countrymen in 
 Scotland were able to dictate terms to the King at the head of 
 his army, and were drawing their own moral from what they 
 saw. And a still greater danger threatened from the army 
 which had been raised to such efficiency by Straffbrd. Orders 
 were sent from England that it was to be immediately dis- 
 banded, no one in authority seeming to realise that there might 
 be any danger in depriving spirited and well-trained men of 
 their occupation and their means of earning a livelihood. All 
 that troubled the Justices was the lack of money with which 
 to pay the men off. 
 
 The Treasury being empty, their first idea was to apply to 
 Lord Cork for a loan ; but Cork remembered how fiercely 
 Straffbrd had resented his desire to recover the money he had 
 lent for necessities of State, and declined to advance the 
 required 2000 unless his repayment were secured on the 
 subsidy due the following November ; to which the Vice- 
 Treasurer Loftus answered * in a harsh displeasing manner, 
 that he had no security to give but his own bond,' and 
 naturally did not get the loan. 
 
 If Lord Cork had but known what hung on the peaceful 
 disbanding of that army, he might thankfully have given the 
 needful money as a present, even to the half of his fortune. 
 But he did not know, and occupied himself with Munster 
 business and felt no fear. 
 
 Many of Lord Cork's letters from home related to church 
 affairs in Munster. The plans which Straffbrd had made for 
 amending the condition of the clergy were now disregarded 
 as completely as his designs for maintaining the army ; and the 
 Justices, in their desire to reverse his policy in every way, 
 had hastened to present John Adair, whom he had deprived of 
 the Bishoprick of Killala, to the see of Waterford. Sir John
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 371 
 
 Leeke described the new prelate to Lord Cork with much 
 amusement : ' The new Bishop of Waterford, if he dissemble not, 
 doth profess much love and respect for your honour. I believe 
 all that tribe in the pulpit ! He hath restored Joshua Boyle 
 [Cork's cousin and agent] to his office at Waterford. Joshua 
 guides him wholly ' ; so, Sir John adds, to mark his approval 
 of the Bishop's docility, he had sent him some venison. 1 Sir 
 John's contemptuous allusion to the bench of Bishops as ' all 
 that tribe,' shows how Archbishop Laud's peremptory fashions 
 had alienated the laity. So far from having any wish for the 
 prosperity of the Church, Sir John looked on the struggles of 
 the Bishops to collect their dues as an excellent joke, and only 
 took a sporting interest in the question as to who might get 
 the rents of the Episcopal estates in Youghal. He wrote in 
 August 1641 to tell the Earl that another Bishop, my Lord 
 of Cork, was come from Dublin, ' and fights your tenant, that 
 denies to pay his rent of the College lands, and hath procured 
 an order from the Lords spiritual and temporal for the receiv- 
 ing of all such rents as belong to his Bishoprick. . . . The 
 world speaks aloud that he hath almost wasted himself to the 
 bones by his new honours, and were he not fully supplied by 
 his worthy son-in-law Michael Boyle, he might shut up doors.' 
 Another new Bishop had arrived in Munster while Lord 
 Cork was in England, who was a man of a very different stamp 
 from the fawning Bishop of Waterford or the ambitious Bishop 
 of Cork. Yet even this good man, Dr. George Synge, could 
 not free himself from the prejudices bequeathed by Laud and 
 Strafford, and arrived in Munster believing that the poverty 
 of his See of Cloyne, and the destitution of his clergy, were 
 all owing to the greed of the absentee Earl of Cork. ' If God 
 speed me not some other way,' he complained to Lord Cork, 
 
 1 L. P., 11. 4. 215.
 
 372 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 ' the means of the Bishoprick will not give me such provision 
 as the ravens provided for Elijah/ Further, the good Bishop 
 was greatly distressed at the condition of the chancel of 
 Youghal Church, which, he wrote, was like to fall down. 
 In this matter it appears that Lord Cork was not to blame, 
 as a tenant of his, John Lambert, held lands and a tenement 
 in College Lane, Youghal, as remuneration for keeping the 
 chancel roof covered with slates. 
 
 The Bishop's dissatisfaction with Lord Cork must have 
 been largely due to misunderstandings and the carelessness 
 of agents, for when Lord Cork returned to Ireland he and 
 the Bishop at once made up their differences ; when he was 
 sick, the Bishop ministered at his bedside ; and finally, in his 
 last will, Lord Cork bequeathed to Dr. Synge the richest pair 
 of gloves that he possessed, and, what must have pleased the 
 good man more, ^98 to 'new build' the chancel of Youghal 
 Church. At the time when he received these complaints 
 from Dr. Synge, Lord Cork had decided to be an absentee 
 no longer. He had now nothing to fear from a return to 
 the home he loved so well ; the Lords Justices were both 
 harmless, and one of them, Sir William Parsons, was his 
 kinsman ; the impending Lord Lieutenant, Leicester, was 
 his very good friend ; there was no reason that his days of 
 exile should be lengthened. 
 
 England in 1641 was not, in truth, a very comfortable 
 country for a man whose reason drew him towards the 
 Parliament and his traditions towards the King : the pro- 
 blems of Munster were far simpler ; there, on the western 
 side of St. George's Channel, men could be loyal to England 
 without discriminating between King and Parliament. The 
 Parliament was now adjourned for a few weeks : the King, 
 vexed by its continual opposition, had looked around for
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 373 
 
 friends, and had suddenly remembered that although the 
 Scots were still in arms against him they were, after all, his 
 own countrymen, and he determined to make an appeal to 
 their personal loyalty. This unexpected change of view was 
 rather startling to the spectators, and Lord Cork actually 
 laid a bet with Sir Thomas Stafford that the King was not 
 in serious earnest, ( taking one piece and agreeing to pay 
 him five for it if the King hold his journey into Scotland,' 
 but he soon repented of his doubts and gave Sir Thomas 
 three pieces to be released of his wager. 
 
 Lord Dungarvan and his wife left England before the Earl, 
 who had given Lady Dungarvan ^500 to provide * utensils 
 of household stuff to furnish the College House, where, God 
 bless them, they are to keep house for themselves.' Broghill 
 and ' Lady Peg ' were to be housekeepers at Lismore, and 
 Lady Kinalmeaky, who till now had continued her service at 
 court, was to join her husband at Bandon, where he had now 
 been for some time past exercising his functions as governor. 
 Lord Cork had seen him leave England with miserable anxiety, 
 and wrote imploring his friends and relations in Munster to 
 do all in their power ' to detain him from his wild and de- 
 bauched lascivious expensive courses . . . which if he take 
 not up in time, will be his ruin and the breaking of my heart.' 
 Lady Barrymore wrote a warm-hearted, elder-sisterly letter 
 about her wild young brother, from Castle Lyons, August the 
 i8th: 
 
 ' I assure your Lordship, though I had no room for him, 
 which was no excuse, but really so, yet I have a great care to 
 inquire how he demeans himself, and cannot from anybody 
 hear but that he lives very civilly and retired, and did so at 
 Bandon, and eat at the ordinary and lay at your Lordship's 
 house, and there went none with him thither but only Parson
 
 374 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Shaw and his one servant. I am absolutely persuaded that if 
 his Lady should come over, and he were once settled in a con- 
 stant course of life, your Lordship would have comfort so 
 great of him as would countervail the troubles he hath lately 
 put your Lordship to. He doth as yet remain at the Park.' 
 
 Good Sir John Leeke also sent cheering reports of 
 Kinalmeaky : 
 
 * Your son is, I bless God, in as good order as I can wish. 
 He hath never been from me unless a night or two at Castle 
 Lyons. I protest upon my reputation he is a sweet-natured 
 and witty man, most excellent company and of rich discourse, 
 most temperate in all his ways. I am most confident it hath 
 been ill company that set abroad his extravagant and expensive 
 humours, for I find no inclination thereto with us, but will 
 know how he parts with his pence, will reward nobly, yet with 
 discretion. I do not fear or doubt him in anything if your 
 Lordship bring over his wife with you, which if you shall not 
 effect, I may question whether he will stay many months here. 
 He hath received lately three letters from her. I honour her 
 family with all my heart, and so do I all that the blood of 
 Villiers run in their veins. This day Lord Barrymore is rode 
 home, and to-morrow my Lord Kinalmeaky and I will see him, 
 if God please, by nine of the clock. He is grown a very lean 
 man and not in good health.' 
 
 On the 24th of September Lord Cork bid farewell to 
 London. c I, with my son Broghill and his lady, departed to 
 begin our journey to Stalbridge, and so with God's favour to 
 Ireland,' and the next day Lady Kinalmeaky, accompanied by 
 her cousin the Duchess of Richmond, daughter of the great 
 Buckingham, her mother the Countess of Denbigh, Mrs. 
 Howard, and other maids of honour, met Lord Cork at 
 Bagshot, where they all dined. And so taking leave of their
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 375 
 
 friends as they went, the party journeyed to Stalbridge, and 
 then by the newly purchased property at Marston to Mine- 
 head, where they took ship and landed at Youghal, October 
 1 8th, 'and I went to morning prayers to give God thanks for 
 our speedy and safe passage. And we all stayed at Youghal 
 till the Tuesday following, and, God be ever praised, came all 
 that night to Lismore.' 
 
 But one member of the family was lacking. Mrs. Betty 
 flatly refused to accompany her sisters-in-law, Lady Kinalmeaky 
 and Lady Broghill to Ireland ! What was decided for her 
 future and where she was bestowed we are never told, but 
 in the following winter she was very much in evidence and 
 nearly driving her young husband's tutor to distraction. 
 Mr. Marcombes wrote to Lord Cork from Florence in 
 December 1641 : 
 
 ' I am very much displeased that Mrs. Boyle hath been 
 so obstinate as to refuse to go along with your Lordship in 
 Ireland, having so good company. She doth herself a great 
 wrong, and her husband also, which shall be very much afflicted 
 when he comes to understand this : but I will conceal it as long 
 as I can, and if I cannot prevent it, I shall give him at least 
 the best counsel that lieth in my power and the truest that he 
 may expect from a faithful friend and servant.' 
 
 A treacherous calm still reigned over Munster. When 
 Lord Cork landed at Youghal he found the busy seaport as 
 prosperous as when he left it, and nothing more pressing to 
 do than to go to morning church and to relieve two gentlemen 
 of the Earl of Berkshire's, who had been in the Portugal wars 
 and landed at Berehaven in great necessity. 
 
 A few days after they had once more settled at Lismore, 
 Lord Cork and Broghill rode over to dine at Castle Lyons, 
 where we may imagine the greetings of * my pretty grandchild
 
 376 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Katie,' and of the sturdy young heir, Lady Barrymore's * wild 
 boy.' There were various other guests invited to meet them, 
 Lord Muskerry, a man of infinite jest, and * other men of 
 quality of the Irish nation with whom they lived in an easy 
 and familiar way.' 
 
 But the festival turned out to be a very Belshazzar's feast ; 
 the writing had been long enough on the walls, if any one had 
 cared to see it, and now, just before dinner, we are told by 
 the historian of the Boyles, 1 ' a messenger arrived who could 
 not be persuaded to sit down until he had spoke with the 
 Earl of Cork in private, whom (with horror on his face) he 
 acquainted that the Irish were in open rebellion, and had com- 
 mitted the most unheard-of cruelties on the unhappy English 
 who fell into their hands ; that the rebels were masters of all 
 the country he had passed through, and that he had brought 
 his Lordship his intelligence with the utmost hazard of his 
 life. The Earl, without showing any marks of surprise, re- 
 turned to the company and dined with them ; but as soon as 
 dinner was over acquainted them with the news he had received. 
 My Lord Muskerry, who was a facetious man and an excellent 
 companion, employed all the wit he was master of to turn the 
 whole story into ridicule, and took upon him to assure the 
 company that their intelligence must be false. They were how- 
 ever so much alarmed that they immediately repaired to their 
 respective houses.' 
 
 The news of the outbreak of the rebellion in Ireland came 
 upon all the English settlers like a thunderbolt out of a clear 
 sky. The stupid confidence with which the Justices had ignored 
 any symptoms of coming trouble now changed to helpless terror 
 when they discovered that not only was Ulster in open insurrec- 
 tion, but that there were conspirators within the very walls of 
 
 1 Budgell, Lives of the Boyles, 37.
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 377 
 
 Dublin. Too late they realised that when they hurriedly dis- 
 banded Strafford's army, they had turned well-trained men loose 
 on the country, with nothing to do but to teach their dispos- 
 sessed countrymen how easy was the art of war, and to proclaim 
 that the moment had come when England's extremity would be 
 Ireland's opportunity ; that the King was so deeply offended 
 with the English Parliament that he had taken the Scots insur- 
 gents into favour, and that there was good reason to believe 
 that he would approve of his Irish subjects taking up arms. 
 
 At first, however, the insurrection was confined to the 
 North. In the other provinces peace still reigned, but when 
 the Justices recovered from their first panic of surprise, they 
 sent messengers to warn the Lord President St. Leger and 
 the Earl of Cork that it would be wise to prepare for the 
 possible spread of the rebellion into the province of Munster. 
 This piece of information was the only assistance they 
 vouchsafed to the harassed President, although they knew 
 St. Leger had neither money, arms, nor provisions. A mere 
 handful of men was left him with which to keep the peace 
 in the whole south of Ireland, and it was not for some time 
 that it even struck the Justices l to empower him to raise two 
 fresh troops of horse and a regiment of foot. 
 
 St. Leger wrote a very open-hearted and soldierlike letter 
 to beg Lord Cork to come over to Doneraile from Lismore to 
 consult over public affairs. 'And because I understand your 
 own horses are not come over, I shall send my coach to attend 
 your Lordship at Fermoy, whither I doubt not but my Lord 
 Barrymore will conduct you with his.' He goes on to assure 
 Lord Cork that he is ready to lay aside all his resentment on 
 their private differences, and join heart and hand in endeavour- 
 ing for the public peace, for most of the gentry, he lamented, 
 
 1 Carte, i. 340. Shane MSS., 1008, 98.
 
 378 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 seemed absolutely helpless, * and stood at gaze ' waiting for 
 the rebels to pillage their country with impunity. The Earl 
 was grown too infirm to accept the President's invitation, but 
 St. Leger in a few days' time wrote again, reiterating his very 
 great desire for Lord Cork's counsel and advice in the critical 
 state of affairs. ' The importance of a conference with your 
 Lordship makes me propound that if I may in any way con- 
 tribute to the accommodation of you hitherward by easy going 
 horses or otherwise, I may have notice of it, assuring your 
 Lordship of as real a welcome as in the days of our greatest 
 friendship. In the meantime if your Lordship have a desire 
 that any of your sons or other gentlemen of quality may be 
 authorised to train up men in those parts, I shall desire your 
 Lordship to signify it unto me, and I shall send commissions.' 
 The appeals from all sides to Lord Cork's experience, and 
 the eloquent letters in which the old man himself prayed to 
 England for aid, hardly endorse the report sent by Sir John 
 Leeke to the Verneys, that ' the old Earl of Cork is full 
 of distraction, not like the man he was.' Whether from 
 incapacity, or cowardice, or even darker motives, every step 
 the Justices took served to fan the flame of the rebellion. It 
 is true that their own position was a difficult one. Lord 
 Leicester considered himself to be the head of the Irish 
 government, and although he did not come over to share its 
 perils, sent orders and distributed praise and blame entirely as 
 seemed best to himself. Behind Lord Leicester stood both 
 King and Parliament, already on the verge of civil war, and 
 the Justices doubted which were the more dangerous of the 
 two to disobey. The Justices would have had a good deal of 
 reason on their side, if they had decided ' to do better, do 
 nothing.' But unfortunately they were too much frightened 
 to sit still, and in their terror of all who held the Romanist
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 379 
 
 faith proceeded to alienate those old Anglo-Irish nobles whom 
 education and prudence attached to the English government, 
 though they were one in blood and religion with the dis- 
 contented Irish. 
 
 One of these unlucky gentlemen was Lord Muskerry. 
 When he left the dinner-table at Castle Lyons he hurried 
 home to do his best to keep his own neighbourhood from 
 joining in the insurrection, and offered Lord President 
 St. Leger to raise a thousand men at his own expense to pro- 
 tect the peace of the county. But his loyal desires were in 
 vain. The threatening attitude of the Justices gave such 
 weight to the persuasions of Lady Muskerry and the entreaties 
 of his countrymen, that at last he yielded, and when the army 
 of insurrection entered Munster he joined its ranks. He 
 wrote to press Lord Barrymore to follow his example, explain- 
 ing that he was not a rebel, but had only joined the Irish in 
 order to ' Maynetayne the Roman Catholic Religion, his 
 Majesty's prerogative and royall attributes to the government, 
 and ancient priviledges of the poore kingdom of Ireland, 
 established and allowed by the common law of England.' 
 He ended his letter with a pathetic admission of his power- 
 lessness to control his own men. ' My Lord, as well as I 
 wish your Lordship (and although I have used all my 
 endeavours to keepe my kinsmen and adherents from going 
 into your country) if you come not presently and join us, you 
 must expect present ruine, and though I were resolved not to 
 stirre nor joine with the country as I have done, I have [seen] 
 such burning and killing of men, women and children, without 
 regard of age or quality, that I expect not safety for myself, 
 having observed innocent men and welldeservers as myself 
 so used.' 
 
 Lord Muskerry perhaps has made the most of his own
 
 380 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 alarm in order to impress Lord Barrymore, but it was humili- 
 ating that an Irish gentleman should be willing to confess that 
 he had joined the rebels, not from any patriotic feeling, but 
 from sheer terror at their atrocities. The insurgents might 
 now boast that they had gained over Lord Muskerry with 
 his friends Lord Ikerin and Lord Mountgarret, and had per- 
 suaded the veteran Garret Barry to be their leader ; but the 
 head of the Barry clan was deaf to their persuasions. Vainly 
 they entreated Lord Barrymore to become their general. He 
 only answered with short contempt, * I will first take an offer 
 from my brother Dungarvan to be hangman-general of 
 Youghal.' The Irish, stung by his answer, vowed they would 
 take their revenge on his home of Castle Lyons, but he merely 
 replied that he would defend his castle while one stone of it 
 stood upon another, and they were to trouble him no more 
 with their offers, for he was resolved to live and die a faithful 
 subject to the English crown. 1 
 
 Soon afterwards Lord Cork sent his son-in-law ^40 to 
 help in strengthening the defences of his castles, which became 
 cities of refuge for the poor people in all the country round. 
 
 But though Lord Barrymore could shelter the refugees 
 from the first onslaught of the war, he found with agony that 
 he was unable to secure the safety of those dearest to him, and 
 even his courage almost failed when he looked at his wife and 
 children. As ever, he turned to Lord Cork for help, writing 
 from Castle Lyons, March 18, 1642 : 2 
 
 'My MUCH HONOURED LORD AND FATHER, I am daily 
 threatened on every side to be deprived of goods and life ; to 
 make it manifest to your Lordship I have sent you here 
 enclosed a copy of my Lord of Muskerry's letter. As for my 
 
 1 Lismore Manuscripts, quoted in Smith, ii. 70. 2 L. P., ii. 5, 24-5.
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 381 
 
 own particular, I absolutely renounce any favour they can do 
 me, and more especially do abhor and scorn their threatening. 
 . . . The Butlers are marching towards these parts and so to 
 Cork. I am the only man both hated and aimed at, which I 
 take the highest honour that could befall me. . . . 
 
 ' My Lord, I was absolutely resolved never to have 
 troubled your Lordship in this kind that I am become a suitor 
 to you, neither would I in my own particular ; but now the 
 iminent danger my poor wife and children are in, which above 
 all things in the world most troubles me ; when only I of all 
 men in the country must be so unfortunate as to hazard them 
 I love so dearly, and my daily and many distractions for them 
 is above all my other misfortunes ; to rid me out of which I 
 am resolved God willing to secure them in England, till God 
 send more settled times ; and what sheep and oxen I have, 
 she shall have to make money of there, for I know she will go 
 as near as she may. 1 My only request to your Lordship is 
 that you would furnish me with fifty pounds to bear her 
 charges till she can sell what she shall carry with her, for it 
 would break my heart if she should stay here to come to any 
 misfortune for want of means to carry her away. So trusting 
 your Lordship's fatherly care of her will prevail with you more 
 than any thoughts of my former ill husbandry, I humbly 
 desire your Lordship's speedy answer, and will ever be my 
 Lord, your obedient son and servant, D. BARRYMORE.' 
 
 If Lady Barry more was persuaded to leave Ireland it must 
 have been merely for a flying visit to England, for she and 
 her children were all at home in Castle Lyons the following 
 Christmas. 
 
 It was well for Munster that Lord Cork had returned 
 
 1 i.e. be as economical as she may.
 
 382 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 home, and well that he had gathered wealth during the forty 
 years of peace, for now his gold had to supply the greater 
 part of the sinews of war for the south of Ireland. As soon 
 as it was clear that the war would spread to Munster, Lord 
 President St. Leger had urged Lord Cork to leave Broghill to 
 hold Lismore, and to take up his own abode at Youghal, so that 
 he might guard the only port which could safely communicate 
 with England, and keep an open door for the entry of troops 
 and provisions into Munster. For St. Leger admitted that 
 he did not see that it would be possible for him to hold the 
 city of Cork for any time against a siege. All he hoped to 
 do was to strengthen the forts there, and then in the last 
 extremity himself retire to Youghal. 
 
 The wisdom of the Earl of Cork in making Youghal 
 the capital of his Munster possessions was now made plain. 
 This seaport of his choice and his favourite ' protestant 
 Bandon ' were like iron gauntlets grasping the country at the 
 east and west ; without them it would have crumbled into 
 ruin. 
 
 As soon as he arrived in Youghal the Earl attended to the 
 defences of the town, which appear to have been entirely 
 neglected by the Mayor and Corporation. He added on two 
 large flanking towers to his own house at the College, raised 
 five circular turrets round the park, and cast up a platform of 
 earth on which he placed ordnance to command the town and 
 harbour, the remains of which are visible to the present day. 1 
 
 Badnedge, now the captain of the town guard, was ordered 
 to collect arms : five new lazard muskets with snap haunces 
 and matchlocks were bought for ^4, 153. 6d., and eleven new- 
 fashioned pieces were sent over by Murray the steward from 
 Stalbridge. Soldiers were drawn in from Tallagh and Fermoy 
 
 1 HaymaiTs Youghal, xiii.
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 383 
 
 to reinforce the town guard, and armed with pikes, halbards, 
 and brown bills, and two hundredweight of lead was stripped 
 from the terraces of the College House, and melted up for the 
 gunners. 
 
 The Justices and the Dublin Council had the grace to pass 
 Lord Cork a formal vote of thanks for the exertions he 
 was making, for his care of Youghal and payment of its 
 garrison, and for supplying the President of Munster with 
 ^500. In a second letter they acknowledged his good 
 services in relieving Duncannon Fort, which was on the eve 
 of surrender for lack of provisions, when Lord Cork hired a 
 ship at his own cost, victualled it, and paid the crew ^90 a 
 month, and sent it to the assistance of the starving fortress. 1 
 
 We may perhaps best realise the terrors and distraction of 
 that autumn in Ireland by comparing it with Bengal in the 
 days of the Indian Mutiny, when every English bungalow had 
 become a fortress, and death was the least of the terrors that 
 threatened English ladies and their children. Exaggerated as 
 many of the tales of horror may have been, the truths told by 
 the wretched victims who struggled into Youghal were enough 
 to make the blood of the defenders boil. Lord Cork, writing 
 to the Earl of Warwick, told that not only had eight of his 
 tenants been executed by the Irish, but that they had bound 
 an Englishwoman's hands behind her back and buried her 
 alive, f besides other cruelties so many and so unchristianlike 
 that they are unexpressible.' 2 
 
 To the haven of refuge at Youghal the terrified English 
 fled, some to take ship as soon as possible, some to linger for 
 a little under the protection of the old Earl, hoping against 
 hope that England would yet put forth her strength and once 
 more pacify Ireland with the strong hand. Not an exile 
 
 1 Smith, ii. 72. 2 Smith, ii. 73.
 
 384 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 sailed from England without a present or a loan from Lord 
 Cork to pay for the journey, and in spring he relates that he 
 had sent a ship to Waterford to fetch * all the English that 
 were stripped and in great distress in that city, who brought 
 hither my cousin Michael Boyle, Mrs. Wheeler (the widow of 
 the Bishop of Ossory), and 332 English, in a most lamentable 
 condition, whom I in person saw lodged and provided for in 
 South Abbey.' 
 
 All who were not bound by pressing duty to remain in the 
 country were taking flight. Lord Cork offered a refuge at 
 Stalbridge to Lady St. Leger and her daughter Lady Inchiquin, 
 but they preferred to remain at Bristol so as to be as near 
 Ireland as possible. Young Lady Fenton and many of her 
 friends took houses at Minehead or Taunton ; and Lord 
 Cork's daughters Lady Loftus and Lady Kildare fled to 
 London in February 1642. Lord Kildare had little induce- 
 ment to support the English cause, for the Justices seemed to 
 make it their special care to slight and mortify him ; while 
 the Irish spared neither persuasions nor entreaties to win him 
 to be their leader. But the Geraldine was true to his English 
 allies. One of the first civilities paid for many years to the 
 Earl of Cork by Lord President St. Leger was forwarding 
 copies of Lord Kildare's address to his soldiers, and of the 
 Remonstrance published by the rebels. ' Little George 
 Kildare's ' speech seems to have pleased the old Earl mightily, 
 and in returning thanks for both papers he writes, ' The one 
 is full of wit, the other of wickedness.' 
 
 The love of the Irish for the Fitzgerald name was not 
 to be shaken, even by Kildare's refusal to join their ranks. 
 Lady Kildare described their half-apologetic affection in her 
 letters to her father ; how though they could not resolve to side 
 with the head of the Geraldines, they would not plunder him.
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 385 
 
 When they occupied the town of Maynooth, c they used my 
 Lord with all the civility in the world and would say if his 
 provision were all gold nobody should touch it.' Now she 
 wrote from 'The Strang, London/ where she and her five 
 children had taken refuge, leaving Lord Kildare dangerously 
 ill in Ireland. ' My sister Loftus and I do make it our humble 
 suit to you that if my sister Dungarvan do not intend to live 
 at Stalbridge, if my sister Loftus and I desire to live there we 
 may have the use of the house and garden, and if there be any 
 land belonging to the house that we may have it, paying for 
 the land as any other shall.' 
 
 There is a certain amount of poetical justice in the end of 
 Lord Kildare's story. He did not die of the illness Lady 
 Kildare speaks of, but lived to fight long and gallantly on 
 the English side. He saw the Justices who had insulted him 
 displaced, to vanish in obscurity, while he became governor of 
 Dublin, the right-hand man of the chivalrous Ormond and a 
 leader honoured by all parties in England alike. The ' little 
 mad Lord ' may have played the fool in times of peace, but 
 war called up the spirit of the old Geraldines in him, and he 
 was worthy of his ancestors. 
 
 The English in Munster were granted a short breathing- 
 space before the full violence of the storm burst upon them. 
 The advance southward of the main body of the enemy was 
 delayed by jealousies among its leaders ; but bands of cattle- 
 stealers began to raid over the borders of Waterford and 
 Tipperary, solitary farms were burnt and unsuspecting families 
 massacred, long before the real invasion of the Blackwater 
 Valley and County Cork began. 
 
 Lord Cork's tenants had been drilling for many a year in 
 readiness for such an emergency as now threatened, and he 
 was able at once to put five hundred men in the field under 
 
 2 B
 
 386 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 the command of Dungarvan. This body of horse was the 
 only defence of the province during the winter months, for 
 the Lord President had to employ the few men left at his 
 disposition in guarding Cork and the other fortified towns, 
 and wrote bitterly of the action of the Justices in having called 
 his foot soldiers from Munster, while cavalry were far more 
 needed in the North, and would, he assured Lord Cork, ' have 
 brought the enemy under in six weeks.' 
 
 ' Lady Kinalmeaky,' wrote Sir John Leeke, ' has had 
 enough of Ireland.' Before Lord Cork left Lismore she 
 bade him farewell, intending to return to her duties at the 
 English court, while Lord Kinalmeaky went to West Cork 
 to organise the defence of Bandon. Lord Cork wrote, * My 
 daughter-in-law, the good and virtuous Lady Kinalmeaky, to 
 my great grief, left me and Lismore, and with her attendants 
 took her journey to Youghal. I gave her ^100 in gold to 
 bear her charges to court. I sent my servant Gerrard Booth 
 to attend her thither and gave him other 10. Thomas 
 Dauntsey, to whom I gave direction to entertain her at the 
 College, was before her coming, without my knowledge, 
 knavishly stolen away into England.' 
 
 But the wind was contrary, and when Lord Cork arrived 
 at the College house he found both Lord and Lady Kinalmeaky 
 still there, and had their company at Christmas. On the loth 
 of January Lady Kinalmeaky sailed, when her husband, writes 
 Lord Cork, ' departed for Bandon Bridge, who borrowed of 
 her ^5 which I repaid her.' 
 
 She did her best for her Irish friends when she reached 
 court; Sir John Leeke declared 'the virtuous Lady Kinalmeaky 
 is my anchor to trust to.' But English jealousies ran too high 
 for unhappy Ireland to gain much help or sympathy from 
 either King or Parliament. The east wind that had kept her
 
 GATHERING CLOUDS 387 
 
 at Youghal and blew with almost miraculous steadiness for all 
 December, might have wafted over troops to restore peace in 
 Ireland, or have hastened the lingering Lord Lieutenant 
 Leicester, whose presence, said Lord Ormond, * would have 
 been of more avail than half an army.' But * the Protestant 
 east wind ' as it might well have been called, blew in vain. 
 When Dungarvan visited England in January he brought thence 
 little but his own good sword. The King, it is true, had 
 offered to contribute arms from his arsenal in the Tower, but 
 the Parliament refused to give ships to carry them, and Lord 
 Leicester, doubting whether he should take his parting orders 
 from the King or the Parliament, solved the difficulty by sitting 
 still and asking for no orders at all. 
 
 Lady Dungarvan' s own estates and ancestral home were 
 in England, but she was no more disposed to show the white 
 feather than her sister-in-law Lady Broghill. She only sailed 
 for England when her husband crossed to collect arms and 
 money, and Sir Thomas Stafford then reported that as her 
 f gallant resolution carried her through all difficulties, so soon 
 as there is a considerable army in Munster, I believe it will 
 not be long after, but her Ladyship will visit you there. 
 (February 1642.)
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 THE EARL'S SONS 
 
 He shall not be afraid when he speaks with his enemy in the gate.' 
 
 THE story of the defence of Youghal is as melancholy and 
 monotonous as the story of a siege must usually be, the 
 romance and stir of the war was with the Earl's sons : Broghill 
 mocking his besiegers from the walls of Lismore ; Dungarvan 
 ubiquitous, one day holding assizes with his father, the next 
 dashing out with his troop of horse to join the Lord President 
 in some struggle against desperate odds, then flying into Eng- 
 land to represent the necessities of Munster and back again 
 at Youghal with supplies before the wind changed. Even 
 Kinalmeaky broke, like Prince Hal, ' through the foul and ugly 
 mists of vapours that did seem to strangle him,' and showed 
 himself a gallant gentleman and able governor of Bandon. 
 
 The defenders of Munster made as brave a show as they 
 might, but their hearts were heavy with forebodings. On 
 Christmas Day St. Leger wrote that never was nation in a 
 worse condition, and that he did not know how would it be 
 possible to prevent the invading Irish from crossing the Suir. 
 
 Directly afterwards Lord Cork wrote to England to tell 
 Lord Goring of their plight : 
 
 * MY NOBLE LORD AND BROTHER, I wrote unto you 
 several letters since my arrival, and the last about the seven-
 
 THE EARL'S SONS 389 
 
 teenth of December, which I sent by Lord Ranelagh's 
 secretary, which I am confident he hath deliver'd ; but neither 
 by my son Dungarvan, or any other since my coming hither, 
 have I heard one word from you, which makes me think I am 
 forlorn or forgotten by you. I then in those my letters made 
 a true representation unto you of the miserable estate where- 
 unto this kingdom was reduced, and particularly this poor 
 province of Munster, which is encompassed with dangers 
 round about, every day bringing us Job's messengers of 
 killing, preying, burning, and spoiling the English and Pro- 
 testants, and none other touch'd upon ; and of the loss (or 
 rather yielding up) of the cities and walled towns. For the 
 Lord Montgarret and the Lord of Upper Ossory, have 
 (without a blow strucken in defence of the city of Kilkenny) 
 possessed themselves thereof, and ransacked and stripped all 
 the English Protestants that were therein, in such a barbarous 
 and inhuman manner, as is not to be believed. And the noble 
 Countess of Ormonde hath a guard of 150 men put upon 
 her castle, so as no man can come in or out unto her without 
 search, and she herself in the nature of a prisoner, and in a 
 miserable condition, her lord being at Dublin, and not of 
 force to come to her rescue. The walled towns of Cashell 
 and Feathers have likewise yielded up themselves, and all the 
 English Protestants stripped naked by the Baron of Loghmay 
 and his crew. The walled town of Clonmell, being the shire- 
 town, hath open'd her gates, and let in the rebels to pillage 
 and spoil the English Protestants ; and that town is within 
 12 miles of my house, where there are at least 300 rebels 
 assembled daily, threatening to besiege my castle of Lismore ; 
 and to prevent the yielding of this town of Yoghall up to the 
 rebels, as weak and infirm as I am, I am commanded down 
 hither, to see whether my presence or power can preserve it.
 
 390 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 And I have brought with me for my guard 100 foot and 60 
 horse, which I have here with me in defence of this poor weak 
 town, where the Irish are three to one of the English ; and if 
 this town should be lost, all the hope and retreat of the 
 English in this province is gone. And, God willing, I will be 
 so good a constable to the King my master, as I will die in 
 the defence thereof ; although I have no great hope to defend 
 it, yet we will bestir ourselves like true Englishmen. The 
 city of Waterford hath no guard upon the fort or city but 
 the townsmen ; and we every day look to hear when it will be 
 given up to Montgarret, when he comes before it ; for the 
 priests rule all there, and flock into this kingdom, especially 
 into this province, from all foreign parts ; insomuch, as it is 
 credibly certified me, that there is a whole army of ecclesiastics 
 gotten into Munster ; and this morning I have apprehended 
 two Irish friars, that came in a vessel from Dunkirk, disguised 
 into this harbour. The Lord of Dunboyne, and the two 
 Lords Bourkes, and in effect all the natives of the county of 
 Limerick, have declared themselves in open action ; and in 
 brief, all that have suck'd Irish milk are infected with this 
 general treason and rebellion ; for we know not whom to 
 trust, nor who is sound at the heart. The Earl of Barri- 
 more keepeth his country in good subjection, and doth very 
 good service upon the rebels, having joined his forces with the 
 Lord President, who is a brave martial man, and acts all the 
 parts of a good governor : but alas ! he is utterly destitute of 
 men, money, and munition. And therefore, even upon the 
 knees of my soul, I beg and beseech you .to supplicate his 
 Majesty and the Lords and Commons of both Houses of 
 Parliament, that this fruitful province of Munster (wherein are 
 more cities and walled towns, and more brave harbours and 
 havens than all the rest of the kingdom hath) and the English
 
 THE EARL'S SONS 391 
 
 subjects that are herein, may not for want of timely supply of 
 men, money and munition, be lost ; nor the crown of England 
 deprived of so choice a flower thereof ; but that you will inces- 
 santly solicit the hastening over of the Lord Lieutenant with 
 the army to Dublin, and Sir Charles Vavasor with his regiment 
 to Yoghall, with a liberal supply of arms and munition, whereof 
 the province is in a manner utterly destitute. And herein, 
 for God's sake, let not the least delay be used, for if there be, 
 all succours will come too late. The Lord President, for her 
 security, hath sent over his lady ; and all the ladies and women 
 of any account have for the most part transported themselves 
 into England : and now my dear daughter comes to her 
 mother in the arrear ; God knows with what grief of soul I 
 part with her. But I prefer the safety of her person before 
 the comfort I have in her company ; for I esteem her to be 
 one of the best women in the world, and I am confident that 
 God hath heard her prayers, which hath inclined him to pre- 
 serve us hitherto. My daughter Broghill is so great with 
 child, and full of spirit, as she resolves to bide out the brunt 
 of these wars ; and her husband, who is full of hot blood and 
 courage, doth mutiny upon me for walling him up at Lismore. 
 But that he must do, or else I could not come hither. My 
 son Kynalmeaky had been at his own town of Bandonbridge 
 before this time, but his lady having been stay'd here these 
 three weeks by contrary winds, and he joined in commission 
 with the mayor for the government of this town, hath been 
 very active in making up the broken walls and decays of the 
 same. But so soon as her foot is on shipboard, his foot shall 
 be in the stirrup to go to Bandonbridge, of which town I hope 
 he will give a good account ; for he hath a fair rising out in 
 the town and the borders thereof, and I have put up port- 
 cullisses for the strengthening of the gates, and planted six
 
 392 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 pieces of ordnance for the better defence thereof ; for, I thank 
 God, I have so planted that town, as there is neither Irishman 
 nor papist within the walls, and so can no town or corporation 
 in Ireland truly say. My son Dungarvan hath raised a brave 
 troop of English protestants, and is marching towards the 
 Lord President to join their forces together. And thus have 
 I given you an account how my three sons that are in Ireland 
 are disposed of; and that I have deprived myself of their 
 companies and comforts ; and with Serjeant Major Apple- 
 yard, who is a great assistance unto me, am here to defend 
 this poor and weak town. And therefore, I beseech you, 
 bestir yourself, and rest not, until Sir Charles Vavasor with 
 his regiment be shipped away for Yoghall, the sight of whom 
 would make me young again. Oh, that I had George 
 Goring here with 1000 foot and 100 horse well armed, to 
 see what service I could put upon him, that you might hear 
 of our success. I have scarce time to present my service to 
 you and your lady, and to George and my poor Letitia, whom 
 God bless. Yoghall, this Twelfth day about midnight after a 
 heavy and sorrowful Christmas, 1641. Your Lordship's most 
 affectionate brother, and humble servant, 
 
 R. CORKE. 1 
 
 Strange to say the townsmen of Youghal had paid so little 
 attention to the fortifications which should have defended their 
 homes, that on the I2th of January, in a second letter to 
 Lord Goring, Cork tells of new misfortunes, l A great part of 
 the walls of Youghall being fallen down within these two 
 nights which we are not able to repair. . . . God bless us, for 
 we are encompassed with an innumerable company of enemies, 
 and have neither men, money, nor munition. We are now at 
 
 1 Printed in State Letters, Earl of Orrery, i. i.
 
 THE EARL'S SONS 393 
 
 the last gasp ; and therefore, if the state of England do not 
 speedily supply us, we are all buried alive.' 
 
 He encloses a letter newly received from Broghill, for he 
 was proud to show the spirit of his son. 'Just now,' writes 
 the young Governor of Lismore, ' is one of my brother 
 Dungarvan's troopers come unto me, and acquainted me, that 
 the party of horse which he sent to meet me went out this 
 morning to take a prey ; but an ambuscade of the enemies fell 
 upon them, and have killed poor Jack Travers, with two more, 
 whose names I know not. His body was stripp'd, and I have 
 sent a trumpeter for it ; his horse is come home shot in three 
 places. This design was out of my knowledge, and contrary 
 to my direction, and marching without scouts in an enemy's 
 country (for so I may call that, and where they have so good 
 intelligence of our proceedings as we ourselves have), could 
 not expect a better fortune. I have sent out my quarter- 
 master to know the posture the enemy is in. They are, as I 
 am informed by those that were in the action, 5000 well 
 armed, and that they intend to take Lismore. When I 
 have received certain intelligence, if I am a third part of their 
 number, I will meet them to-morrow morning, and give them 
 one blow before they besiege us. If their numbers are such 
 that it will be more folly than valour, I will make good this 
 place which I am in. I tried one of the ordnances made 
 at the forge, and it held with two pound charge, so that I will 
 plant it upon the terras over the river. My Lord, fear 
 nothing for Lismore ; for if it be lost, it shall be with the 
 life of him, that begs your Lordship's blessing, and stiles 
 himself, my Lord, your Lordship's most humble, most obliged, 
 and most dutiful son and servant, 
 
 Lis., January n (1641-42). 
 
 1 State Letters, Orrery, i. 5.
 
 394 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Desperate as was their position, in one thing the English 
 of Southern Ireland were happier than their brethren in 
 England. No divided allegiance tore their hearts ; even the 
 contradictory orders of King and Commons that bewildered 
 the Lords Justices did not reach so far as Munster to weaken 
 the hands of the President and the old Earl. The war there 
 was waged between men of opposing races and different creeds ; 
 Englishmen stood all together, and the differences between 
 King and Parliament across seas were ignored. 
 
 Lord Cork never discussed the royal intentions nor 
 criticised the doings of the King. Only once in all his diary 
 does he ever allude to the civil war that was being waged in 
 England. Then he writes sadly and solemnly on the 23rd of 
 October 1642 : 
 
 ' The lamentable (and ever to be by all true English hearts 
 lamentable) battle at Edge Hill near Banbury was fought 
 between the English. His sacred Majesty being in person at 
 the head of his army and the Earl of Essex general of the 
 army of the Parliament army. \_sic.~\ God grant it may be 
 the last battle that ever may be fought between our own 
 nation.' 
 
 The slip in the entry shows how deeply the old man was 
 shaken, but the divinity that hedged the King could not be 
 destroyed in the Earl of Cork's eyes by any royal faults 
 or follies. 
 
 While the Earl lived, there was but one occasion when 
 there was danger of Munster being involved in the English 
 division of parties, and according to the historian of the 
 Boyles, 1 it was Broghill's acuteness that saved the President 
 of Munster from falling into the trap the Irish had prepared 
 for him. 
 
 1 Morrice, Life of Earl of Orrery, 13, 14.
 
 THE EARL'S SONS 395 
 
 This happened in February 1642, when Broghill had joined 
 Dungarvan and the Lord President in guarding the Red 
 Shard, a wild pass leading from the north over into Waterford. 
 There St. Leger waited in the snow, uncertain whether to set 
 Broghill to making entrenchments, or to move further on in 
 search of the enemy. 
 
 Broghill described the next proceeding in a letter to his 
 father : 
 
 4 On Tuesday last, the enemy advanced to our out-guards 
 with one hundred and fifty horse, but fifteen of ours made 
 them retreat ; for an old trooper waved his hat towards the 
 place where the enemy thought we lay, which made them all 
 without a blow return faster than they came. The same day 
 they desired to have a safe conduct, and they would treat 
 with us, which we granted ; and yesterday there came in 
 Patrick Walsh, a lawyer, requiring three things : the first, 
 freedom of conscience ; the second, the King's prerogative to 
 be maintained ; the third, that the natives of the country might 
 have the same privileges that the English enjoy. To which the 
 Lord President answered like a cunning fox (not having force 
 to do it with the sword) that for freedom of religion they have 
 always had it, and as that is a thing he condemns in them for 
 not allowing the English, therefore he is not likely to practise 
 it himself. That he will stand up for the King's prerogative 
 as much as any man ; for his office and all that he has is 
 immediately from the King, and for this last he will be as 
 earnest for the privileges of the natives as any man, being one 
 himself. This is all that was done while I was there. What 
 the event will be I know not ; but I conceive they do this to 
 delay time till the western forces come up (who have done 
 much mischief and have taken Castlemaine), or else the Scotch 
 have given them in the north some great overthrow and are
 
 396 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 marching hither. My Lord President confesses things that I 
 dare not trust to this letter.' 
 
 The President's secret information was indeed sufficiently 
 alarming to explain Broghill's reluctance to repeat it hastily. 
 When Walsh appeared he presented his commission on a 
 parchment, drawn up under the great seal, authorising the 
 enlistment of four thousand Irish for the King's service. It 
 would have been small wonder if St. Leger were for the 
 moment taken aback by the Irish pretensions. He had not the 
 slightest intention of declaring war upon King Charles, and 
 he was aware that many of the gentlemen he now saw in arms 
 had held the King's commission in Straffbrd's army, or were 
 Government officials in their different counties. If it were 
 true that the King in his present need of soldiers proposed to 
 re-embody the army he had been so loth to part with, it was 
 not likely that he would communicate with the Lords Justices 
 who had just disbanded it, and whose loyalty was decidedly 
 doubtful ; nothing could be more natural than that he should 
 signify his wishes to the former commanders of the army or 
 the local authorities throughout the country. It was well 
 known that he had intended to use these very Irish regiments 
 in his Scotch war, and it was suspected that, but for a lucky 
 accident, they would have been brought over to London, to 
 coerce the Parliament during Strafford's trial. The Irish 
 therefore had some colour for their boast that they alone were 
 his Majesty's troops and that the Munster forces who claimed 
 to serve the King and Parliament were but ' Parliament dogs,' 
 and not the King's soldiers at all. Their veteran officer, 
 Purcell, afterwards assured one of Lord Cork's nieces that 
 he was twice excommunicated for not taking up arms, and 
 never would have done so but to uphold the King's authority. 1 
 
 1 Hickson, Ireland in the Seventeenth Century, ii. 96.
 
 THE EARL'S SONS 397 
 
 The report of this incident relates that St. Leger was so 
 much shaken by the sight of the commission that he publicly 
 declared he would rather die than be a rebel, and were he but 
 sure of its being genuine, he would disband his forces. 
 
 The historian of the Boyles l declares that Broghill then 
 broke in, vehemently asserting that the commission was a 
 forgery, and by his persuasions induced St. Leger to repudiate 
 it. Doubtless Broghill was shrewd enough to notice that the 
 important parchment bore the great seal, not of England, but 
 of Scotland, and that one sentence in it empowered the Irish 
 army c to arrest and seize the goods, estates, and persons of 
 all English protestants in the kingdom,' a command which it 
 was ludicrous to imagine given by the Royal Head of the 
 English protestant Church. But it is very possible that St. 
 Leger, ' the sly old fox,' was not unwilling to appear to waver ; 
 for his object just then was to gain time and avoid engaging the 
 overwhelming army of the Irish before reinforcements arrived. 
 He therefore did not discuss the genuineness of the Irish 
 commission, but withdrew with Lord Dungarvan to Cork, 
 there to await a promised regiment of foot under Sir Charles 
 Vavasour, and horses and arms which Lord Inchiquin and 
 Mr. Jephson were busy collecting. 
 
 The Irish, disappointed at finding their vaunted commis- 
 sion had so little effect, said little more about their devotion 
 to King Charles. The most part of them soon threw off any 
 pretence of favouring one English party more than another, 
 their greatest general, O'Neil, declaring that he hated and 
 detested all English alike. When the war was over and there 
 was nothing to be gained by pretences, the Irish themselves 
 confessed that the commission had been a forgery and the 
 royal seal upon it had been cut from a land grant found in a 
 
 1 Morrice, Life of the Earl of Orrery, 12.
 
 398 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 house they had pillaged. There is, however, reason to believe 
 that the forgery was drawn up on the lines of a genuine 
 document, for Lord Antrim had indeed been authorised by 
 the King to negotiate with the Irish army ; but, as he said, 
 ' the fools liked the business too well,' they threw over his 
 authority, drew up their own commission, and waged their 
 own war in their own fashion. 1 
 
 Broghill's next letter tells his father that he had drawn all 
 the troops from Lismore town into the Castle and turned out 
 all the papists, and that the enemy had taken Ballyancor and 
 shot Mr. Croker, the owner, in cold blood, and made the rest 
 of the garrison hang each other. Next day they advanced to 
 Lismore and summoned the castle, saying that the Lord 
 President had found them too strong and had retreated before 
 them, and they begged Lord Broghill to follow so good an 
 example and avoid bloodshed by rendering up the castle, when 
 the garrison should have liberty to retire where they pleased, 
 with fair and honourable quarter. Broghill answered no man 
 should be an example to him to do an action that he neither 
 thought honest or noble ; and that for quarter, he never 
 knew what the word meant, and vowed to God to live or 
 bury himself in the ruins of that place. Mr. Bayline, the 
 messenger, then told him the assault would be given in a 
 quarter of an hour, and after drinking three or four glasses of 
 aqua vitae went away. Broghill hung out a flag of defiance, 
 but although there were many false alarms and the garrison 
 were under arms all night, no attack was made. Broghill 
 concludes by telling his father that he still expects every hour 
 to be attacked, ' but they shall find by dear-bought experience 
 how difficult a place this is to be taken, and I will never yield 
 it while I have one drop of blood.' 2 
 
 1 See Dunlop, Hist. Rev., ii. jz7 ; Gardiner, Cromwell's Place in History, 20. 
 
 2 Smith, ii. 70.
 
 THE EARL'S SONS 399 
 
 Urban Vigors, the chaplain, expands this story, telling that 
 ' his Lordship placed guards on every place of the castle court 
 and garden, and watched himself three nights together, 
 encouraging his soldiers and seeing they might not want 
 things fitting, nor any of the poor people which came to the 
 castle for their lives. My honourable lady [Lady Broghill] 
 was newly brought to bed of a child, otherwise I daresay she 
 would likewise have watched in person, for she is a lady that 
 truly fears God, abhors and detests rebels, and I know but 
 few men in the land will shoot off" a fowling piece better or 
 nearer the mark than her Ladyship/ Then as the Irish still 
 hesitated to attack, ' my Lord, being young and active, 
 thought of a way to fight this domineering yet coward and 
 fearful army,' and caused all his ordnance, muskets, and 
 pistols to be shot off at once, sending the Irish word, by a 
 man he could trust, that reinforcements had arrived, for he 
 knew the Irish had intercepted some of the Earl of Cork's 
 letters announcing the landing of Colonel Larester at Youghal. 
 This ruse succeeded so admirably that the Irish took fright 
 and fled in all directions. The garrison sent out fifty horse 
 after them and took many prisoners, and ' recovered so many 
 stolen sheep and cattle, that the next day you might have 
 bought in Lismore a good cow for eighteen pence.' It is sad 
 to tell that the siege baby did not live to reward brave Lady 
 Broghill for all she had undergone. 
 
 Lord President St. Leger was now almost worn out by 
 his heroic exertions. He had stood a close siege of five weeks 
 in Cork, when, though his troops were mutinous for want of 
 pay, the Dublin Parliament could suggest no resource but that 
 they should sally out and support themselves by plunder ! l 
 In this strait Lord Barrymore persuaded Lord Cork to send 
 500 to the relief of the President, and St. Leger further 
 
 1 See Carte's Ormond.
 
 400 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 succeeded in getting 1000 from miserly old Sir Robert Tynt, 
 on a bond signed by the Earl of Cork, Lord Dungarvan, Sir 
 Hardress Waller, and Sir Edward Denny, which so encouraged 
 the defenders of Cork that they made a gallant sally on the 
 1 3th of April, routed their besiegers and cut themselves a way 
 out to carry on the campaign once more in the field. It 
 must be confessed that for once in his life the old Earl played 
 a decidedly dishonest trick in the matter of Sir Robert Tynt's 
 bond. It may be remembered that Sir Robert's son had 
 married Lord Cork's favourite niece, Kate Boyle, and neither 
 the elder nor the younger Tynt treated Kate with the kindness 
 which her uncle thought her due. As the only thing in the 
 world that Sir Robert loved was his money, Lord Cork seized 
 the opportunity of revenge, and when he signed the bond he 
 took care not to deliver it as his act and deed, making his 
 signature valueless, and far from being ashamed of this piece 
 of sharp practice he wrote it down with much pride in his 
 diary. A second assault made by St. Leger on Sir Robert's 
 strong box so overwhelmed him, that Lord Cork wrote, ' it is 
 thought 'twill kill him,' adding grimly, ' which will occasion 
 many a dry eye ; for the commonwealth may well spare him, 
 and his children long for his death.' 
 
 Lord Cork had scant sympathy to spare for the hard old 
 man, for he himself was spending money with both hands. 
 St. Leger, in spite of his renewed friendship with Lord Cork, 
 could not forbear a little sneer when he heard tell of his 
 Lordship's great exertions. * I cannot but acknowledge,' he 
 wrote, * your Lordship's expenses and losses have been great, 
 but I doubt not but your Lordship's providence, out of a 
 plentiful estate, hath in this summer made provision for the 
 stormy winter.' But Lord Cork in writing to Lord Warwick 
 told another tale.
 
 THE EARL'S SONS 401 
 
 ' Before the rebellion,' he says, ' my revenue, besides my 
 house, demesnes, parks, and other royalties, did yield me 50 
 a day rent. I do vow unto your Lordship that I have not 
 now 5od. a week coming unto me, so I fear I must come a 
 begging to you to allow me to be one of your beadsmen. 
 But God's will be done, to whom I am thankful for granting 
 me patience to undergo these final afflictions and losses. My 
 Lord, when my son Dungarvan obtained a troop of horse, it 
 was more for ornament than benefit ; but now our lands being 
 wasted, it must be for his subsistence. My younger sons 
 Kinalmeaky and Broghill are in a worse condition, for although 
 each of them have one hundred horse, which I have hitherto 
 paid, I am forced now to make it my humble suit to your 
 Lordship to move the Lord Lieutenant that they may be 
 taken into his Majesty's pay ; for the horses and men are 
 very good, well-seasoned, and acquainted with the service.' l 
 
 Parliament after a while sent over 550, and Cork's 
 friends in England were not altogether forgetful of the needs 
 of Munster. In March 1642, Lord Warwick wrote to his 
 ' noble brother ' telling that men and money would arrive by 
 the first favourable wind, f God Almighty keep you and all in 
 the kingdom, and send the winds to turn, that they may come 
 seasonably to you.' His ship, The Pennington, brought over 
 eight barrels of powder and thirty casks of minion shot, two 
 of which were at once sent up to Lismore. 
 
 Fortunately the natural wealth of Munster was so great, 
 that the commerce Lord Cork had fostered with such care 
 was now his standby in the time of need. His cousin Croon 
 sent a ship from Malaga laden with wine and fruit, asking 
 Lord Cork to take out what could be disposed of, and refill 
 the ship with hides, tallow, pipestaves or pilchards. Croon 
 
 1 Lismore MSS. in Smith's Cork, ii. 74. 
 2 C
 
 402 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 explains that he has heard there is a great quantity of tallow 
 and hides to be had, but that he really is not sending his ship 
 to take advantage of a cheap market, but with a wish to serve 
 Lord Cork and the distressed among the poor Protestants. 
 Another ship arrived from France with wine and corn to take 
 a return cargo of hides, and Sir W. Beecher sent a message 
 from England through Sir John Leeke with his humble 
 services to Lord Cork, and if he would dispatch a bark with 
 Irish merchandise, Sir William would return it full of powder 
 and ammunition, ' factory free.' 
 
 Still Lord Cork was hard put to it, to furnish both the 
 funds for the war and also to care for his own family. He 
 wrote to Mr. Marcombes that the uncertainty of how his 
 children are hereafter to subsist ' is most grievous unto me. 
 Necessity compelleth me to make you and them know the 
 dangerous and poor estate whereunto by God's providence I 
 am reduced. God's will be done. I hope He will give me 
 patience to go through with it.' He continues, that he had 
 scraped together 250 by selling plate, and had made it over 
 to Mr. Perkins to be forwarded, and begged Marcombes to 
 spend it in sending the boys to either Dublin, Cork, or 
 Youghal, * for all other sea-towns are possessed by the enemy ; 
 or else send them at once into Holland to enter the service of 
 the Prince of Orange, by which they could maintain them- 
 selves. But as I am compelled in my age to do, so must they 
 in their young years commend them to the raising of their 
 estates, to God's blessing and their own good fortune. . . . 
 But if they serve God and be careful and discreet in their 
 carriage, God will bless and provide for them as hitherto He 
 hath done for me, who began in the raising of my fortune by 
 my good endeavours without any assistance of parents or 
 friends, and yet when this general torrent of rebellion brake
 
 THE EARL'S SONS 403 
 
 forth, I did not know that subject in his Majesty's three 
 kingdoms with whom I would have changed fortunes, all 
 things duly considered. But I comfort myself as they must 
 do with the sayings of King David, " Once I was young and 
 now am old, yet never saw I the righteous forsaken." I 
 know well you will be too generous to leave them till you see 
 them shipped for Ireland, or well entered in the wars in 
 Holland ; but in any case I pray be very circumspect how you 
 spend this last ^250, and put all unnecessary servants and 
 dependants from you. . . . Into England I will not consent 
 they shall come/ he ended proudly, ' till Ireland be recovered, 
 for I have neither present money nor means to defray their 
 expenses there ; and for them that have been so well main- 
 tained, to appear there without money, would grieve and 
 disgrace me, and draw contempt upon us all.' 
 
 Francis Boyle soon gave his tutor to understand that he 
 had no mind to sell his sword to a foreign prince, while his 
 friends were fighting for their lives at home ; and returned to 
 Ireland early in the summer, to show himself as gallant a 
 gentleman as any of the Boyles. 
 
 Robert, who was just recovering from a severe illness, was 
 made extremely miserable by the separation from his brother 
 and the alarming suggestion that he should begin life as a 
 soldier of fortune in Holland. He wrote from Lyons to beg 
 his father to explain more clearly why he suggested Holland 
 for his future home. c Besides that I am already weary with 
 a long journey of above eight hundred miles, I am as yet too 
 weak to undertake a long voyage in a strange country, where 
 when I arrive I know nobody and have little hope by reason 
 of my youth to be received amongst the troops.' He 
 beseeches his father to tell him if he could be of any service 
 in Ireland, where he says Francis was preparing to go, * to
 
 404 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 secure your Lordship according to his power.' He adds that 
 Perkins had not yet forwarded the money promised, for sad 
 to tell, that sorely needed 250 stuck fast in the tailor's pocket. 
 
 Lord Cork wrote the following November reproaching 
 Perkins for deceiving his trust, and keeping back the supplies, 
 for ' God knows with what difficulty I have got these moneys 
 together, to make good my reputation and supply my children's 
 occasion' ; to all which Perkins answered with jaunty assurance 
 that he had kept back the money to pay for the young Lords' 
 parliament robes, and Lord Kinalmeaky's debts. He explained, 
 however, that he himself was hardly in better plight than the 
 Irish grandees, for he had been twice arrested on Lady 
 Kildare's account, and once on Lady Lettice Goring's, and 
 had been obliged to pawn his plate, and then ends his letter 
 in all the friendliness of conscious rectitude, with the news that 
 the Parliament had voted seven thousand men for Munster, 
 ' and the King makes preparations for Ireland if the Parlia- 
 ment hinder not.* In spite, however, of these specious 
 explanations, Robert Boyle had never any doubt that Perkins 
 had been unworthy of the old Earl's confidence and had 
 embezzled the money. 
 
 Robert being thus left without resources, clung to the 
 only friend he had on the Continent, and returned with 
 Mr. Marcombes to Geneva, there to await better days, sup- 
 ported partly by his tutor's generosity and partly by money 
 obtained through the sale of his jewels. Letters from him 
 came to cheer his father's anxious days, and a tattered fragment 
 of a loving bit of nonsense, sent to congratulate his brother 
 Kinalmeaky on his military successes, still survives. 
 
 It is dated August 1642, and tells that Robin is in 'good 
 health, lodging with Mr. Marcombes, where I want nothing 
 but some comfortable letters out of England or Ireland, and
 
 THE EARL'S SONS 405 
 
 where I daily expect fresh orders and money from my father. 
 . . . Mr. Marcombes takes almost as great a part in your 
 interests [as though] they were his own.' Scribbled on the 
 margin is, * These lines dear brother are not able to express 
 the least part of my inviolable affection, wherefore I beseech 
 you not to measure it by my expressions, but to suspend your 
 judgment till I have the happiness to enjoy a little your 
 company, or to assure you by effects that my affection passeth 
 very much my expression. Adieu dearest Lewis. Idle cosin. 
 Bon Anne. Eon SoU. Eon Vespre. Adieiue. a Di vous 
 commanded 1 
 
 Robert's letter to his father is of course much more formal ; 
 he says that he has resigned himself to remaining at Geneva, 
 where he means to study so diligently ' that at my coming 
 home I may render myself capable of some employment in the 
 affairs of Ireland.' He is full of gratitude to Mr. Marcombes 
 ' whom I should altogether despair well to requite, if your 
 Lordship in your letter had not promised to take the matter 
 in hand.' 
 
 Saving Robin's letters, all Lord Cork's correspondence 
 concerned the war. In spite of changes in tactics and arma- 
 ments, war is much the same in all ages, and Broghill's 
 reports to his father on his military operations have a 
 curiously modern ring ; when he complains of officers who 
 ride into ambushes for lack of scouting, of farmers who 
 communicate with the enemy, and of the impossibility of 
 keeping loyal settlers in safety in their own homes, we might 
 be reading the letters of a special correspondent in the present 
 century. Broghill explained to his father that if his tenants 
 were honest, they could make no use of their farmhouses, but 
 left them empty as receptacles for rogues, while if they were 
 
 1 z. P., ii. v. 96.
 
 406 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 knaves, he saw no reason why they should be spared ; so 
 devastation and farm-burning entered the fertile Blackwater 
 valley, and the hapless country people had to flee to whatever 
 town or fortress was willing to give them refuge. 1 
 
 Broghill also found it necessary to reorganise his forces ; 
 some seditious spirits so worked among the foot soldiers 
 that they were bold enough to intimate to their young 
 commander that their allowance was so small that it could 
 not keep body and soul together. Broghill decided that 
 after punishing the ringleaders he would get rid of some of 
 his soldiers and make all the rest musketeers, for he explained 
 to his father, ' sixty-five musqueteers is a greater strength 
 than forty-eight musqueteers and forty-one pikemen.' Fire- 
 arms were already replacing the old-fashioned pikes for war- 
 fare among woods and mountains. 
 
 The difficulties of the defenders of Munster were greatly 
 increased by their enemies having been former friends and 
 familiar with all their circumstances. The governor of 
 Mocollop Castle, Mr. Henry Tyrell, wrote to Lord Cork, 
 saying T. Carter had read him a warrant purporting to come 
 from the Earl, authorising him to take over the charge of 
 the Castle. Mr. Tyrell wrote that he would be very glad to 
 be relieved in favour of his son, as his health was giving way 
 from anxiety and work, and also his garrison were grown so 
 careless that they persisted in going out morning and evening 
 and wasting ammunition in shooting hares ! But he felt some 
 suspicion about this proposal of Mr. Carter's, and rightly so, 
 for Lord Cork endorses the letter, ' pretending a warrant 
 from me/ and on the 8th of April Broghill arrested and sent 
 off Mr. Carter to Youghal under suspicion of being a traitor. 
 A servant of Carter's also confessed that he had been at the 
 
 i L.P.,il. 5 . 7 t.
 
 THE EARL'S SONS 407 
 
 massacre of Mr. Croker and his servants at Ballyancor, * for 
 which,' writes Broghill, ' unless your Lordship will have him 
 further examined, I shall have him hanged.' He ends by 
 begging his father to send him a hundred musketeers 
 to-morrow morning, and ' my life on it, we will do some 
 gallant exploit.' 1 
 
 The long-expected troops from England which arrived in 
 February were commanded by Sir Charles Vavasour, and 
 landed at Youghal in the face of a battery the Irish had set 
 up to command the harbour. Further reinforcements under 
 Inchiquin and Jephson and provision of powder were landed 
 during the month, and the spring days may have seen some 
 hopes awaken in the breasts of the anxious garrisons of 
 Munster. 
 
 Unfortunately these English soldiers, who came over in 
 small bodies to reinforce the Munster army, did not make 
 the task of the Irish commanders any easier. A feeling of 
 feudal loyalty bound together the gentry and the forces they 
 raised among their own tenantry, but the English troops had 
 no hereditary confidence in their Munster officers, and con- 
 sidered themselves to be invaders of a foreign country. 
 When Broghill requested his father to send a hundred men 
 to garrison Tallagh, he adds impressively : * But it must be 
 none of the new English companies, for their unruliness will 
 spoil all ; but I shall desire it might be Captain Finch's 
 company, who is a soldier and a civil man.' 
 
 Alas ! as the war went on ' civility ' was less thought of. 
 The letters from his sons to the old Earl soon grow into a 
 dreary catalogue of relentless cruelty on both sides. English 
 women stripped and hanged by the Irish, Irish castles burnt 
 by the English, together with all the women and children 
 
 * L. P., ii. 5 . 39-
 
 4 o8 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 who had taken refuge in them, starving and mutinous soldiers 
 the reader sickens at the monotony of misery. Only here 
 and there comes a letter that may be read with a sense of 
 relief, as, when Lord Roche's castle was taken by the English, 
 seven hundred women who had taken refuge there were given 
 quarter. The war assumed more and more of a guerilla 
 character : flying bands of Irish roved about the country, 
 hiding in woods and caves and pouncing down on any 
 straggling troops or carelessly defended fortress. 
 
 Captain Agmondsham Muschamp's account of dealing 
 with one of these parties is as lively as that of any war 
 correspondent of to-day. He describes to Lord Cork how 
 the rebels seized and stripped three of his men and carried 
 them off, debating as they went what particular form of 
 torture they should be put to, when by good luck Captain 
 Muschamp surprised them. Of course the Irish dropped 
 their victims and took to the woods and the river, and the 
 English after them. 'And I had such sport that duck- 
 hunting is nothing to it.' He winds up with apologising 
 for his unpolished lines, ' as he had had no breeding but Sir 
 Vincent Cooking's !' Poor Sir Vincent's libel on the Munster 
 gentry would never be forgotten or forgiven for all his formal 
 apology to the incensed Dublin Parliament. 
 
 If we turn to the campaign in the west of Munster 
 we might wish for a whole volume to narrate the tragedies 
 and humours of Kinalmeaky's defence of Bandon. The two 
 great Chieftains, M'Carthy Reagh and O'Sullivan of Bere, 
 commanded the Irish in the West, and when they had swept 
 Clonakilty out of existence they assaulted Bandon. But 
 Bandon was a harder nut to crack. The townsmen did not 
 even consent to fight behind the shelter of their walls, but 
 made a sortie and charged gallantly out, while Kinalmeaky
 
 THE EARL'S SONS 409 
 
 with his horse took the enemy in the rear and completely 
 routed them, killing one hundred and five, and taking fourteen 
 prisoners, who were immediately hanged, besides securing two 
 wagon -loads of provisions. Lord Cork wrote proudly to 
 Warwick : f Now the boy has blooded himself upon them, I 
 hope that God will so bless him and his Majesty's forces, 
 that as I now write but of the killing of a hundred, I shall 
 shortly write of the killing of thousands, for their unexampled 
 cruelty hath bred such desire of revenge in us, as every man 
 hath laid aside all compassion and is as bloody in his desires 
 against them as they have been in their execution against us/ l 
 The Mayor of Bandon writing in April says that his last 
 messenger had been taken prisoner, and whether he were hanged 
 or not he could not tell. He then tells a pitiful story of five 
 little children who were sent out to herd cattle and were 
 fallen on by the Irish. Four of the children were killed and 
 the cows driven off, and when the miserable parents reached 
 the spot they found the surviving child grievously wounded 
 and not like to live. The Bandon men had little doubt that 
 the raiders were M'Carthy's men from Dun Daniel Castle, 
 and were so wild for revenge that the musketeers marched 
 straight on the Castle, and so played on it, that not a man 
 looking out or over the walls but was killed ; and then 
 having driven the offenders from the ' spicks holes,' assaulted 
 the door and iron gate with sledge-hammers, and set the door 
 on fire, and so got into the lower room. The enemy fled to 
 the top of the tower, which was vaulted and had very narrow 
 stairs, so that the Bandon men could not easily follow them, 
 and as it was now dark they contented themselves with setting 
 the floors on fire and carrying ofT" a quantity of oatmeal, and 
 so went home. The next day they found a good many of 
 
 1 Smith, ii. 72.
 
 4 io LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 the rebels had escaped by ropes from the top of the Castle, as 
 the fire could not pierce the vaulted roof, but many lay dead. 
 ' How desperate and rash this attempt was, your Lordship 
 may judge,' said Langton. ' There were three killed and six 
 hurt with shot and stones. The men that were killed were 
 two of them your Lordship's tenants, Martin Colmen and 
 John Moaky, and the third was the Marshal of the Marshalsea 
 in the town. When they went forth they had no such intent 
 as to attempt the castle. If we had known we should have 
 used our endeavours to have restrained them ; but that God 
 preserved them they might well have lost forty men and done 
 the enemy no harm. The poor are heavy upon us. Sickness 
 daily increases. God be merciful upon us and send us timely 
 relief, for else we cannot but perish, and that very shortly.' 1 
 
 The hare-brained soldiers were equal to assaulting a fortified 
 castle with only their muskets in their hands, but they chafed 
 at the monotony of a siege, more especially as their pay was 
 very uncertain. The Mayor, Mr. Langton, wrote that the 
 journeymen of the town were slipping away to Cork, to 
 enlist there as regular soldiers and be sure of pay. 
 
 Kinalmeaky loved as little to sit inside stone walls as did 
 the Bandon journeymen, and he resolved on revenging the 
 massacre of Clonakilty and bearding M'Carthy Reagh by 
 capturing his magnificent Castle of Kilbrittan. Kinalmeaky 
 set his ingenuity to work to invent some better way of 
 assaulting this coveted fortress than shooting with muskets at 
 the defenders through the loopholes, and manufactured one of 
 the moveable sheds on wheels that had been used in classical 
 warfare ; he was immensely proud of this Sow, as it was 
 called, and wrote to his father : ' Your Lordship may be 
 pleased to know that on the first of June I took Coolmaine 
 
 1 L. P., ii. 5. 47-9.
 
 THE EARL'S SONS 411 
 
 and Kilbrittan Castles, the last denying to yield till such time 
 as they saw my mortal Sow. I have left twenty musqueteers 
 in each.' 
 
 Lord Cork, whatever his fears for the future, never lost 
 confidence in the strength and steadfastness of Bandon, and 
 in the spirit of those Romans who sold and bought the land 
 on which the invading Hannibal's camp was pitched, occupied 
 himself during these eventful months by drawing up a lease 
 of the part of Bandon known as Coolfadda and letting it to a 
 Mr. Matthias Anstice. Bandon can indeed boast itself a 
 virgin fortress. No enemy ever found a footing inside its 
 tall black walls.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 AT BAY 
 16421643 
 
 * .... as that dishonest victory, 
 At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty, 
 Killed with report that old man eloquent.' 
 
 MILTON, SONNET TO THE LADY M. LEY.' 
 
 STUBBORNLY as the English settlers fought, the summer of 
 1642 saw their command of Munster limited to the castles 
 and walled towns. They were now too few to do more than 
 venture an occasional raid into the open country, and without 
 a fresh supply of men and ammunition it was uncertain how 
 long they could keep command of the strong places that were 
 still in their hands. 
 
 The situation could hardly be worse ; yet now a new blow 
 fell upon Munster. Lord President St. Leger, worn out with 
 fatigues and anxieties, died on the 2nd of July at his house 
 of Doneraile. His death not only deprived the English of 
 a brave general and a judicious governor, it threw an apple 
 of discord into the province, and all the great men fell to 
 quarrelling who should succeed to his office. 
 
 As a temporary expedient the Lords Justices wrote from 
 Dublin desiring Lord Inchiquin and Lord Barrymore to share 
 the government of the province, and begged Lord Cork ' to 
 assist them with his counsel as far as his indisposition would 
 allow.' 
 
 412
 
 AT BAY 413 
 
 During Lord Cork's long life storms and dangers had 
 always ended by tossing him to a higher pitch of greatness, 
 and now the disasters that had fallen upon Ireland raised him 
 to be the supreme authority in Munster, for Barrymore, 
 though nominally the governor, still referred to his father- 
 in-law's judgment with the dutiful reverence of a son. Gentle 
 and simple all united in assuring the old Earl that he was the 
 sole stay and hope of the English in the South of Ireland, and 
 the Lords Justices sent formal messages to his sons, thanking 
 Broghill for his good services in the war, and giving Kinal- 
 meaky a ' custodiam ' of all the lands in the country round 
 Bandon which M'Carthy Reagh might be considered to have 
 forfeited by his rebellion. 
 
 But this dignity of the Earl's last days was in truth but 
 a phantom glory. The jealousies and suspicions that were, 
 in Carlyle's words, to make Ireland ' a huge blot, an indis- 
 criminate blackness,' were already at work, and Cork was 
 driven to fear that his nominal allies might really be his worst 
 enemies, and that their compliments and friendly words only 
 covered designs of treachery. 
 
 Hitherto Englishmen had forgotten their private rancours 
 and private advantages, and held all together for the sake of 
 England. Little love as the Boyles had felt for St. Leger, 
 they believed him to be an honest man and a good soldier, 
 but they had never liked nor trusted his son-in-law and suc- 
 cessor, Murrough O'Brien, Lord Inchiquin. Although 
 Inchiquin belonged to the Protestant branch of the O'Briens, 
 it seemed to the Boyles that he was unnecessarily cordial to 
 his popish cousins in the Irish camp, 1 and although profuse 
 of loyal speeches, they feared that he was really taking 
 advantage of the divisions in England to intrigue by turns 
 
 1 See Verney Mem., ii. 56.
 
 4 i4 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 with both King and Parliament in order to sell his sword to 
 the highest bidder. 
 
 It was difficult to find proof of absolute bad faith on 
 Inchiquin's part, but it was obvious to all that he intended to 
 carry on the war as suited his own convenience and advantage, 
 and before long Lord Barrymore completely lost his temper, 
 and declared that he was tempted to throw up his com- 
 mand and retire to England, rather than wait to see the 
 country ruined, and the Munster army merely employed to 
 guard Inchiquin's private property. 
 
 It is possible that Lord Cork may have desired to forestall 
 Inchiquin's intrigues with the powers in Westminster, or he 
 may only have grown weary of crying to the King for help 
 which he was not able to give. Whatever may have been the 
 reasons, he despatched to the Speaker of the House of 
 Commons one of the most dignified and eloquent appeals 
 that ever have reached Parliament. And yet, if one did not 
 know how slowly the human race learns the most obvious 
 lessons, it would be as strange as it is sad to see the old 
 counsels of Elizabeth's day repeated once more. Confiscation 
 and outlawry, the weapons that had been tried fifty years 
 before, were still the only means Lord Cork could suggest to 
 pacify Ireland. But with the Elizabethan policy there is also 
 the Elizabethan fighting spirit in the old Earl's words, and 
 even the English Parliament was stirred, and directed that 
 his letter should be printed and distributed under the 
 title : 
 
 *A copie of a Letter sent by Mr. Speaker to all the 
 Corporations of England And the like also to all the Justices 
 of Peace in the severall counties of England : Drawn out by 
 order of the House of Commons. Also, a Worthie and 
 learned and religious Speech Delivered by the Earl of Cork to
 
 AT BAY 415 
 
 the protestant Lords, knights and gentlemen of Ireland at a 
 general Assembly holden at Cork, Jan. 20, 1641 [1642].' 
 
 This speech, delivered the previous January, recapitulates 
 the horrors they had seen, warns them that the danger is 
 universal, and winds up : 
 
 ' I am afraid I have been too tedious in my discourse, but 
 I will now end in a word : let not the insolency of the enemy 
 or consideration of the hazard, prevail over the goodness and 
 justice of the cause and your noble and undaunted courage, but 
 be as valiant as your cause is just, and I doubt not that success 
 will crown your actions with honour, procure peace and quiet 
 both to your consciences and possessions, and so shall you in- 
 herit the everlasting names of men religious and pious to your 
 God, loyal to your sovereign, and faithful to your country.' 
 
 The letter to the Speaker, after Lord Cork's invariable 
 and dignified fashion, ignores any possibility of strife between 
 the King and Parliament. 
 
 THE EARL OF CORK TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF 
 
 COMMONS IN ENGLAND 1 
 
 ' SIR, Although I have not had the happiness to be 
 acquainted with you, yet holding it a necessary duty in me 
 (since the Lord President is dead) to make known unto your- 
 self and the honourable House of Commons the present state 
 of the province of Munster, where my poor fortune and very 
 many other English protestants do lie ; you may be pleased 
 to understand, that Munster, the fourth and best part of this 
 kingdom, being overspread with infinite multitudes of rebels, 
 the better to discourage and dishearten them, I have, with the 
 assistance of the Earl of Barrimore, the Lord Viscount of 
 Killmallock, and my two sons, Dungarvan and Broghill (by 
 
 1 Printed in State Letters, first Earl of Orrery, Morrice, i. 8, 16.
 
 4 i 6 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 the advice of the Lords Justices and council of Ireland, who 
 enabled me with commission to that effect) lately held sessions 
 in the several counties of Corke and Waterford, and even 
 beyond the expectation of all men have proceeded so far as, 
 by juries free from all exception, to indict the Lords Viscounts 
 Roch, Montgarret, Ikerrin, and Muskerry, and the Barons of 
 Dunboyne and Castleconnell, with the son and heir of the 
 Lord of Cahir, Theobald Purcell, Baron of Loghmoe, Richard 
 Butler, of Killcash, Esq., brother to my very good Lord the 
 Earl of Ormonde, with all other the baronets, knights, esquires, 
 gentlemen, freeholders, and popish priests, in number above 
 eleven hundred, that either dwell, or have entered and done 
 any rebellious act in those two counties ; which indictments I 
 make bold to send unto you to be presented unto the House, 
 to the end they may be there considered of by such members 
 thereof as are learned in the laws ; that, if they be wanting in 
 any formal point of the law, they may be reformed and recti- 
 fied, and returned unto me, with such amendments as they 
 shall think fit : and so (if the House please to direct) to have 
 them all proceeded against to out-la wry ; whereby his Majesty 
 may be entitled to their lands and possessions, which (I dare 
 boldly affirm) was at the beginning of this insurrection not of 
 so little yearly value as two hundred thousand pounds. This 
 course of proceedings against the Lords and the rest was not 
 by them suspected, and, I assure you, doth much startle and 
 terrify them ; for now they begin (though too late) to take 
 notice, that they are in a good forwardness to be attainted, 
 and all their estates confiscated, to the corruption of their 
 blood, and extirpation of them and their families. And the 
 height of their revenge is principally bent against the Earl of 
 Barrimore, myself, and my two sons, which we all foresaw 
 before we entered upon this work of works. Sir, I pray give
 
 AT BAY 417 
 
 me leave to present unto yourself and that honourable house, 
 that this great and general rebellion broke forth in October 
 last, at the very instant when I landed here out of England ; 
 and though it appeared first at Ulster, yet I (who am three- 
 score and sixteen years of age, and have eaten the most part 
 of my bread in Ireland these four and fifty years, and by 
 reason of my several employments and commands in the 
 government of this province and kingdom) could not but 
 apprehend that the infection and contagion was general, and 
 would by degrees quickly creep into this province, as forth- 
 with it did. And for that I found to my great grief, that by 
 the courses the late Earl of Strafford had taken, all or the 
 greatest part of the English and protestants in this province 
 were deprived of their arms, and debarred from having any 
 powder in their houses, and the king's magazines here being 
 so weakly furnished, as in a manner they were empty ; I with- 
 out delay furnished all my castles in these two counties with 
 such ammunition as my poor armoury did afford, and sent 
 three hundred pounds sterling into England to be bestowed 
 in ammunition for myself and tenants ; and put in sufficient 
 guards and nine months' victuals into every of my castles, 
 which, I thank God, I have hitherto preserved and made good, 
 not without giving great annoyance out of these castles to the 
 rebels. And for that the late Lord President did judiciously 
 observe, that the preservation of this important town and harbour 
 of Yoghall was of principal consequence to be maintained and 
 kept for the service of the crown ; and presuming that no man 
 did exceed me in power and ability to make it good, he pre- 
 vailed with me so far for the advancement of his Majesty's 
 service, and securing of this considerable town and harbour, 
 as to leave my own strong and defensible house of Lismore 
 (which was well provided of ordnance and all things fitting for 
 
 2 D
 
 4 i 8 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 defence), to the guard of my son Broghill, with an hundred 
 horse and an hundred foot, and to retire hither, whither I 
 brought two foot companies of an hundred apiece, all com- 
 pounded of English Protestants, and well disciplined, and 
 them at my charges armed, being men experienced, and 
 formerly seasoned with the air of this country, wherein they 
 are good guides. And hitherto (I do thank my God) this 
 town and harbour are made good, and is a receptacle, not only 
 for shipping, but also for thousands of distressed Englishmen, 
 which have been dispossessed and stripped by the rebels, and 
 found succour and safety here. And these two hundred men, 
 that I have kept here all the last winter until now to defend 
 this town, I did weekly pay by poll three shillings and sixpence 
 a week, until the first of March last ; and then my own monies 
 failing, my son Dungarvan did procure order from the Parlia- 
 ment for four months entertainment, beginning the first of 
 March and ending the last of June ; for which as I am most 
 thankful, so I beseech you, that order may be given for the 
 four months from the beginning of November till the first of 
 March, and from the said last of June hitherto, and for the 
 time succeeding. The troop of horse and hundred foot, 
 which were and are garrisoned at Lismore, I have also ever 
 since weekly paid in ready money by poll, as I do the foot 
 company to this day. But I humbly thank the Parliament, 
 they have been nobly pleased, the beginning of last month, to 
 bring my son Broghill with his troop of horse into his 
 Majesty's pay ; which favour he will (I hope), by his service 
 merit. I then likewise employed my second son Kynalmeaky 
 to command and govern a town in the west of my erection, 
 called Bandonbridge, the walling and fortifying whereof stood 
 me in 14,000, wherein are at least seven thousand souls, 
 all English Protestants, and not one Irishman or Papist
 
 AT BAY 419 
 
 dwelling therein, where there have been ever since, and yet 
 are maintained, one hundred horse and four hundred foot ; 
 which town (notwithstanding several violent assaults and 
 attempts) hath not only been maintained and defended, but 
 they have made many sallies forth upon the rebels, and given 
 them several great overthrows ; and indeed beyond expecta- 
 tion (and even almost to admiration), have gained some seven 
 castles from the traitors ; some of which they have burned 
 and sleighted, and the rest they maintain with good wards, 
 being great bridles upon the enemy. And yet these nine 
 months they have not had one penny entertainment from 
 the King nor Parliament, only the Honourable House of 
 Commons taking notice of their remarkable services, have lately 
 very graciously bestowed upon them four hundred musquets 
 with powder, match, and lead, fifty swords, two hundred 
 belts, two drums, five new colours, and some other victuals 
 and habiliments of war ; for which great favour I beseech you 
 present that honourable house with mine and their humblest 
 thanks ; and if these ammunitions had been accompanied with 
 some reasonable proportion of money and clothes, it would 
 have crowned their other bounties, and kept the soldiers from 
 mutiny and disorder. But they having had no pay but my 
 poor revenue these nine months, makes them disobedient to 
 commands, and apt to complain of their governor ; for whom 
 it is in a manner impossible to keep so great a number of men 
 in wants, and withal in good appetite and affection towards 
 him, when he hath no money from King or Parliament to 
 content them withal. And, therefore, I beseech you, let no 
 aspersions be fastened upon him, until he be heard to deliver 
 his own acquittal ; for it is not his carriage, but the want of 
 money that displeaseth them, which, it is my humble suit, may 
 be speedily redressed.
 
 4 2o LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 ' The Earl of Barrimore hath, in these times of general 
 defection, expressed as much loyalty to the King and Parlia- 
 ment, and as much constancy to his religion, as could be 
 desired, even almost beyond hope ; and in the height of scorn 
 resisted to accept the place of being general of the Irish forces 
 of this province, and other tenders of exceeding great pay and 
 advantage; for whose constancy to the crown, and refusal of 
 their offers, they have burned and wasted his whole country. 
 He is the eldest colonel in this province ; and yet now that all 
 his revenue is taken from him by the rebels (unto whom no 
 man shows so little favour) he hath only a troop of horse in pay, 
 which he raised, horsed, and armed at his own charge, without 
 allowance from the king or parliament ; (as both my sons Kynal- 
 meaky's and BroghilTs troops were by me ;) and maintaineth 
 always at least 200 foot in the field without pay at his own 
 charges, and hath nothing but what he fighteth with the rebels 
 for, and getteth by his sword ; he having lately hanged forty- 
 three notable rebels for a breakfast, whose service and en- 
 couragement therein I sensibly offer to the consideration of 
 the honourable house of commons, (and wish that he had a 
 regiment bestowed upon him;) as also the infinite prejudice 
 this province suffers by the delay of not sending over those 
 5000 foot and 500 horse, with money and ammunition, which 
 the parliament (as I am informed) long since ordered to be 
 transported hither, as an increase to the forces of this pro- 
 vince ; which, if they had timely arrived, might in all proba- 
 bility have prevented the loss of the castle and ordnance of 
 Limerick, which the rebels do now possess, and do in great 
 numbers march abroad with the cannon, and other ordnance 
 which they got there ; and therewith have lately gained the 
 castles of Kilfinny, Newcastle, Crome, Rathkeele and all other 
 the castles in the county of Limerick, which they have sum-
 
 AT BAY 421 
 
 moned or shot at, and till then held firm ; so as we have only 
 two castles in the county, the one called Loghgirr, belonging 
 to the Earl of Bath, which is yet defended ; and a castle of 
 mine called Askeating, wherein I have without charge, either 
 to the king or parliament, kept and maintained an hundred 
 men ever since this rebellion ; which castle Captain Robert 
 Constable, who commanded the ship called the Ruth (when 
 he brought 800 distressed protestants out of the castle of 
 Limerick,) did lately and very worthily relieve with one piece 
 of ordnance, powder, match, lead, salt, and other necessaries. 
 But the rebels came so thick and fast upon him, as he could 
 not bring in thither any supply of victuals. And that strong 
 castle of Askeating is now besieged with 4000 of the enemies, 
 and we have no sufficient force in this province to rescue or 
 relieve it. And it is most true, that those three regiments, 
 which the king and parliament sent over for this province, 
 under the command of Sir Charles Vavasor, Sir John Pawlett, 
 and Sir William Ogle, are so lessened, weakened, and made 
 unserviceable by fluxes, small-pox, fevers, and with long 
 marches, and lying upon the cold ground, as we are not able 
 out of these three Regiments to draw into the field twelve 
 hundred able and serviceable men, death and sickness having 
 reduced them to so weak a condition. And, Sir, I beseech 
 you, believe this great truth from me, that if the king and 
 parliament be not pleased speedily to send hither liberal 
 supplies of all our beforementioned wants, we shall be 
 deprived of a very plentiful harvest ; the enjoying whereof by 
 the rebels will be a mighty accommodation to them, and an 
 unspeakable disadvantage to us ; and the whole province must 
 be deserted and left to the enemy ; and all the English forces 
 will be compelled to retire into the city of Corke, and the 
 towns of Yoghall, Kingsale and Bandonbridge, (for more
 
 422 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 walled towns than those there are not in the whole province 
 that hold for the crown ;) the unexpressible consequence 
 whereof the honourable house of commons will, I hope, upon 
 this my true relation, speedily commiserate, and have a feeling 
 of those our increasing miseries and afflictions. But I posi- 
 tively affirm, that if any farther delay be used, it will be our 
 ruin and the loss of this late flourishing and plentiful pro- 
 vince : and if your providence furnish us not presently with 
 liberal supplies, it will be the loss of Munster ; and of all the 
 good English protestant subjects therein ; who, with the loss 
 of their blood and hazard of their lives, have hitherto with 
 great danger upheld that little remain that we keep. 
 
 * For my own part, Mr. Speaker, I assure you this great 
 truth, that I had a very considerable estate and revenue when 
 this rebellion began ; and when I retired to this town I left a 
 garrison of an hundred horse and an hundred foot at Lismore ; 
 and that foot company I have weekly paid out of my own 
 purse till this day, and the troop till the last month, that they 
 were brought into pay under the command of my son Broghill ; 
 the hundred foot at Askeating I have also since the beginning 
 of the rebellion given satisfaction unto. And as for the 
 hundred horse and four hundred foot under the command of 
 my son Kynalmeaky at Bandonbridge, neither King nor Par- 
 liament hath vouchsafed hitherto to send them either clothes 
 or money, and for want of pay they now mutiny. The two 
 foot companies, that guarded Yoghall, I have paid out of my 
 own purse since the beginning of these troubles, save only the 
 four months' entertainment, which the Parliament sent over 
 unto them. I have maintained and do yet keep guards in my 
 several castles, which have much annoyed the rebels. All those 
 soldiers in these several places are out of clothes. I do affirm 
 and will make good this undeniable truth, that my two sons
 
 AT BAY 423 
 
 Kynalmeaky and Broghill, with those forces that I have raised 
 and satisfied and they command, have been the destruction of 
 above three thousand rebels since the beginning of the insur- 
 rection. I have been compelled to sell my plate and silver 
 vessels to pay the soldiers. I have been a good constable to 
 preserve this town and harbour, and the King's peace in those 
 parts. I have with a free heart and a liberal hand spent all 
 that I have, and am able to do no more. I grieve not at my 
 own losses and wants, though they have been very great ; 
 but to see these seasoned and well-disciplined companies (an 
 hundred whereof for the present are more serviceable than 
 three hundred fresh men), to be without clothes or pay, 
 afflicts me at the soul. 
 
 ' The one hundred and odd pounds which the House of 
 Commons sent over by my son Dungarvan, to relieve this 
 poor town, hath been faithfully distributed among the poor 
 English Protestants, who in exchange do tender unto you 
 their humblest thanks, and pray for your prosperity. And so, 
 beseeching you and the Honourable House of Commons to 
 take this my true (though tedious) relation to heart, and to 
 provide speedy remedies to keep us in life, making it my 
 incessant prayer to the Almighty, that God will bless and 
 direct you in all your actions and intentions, I take leave, and 
 rest the servant of your commands. R. CORKE.' 
 
 'YOGHALL, Aug. 25, 1642.' 
 
 ' The towns of Wexford and Dungarvan are both by sea 
 lately furnished from Rochelle with store of powder and 
 ammunition, whereof I had a certain advertisement this day ; 
 and an admonition to the commanders of those ships, that are 
 in pay from the House, to range and watch the seas better, is 
 humbly desired as most requisite.'
 
 424 
 
 The month after this appeal to England was drawn up, 
 Lord Inchiquin had to ask Lord Cork for every man who 
 could be spared from the garrison of Youghal, for the Irish, 
 having made themselves master of all the strongholds in 
 County Limerick, and having besieged and taken Askeaton, 
 were advancing southward into Cork, promising themselves, 
 says a contemporary tract, 1 to win all Munster at a blow, for 
 they were assured the tidings of a single Irish victory would 
 rouse Youghal, Cork, and Kinsale, ' where there were not 
 four hundred soldiers left, to cut the throats of their garrison 
 and declare themselves for the rebels.' 
 
 They brought with them the guns they had taken at 
 Limerick, and a brass siege piece of 6890 pounds weight, 'the 
 fame of which,' says the tract quoted above, * won more castles 
 than the valour of their whole army.' This tremendous gun 
 was conveyed across the bogs in a hollowed-out tree trunk, 
 dragged by twenty-five yoke of oxen, and it proved so effec- 
 tive that the strong castle of Liscarrol surrendered to them 
 after three days' siege. 2 
 
 Inchiquin hurried to the front, calling all the Boyles to 
 join him, and with his brothers came Francis to flesh his 
 maiden sword in the battle that was to roll back the tide of 
 invasion from Munster. 
 
 On the third of September Inchiquin's forces reached 
 Liscarrol, almost fainting from their rapid march and lack of 
 supplies. 3 They found the Irish strongly posted, their left 
 wing resting on Liscarrol Castle, the right protected by a 
 fortification they had raised on a hill near by. Inchiquin had 
 not discovered the shock tactics of Rupert and Cromwell, 
 and advanced in the slow old-fashioned way, directing his 
 
 1 A Journal, etc., Brit. Mus. E. (123) 15. 
 
 - (Carte : Others say the castle held out 13 days.) 3 Carte.
 
 AT BAY 425 
 
 troopers not to charge, but fire off their carbines and wheel to 
 the rear to reload. In doing so, they threw their rear rank 
 into confusion, and the Irish who had refused to be drawn 
 from their position, now dashed in among the broken ranks 
 and forced them back. Dungarvan was only saved by the 
 excellence of his armour, and Inchiquin, separated in the mdlee 
 from his own men, was seized and held fast by an Irish trooper 
 while two others hacked at him with their swords, and was 
 barely rescued by Jephson, who also succeeded in rallying the 
 scattered horse, when after a gallant struggle, in which Broghill 
 shot one of the Irish ensigns with his own hand and seized 
 the colours, the Irish were obliged to give back, and their 
 retreat soon turned to a complete rout. Meantime the Irish 
 left wing had been dislodged by Vavasour from its position 
 under the Castle and driven into a bog. Unhappily Inchiquin, 
 when he returned from the pursuit of the right wing, mistook 
 his own army for the enemy, and fearing to encounter fresh 
 forces, sounded trumpets to draw off his men. By the time 
 his mistake was discovered, many of the enemy had got 
 away and taken refuge in Sir William Power's bog of 
 Kilbolan. 
 
 In spite of the escape of so many, the victory of the 
 English was decisive. The Irish lost seven hundred men and 
 their guns, and their advance into Cork was entirely checked. 
 But alas, the victory was dearly bought. At the very first 
 advance of the skirmishers, led forward by Inchiquin to draw 
 the Irish from their shelter, a shot from a hedge struck down 
 Kinalmeaky. Francis dashed up as he fell, and at the risk of 
 his life caught his horse's bridle, but the shot had done its 
 work and the boy was obliged to abandon the body till the 
 battle was over. Then the sorrowing brothers bore it home 
 and laid it to rest with military honours in the Cathedral of
 
 4 26 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Lismore, sending six captured standards over sea, to show 
 Lady Kinalmeaky that her husband had not died in vain. 
 
 Requiescat in pace ; we may forget the sins and follies ot 
 his boyhood in the memory of his gallant defence of Bandon 
 and his soldier's death on the field of Liscarrol. 
 
 If Lord Inchiquin had been able to follow up his victory, 
 he might actually have brought the war in Munster to an end. 
 Unhappily he had no provision for a campaign, and having 
 averted the immediate danger, he returned his troops to their 
 various garrisons and retired to his house at Mallow. 
 
 This is the account of the battle preserved in the Lismore 
 Papers? but Inchiquin indignantly asserted that Dung ar van 
 and Broghill did him very great wrong, ' in that they wrote 
 letters which were read openly in Parliament, wherein they 
 attributed the chief merit of that day's services to Sir Charles 
 Vavasour.' The view of Inchiquin's friends was that he 
 himself routed the Irish right wing, while the left wing had 
 merely retired without fighting, into the boggy ground where 
 Vavasour could not follow them. 
 
 Perhaps the most disastrous effect of war upon a country 
 is that it carries away the strong and active and leaves the old 
 and helpless to mourn that they still drag on a useless exist- 
 ence. In this sorrowful summer Lord Cork had already lost 
 his son-in-law, Lord Digby, now Kinalmeaky had fallen, and but 
 three weeks later the old man had to record the death of 
 the gallant young Irishman who, since the day he married 
 Alice Boyle, had been to the Earl as one of his own children. 
 Lord Cork wrote on September 29th in his diary : 
 
 * This morning, being Michaelmas Day, it pleased God to 
 
 1 Smith, ii. 80 and 84. A much fuller account is edited by Mr. T. Buckley in 
 the Cork Arch. Jottrn. 1896, pp. 83, 100, from a contemporary tract. It relates that 
 Vavasour took the enemies' guns, and describes the gallant behaviour of the Boyle 
 family, but gives the honours of the victory to Lord Inchiquin.
 
 AT BAY 427 
 
 call to his mercy out of this miserable world my noble son- 
 in-law the Earl of Barrymore, who sickened at his house of 
 Castle Lyons, the 24th of this month and deceased this 
 morning there, whereof my cousin Stephen Crowe brought 
 me the unwelcome tidings, and by him I sent my daughter 
 20 to be bestowed in bringing his body to Youghal to be 
 interred in my chapel, and provide ^30 more for the mourning 
 stuff for his funerals. His Lop. being interred with the rites 
 of a soldier the next following, the Lord of Inchiquin with 
 very many others being present.' 
 
 In those grievous days there was little leisure to mourn the 
 dead, the living demanded every thought. Lord Barrymore's 
 fatherless children were very dear to the old Earl, and in the 
 ruined country it was hard to see how the young heir was to 
 live, much less pay for education. So the funeral at Youghal 
 was hardly over before Lord Cork had to take up his pen to 
 petition Ormond, whom the King had made Lieutenant- 
 General of Ireland, to allow young Barrymore to be the 
 nominal head of the troop of horse his father had raised, and 
 also to grant Kinalmeaky's troop to his brother Francis. 
 
 THE EARL OF CORK TO THE MARQUIS OF ORMOND. 
 
 ' MY MOST HONOURED LORD, Though it be late, yet give 
 me leave, I beseech you, to congratulate your new addition of 
 honour, which his majesty has been graciously pleased so 
 deservedly to confer upon you ; as also the restitution of 
 health, which God hath given you and your virtuous Lady. 
 And although these my expressions are not presented unto 
 you so early as I desired, yet I beseech you believe this great 
 truth from me, that they proceed from an honest heart, that 
 hath ever honoured and loved yourself and the noble family, 
 from which you are descended ; and if ever my posterity shall
 
 428 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 fail in their service and respects to you and yours, I will not 
 own, but disclaim them as none of mine. My Lord, I have 
 lately had the honour amongst other your commissions to 
 receive two under your Lordship's hand and seal, whereby my 
 slain son Kinalmeaky had by your favour conferred upon him 
 the command of a troop of horse and a foot company, which 
 he raised, armed, and maintained since the beginning of this 
 insurrection in my new walled town of Bandonbridge, without 
 charge or pay from the king, parliament, or state, and did 
 some remarkable services in those parts with the forces, which 
 he had gotten and kept together there. And now I, being by 
 the iniquity of these times deprived of my rent and revenue, 
 am much impoverished by the maintenance that I afforded 
 him, and find no comfort by those your Lordship's commis- 
 sions, which were not brought hither until after my son 
 Kynalmeaky was killed at the battle of Liscarryl, where I had 
 four of my sons in that service ; and the youngest of them (if 
 report speak truth) carried himself with undaunted resolution 
 and did narrowly endanger his life, in recovering his dead 
 brother's body and horse, both which he brought from the 
 rebels, and hath ever since kept both troop and foot company 
 together, in hope (his brother being thus killed in this service) 
 that he shall be graced with the command of them. My 
 humble suit unto your Lordship now is, that you will be 
 favourably pleased, seeing God hath so appointed it, that the 
 town of Bandonbridge (where his troop and company are 
 garrisoned) is by my said son's death now descended to his 
 brother Dungarvan, that your Lordship will now also confer 
 upon him the foot company, and the troop of horse on his brother 
 Francis, it being no other than the performance of that favour, 
 which you were pleased to confer upon their deceased brother ; 
 , and the altering of it from his name that is dead to them two
 
 AT BAY 429 
 
 that are living, whereby you shall oblige us all three that 
 survive to a most thankful acknowledgement of this your 
 goodness ; which favour if you shall vouchsafe them, then it 
 is my further desire, that the commissions may be renewed 
 and returned by this express messenger. 
 
 * It pleased God on Michaelmas day last to call to his 
 mercy my noble son-in-law, the Earl of Barrimore, who was 
 your great servant. He hath left a distressed wife and four 
 children, with an encumbered and disjointed estate, all his 
 country and livelihood being little better than wasted. He 
 had no other entertainment from his majesty than a troop of 
 horse, which he raised, horsed, and armed, at his own charge. 
 His son, the young Earl, is a very hopeful and proper youth, 
 not yet full fourteen years of age ; yet in his disposition very 
 forward : and if your Lordship will be graciously pleased, for 
 the better upholding of such an ancient and honourable house, 
 and the better maintenance of the young Lord during these 
 times of trouble, to confer upon him the troop of horse which 
 his father had, and send him your commission to command 
 them, I do undertake to your Lordship, that they shall be 
 governed by such able and sufficient officers, as shall keep 
 them in strength and good order, and perform all duties that 
 can be expected from them. And this in your Lordship will 
 be an act of great honour, and speak loud in your Lordship's 
 just commendations, and thereby perpetually oblige him and 
 all his friends to be your most thankful servants. Which 
 recommending to your Lordship's honourable consideration, 
 I pray for your Lordship's health and prosperity, and, as I am, 
 will ever remain, My Lord, your Lordship's most humble 
 and affectionate servant, R. CORKE. 
 
 YOGHALL, Oct. 7, 1642. 
 
 ' To the most honourable the Lord Marquis of Ormonde,
 
 430 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 lieutenant general of his majesty's forces in this kingdom, 
 at Dublin, these present.' 1 
 
 The death of Lord Barrymore left Lord Inchiquin practi- 
 cally the Governor of Munster. He is hardly likely to have 
 echoed the desires of the Lords Justices that the Earl of Cork 
 might find himself equal to assisting the government with his 
 advice, for although the two great men were still on formal 
 terms of friendship, the old Earl had not grown less outspoken 
 with increasing years, and his remarks and criticisms might 
 soon grow too sharp for the proud O'Brien to stomach. It 
 was indeed now only too possible that the government of 
 Munster would be paralysed by an open quarrel between its 
 two greatest nobles. 
 
 Lord Justice Parsons was so anxious over the state of 
 things that he sent Lord Cork a letter by Joshua Boyle, 
 imploring him in a maundering helpless sort of way to make 
 the best of things and bear Inchiquin's provocations with 
 pious resignation. 
 
 Lord Cork was not the man to follow counsels of patience 
 when the fate of the kingdom was at stake, and paying no 
 attention to the Lord Justice, he sent off his two eldest sons 
 post-haste into England, to beg the King to appoint Lord 
 Dungarvan Lord President of Munster. 
 
 Nothing could have been more natural than that Lord 
 Dungarvan should at the least succeed his brother-in-law, 
 Lord Barrymore, as Inchiquin's coadjutor, and Lord Cork 
 urged him 'leave no friend unsolicited, no fair means un- 
 attempted, that may effect the business you go upon, for if 
 you return without it, you will meet with thorns entering 
 
 1 Printed in Orrery's State Letters, i. 16-18.
 
 AT BAY 431 
 
 your sides and be subject to such affront as your spirit will 
 not digest.' 
 
 But the Boyles petitioned in vain, and their charming 
 wives sailed for England and canvassed their court friends 
 with no result. The King bestowed the title of Lord 
 President upon their Weston kinsman, the Roman Catholic 
 Earl of Portland, but the empty title was all that his Majesty 
 had power to give, and the appointment remained a mere 
 dead letter : while the Parliament which now openly used its 
 authority in rivalry with the King, nominated Lord Lisle, the 
 son of the absentee Lord Lieutenant Leicester. Lisle had 
 been acting as Lieutenant-General under Ormond, and in so 
 far was better than Portland that he went to Munster, but he 
 had no influence there, and soon vanished in the increasing 
 welter of confusion where every man had to take care of 
 himself, and hardly knew whom to call his friends or even 
 to which nominal party he himself belonged. 
 
 The Justices, seeing that neither King nor Parliament 
 were able to provide for the governing of Munster, for once 
 bestirred themselves and appointed Lord Broghill and Captain 
 Jephson Commissioners to assist Lord Inchiquin in his duties, 
 Inchiquin still holding the King's commission as chief com- 
 mander of the army. 1 
 
 Lord Cork also urged Dungarvan when he was in England 
 to do all in his power to secure his ' brother Francis a troop 
 of horse, for he is grown a very civil proper young gent, full 
 of spirit and good hopes, and to have the like care to get 
 your sister Barrymore the wardship of the young lord, who 
 now hath the command of the troop of horse 2 that his father 
 
 1 Smith, ii. 81. 
 
 2 The Original Commission appointing Lord Barrymore is in the possession of 
 H. Townshend, Esq. of Seafield, County Cork.
 
 43* LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 had, notwithstanding the endeavours of your Uncle Fenton and 
 Sir Hardress Waller, who should not have sought it from him.' 
 
 When Lady Dungarvan and Lady Broghill crossed to 
 England they had travelled with one of the Munster com- 
 manders, Captain Thornhill. He was a rich man and had a 
 wife in England, and probably was heartily tired of the 
 wretched guerilla warfare in Munster, so after his three 
 months' leave was up, he decided not to return to Ireland, 
 and Lord Cork gained his desire and saw Francis appointed to 
 succeed to Thornhill's company of four hundred foot. 
 
 When the Earl gave his parting gifts to the ladies he gave 
 also to ' my daughter Broghill in gold, five pounds to buy a 
 ring beset around with diamonds, to be by her presented from 
 me to Mrs. Anne Howard.' It is pathetic to see the old man 
 turning from the cares of the government and the anxieties of 
 the war, to send a token to the little lady he hoped one day 
 to see the bride of his Robin. Robin, indeed, was never long 
 out of his father's thoughts, and with all the need of horses 
 for his Munster troopers, one very choice dun mare was sent 
 to Lismore, to be kept and dressed with care in readiness for 
 the Earl's youngest son, ' when it shall please God to send 
 him home from his foreign travels.' 
 
 When Lady Dungarvan and Lady Broghill arrived in 
 England they must have found most of their Munster friends 
 settled there, ready to welcome them. The progress of the 
 English civil war seems not to have prevented people from 
 living very comfortably in London, whatever were their 
 political opinions. Even when the advent of the King's forces 
 threatened to bring war to the city gates, the alarm only called 
 out Milton's half-jesting appeal to ' Captain or Colonel or 
 Knight in Arms/ and Sir John Leeke described the raising of 
 fortifications as something of a city holiday.
 
 AT BAY 433 
 
 Good Sir John's letters, full of public news, must have 
 been a godsend to the weary defenders of Youghal, but this 
 April he had to send tidings of nearer matters, and tell the 
 old Earl that yet another of his children had left the world 
 before him, and poor Lettice Goring had 
 
 4 passed 
 To where beyond these voices there is peace/ 
 
 It is to be hoped that his remarks about the devil do not 
 point to old Lady Goring, for although Lettice had no great 
 love for her mother-in-law, Lord Cork called her a very 
 prophetess ! 
 
 f I wrote to your honour,' says Sir John, ' that your 
 daughter Lettice could not subsist many days, for she was not 
 able to endure being brought hither in a chair, for indeed she 
 went to God the day following, whither the old devil that 
 now kennels in White-hall will never come. The mother and 
 aunt, they are jolly.' 1 
 
 Of one member of the Boyle family Sir John could send 
 no news, for Lady Kinalmeaky was away in Holland in faithful 
 attendance on her royal mistress. Sir Thomas Stafford also 
 accompanied the Queen, and wrote to Lord Cork that he was 
 overwhelmed with work and anxiety ; he had left Lady 
 Stafford in England to save what she could from the general 
 ruin, but she could get no rents paid. He ends his letter, 
 ' Your Lordship's daughter Lady Kinalmeaky and myself do 
 often entertain ourselves with the consideration of your 
 Lordship, and as ever we have letters from England we 
 compare. She is richly good. My Lord Goring is a constant 
 comforter to us in these misfortunes.' 
 
 Lady Kinalmeaky herself wrote from the Hague, but 
 
 L. P., ii. 5. 124. 
 2 E
 
 434 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 appeared too much agitated over the loss of her jewels and 
 her need of money, to have any sympathy to spare for her 
 relatives holding out in Munster among the dangers and 
 privations of war. It is difficult to believe that the woman 
 who wrote the following letter to the old Earl was anything 
 but a hard, selfish lady of fashion : 
 
 * The ship where in almost all our goods were, was cast 
 away, so that my mother is fain to furnish her and my self of 
 all things necessary. I make no question but that you will 
 think it fit to contribute something towards the great charge 
 I put her to. I as sure I never did anything to deserve not 
 to be kept by you. I desire not so much as may make you 
 think me prodigal. The loss of my rich clothes has made me 
 resolve never to have more. I have reserved those few jewels 
 I had except a diamond fan handle. The news from England 
 is so bad that I believe it will fly further than Ireland quickly. 
 God prevent the ill that seems to threaten it. I hope I shall 
 be so happy as to see you one way or another within a short 
 time. Till which time, and ever, you shall find me as much 
 as can possibly be, your Lordship's most humble servant and 
 obedient daughter, KINALMEAKY. 
 
 ' I pray you present my services to my brother Dungarvan 
 and all the rest of my friends.' l 
 
 Although Lady Kinalmeaky had no sympathy to spare, the 
 story of endurance and privation in Youghal would have 
 moved most hearts. The old Earl writes sadly to Lord 
 Dungarvan of his garrison, that fifteen companies were mostly 
 dieted on salt beef, barrelled biscuits and butter, with water 
 to drink, ' which make a rich churchyard and weak garrison, 
 insomuch it grieves my heart to see this great mortality of 
 
 i L. P., ii. s . * 7 .
 
 AT BAY 435 
 
 such, as, if they were cherished, might do the King and 
 country good service.' * 
 
 Yet in spite of sickness and privation, the round of life 
 went on with hardly a change, and when Christmas came the 
 Earl kept it to the best of his ability, though his lists of 
 presents got sadly jumbled up with bills for ammunition and the 
 weight of the new iron gates made for Lismore Castle. Dean 
 Naylor wrote from Lismore, explaining that the Christmas 
 rents of the tenants were in arrears, because the Irish had 
 lately raided the Blackwater valley, and carried off the cattle ; 
 but raids and incursions are all entered by the old Earl in his 
 diary with the same unmoved regularity as he chronicles the 
 number of old suits of clothes he gave away, or the birth of a 
 son to Sir Percy Smyth. The coachman from Castle Lyons 
 carried the Earl's Christmas presents to the orphaned Barry 
 children, a gold piece each for the young Earl and Lady 
 Ellen, and ten shillings each for James and Lady Kate. To 
 the officers of the garrison of Youghal were given clothes 
 from the Earl's wardrobe, laced with silver or adorned with 
 ' silver great buttons,' and Sir Charles Vavasour was sent a 
 bottle of rosemary water, and two barrels of oats for his 
 horses. 
 
 The war had by this time dwindled to a sort of miserable 
 sea-saw of raids and counter-raids, to which there seemed no 
 prospect of any end, unless either party exterminated the 
 other, and at last Inchiquin declared to Cork that he expected 
 shortly to be driven to put what victuals he could get together 
 into his soldiers' knapsacks and march away, leaving the 
 province to the mercy of the rebels. On the 5th of May he 
 wrote to the Earl : 
 
 ' Our present condition falls out now to be more miserably 
 
 1 Smith, ii. 85.
 
 436 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 desperate than ever, in regard we have no manner of help or 
 relief amongst ourselves and the provisions we depended on 
 out of England doth fail us, which will put us to a desperate 
 extremity, here being nothing to deliver forth [in this store] 
 on the next pay day. I request your Lordship to lend or 
 borrow 300 for victualling those in Youghal. To-morrow 
 with a heavy heart I shall march forth to linger out a few 
 days in the field, where I am not likely to continue so long as 
 to enterprise anything of advantage, for want of provisions 
 for the men and money for the officers.' 
 
 In June Francis Boyle had the support of Sir Charles 
 Vavasour in a new expedition into Condon's country. They 
 carried artillery with them, and by its help, and using poor 
 Kinalmeaky's device of a sow to shelter their miners, they 
 took the strong castle of Cloghleigh, and put all the garrison 
 to the sword, ' for which good achievement,' wrote Lord Cork, 
 * God make us all thankful.' 
 
 But this success was short-lived. An overwhelming body 
 of Irish, four thousand foot and five hundred horse, pursued 
 Vavasour's little party, and fell on them the following day, 
 when they were fording the Blackwater. The English 
 artillery was still on one side of the river, while most of the 
 troops had already crossed and were involved in a narrow 
 lane. The Irish had them at their mercy and almost swept 
 this, the last army of Munster, out of existence. 
 
 Lord Cork's diary gives a melancholy list of killed and 
 wounded officers ; the iron gun, brass ' basilisque,' all the 
 wagons and carriages, and seven colours taken, and worst of 
 all, the Colonel, noble Sir Charles Vavasour, was a prisoner. 
 ' God in his mercy turn his heavy hand from us,' concludes 
 the Earl. 
 
 Emboldened by this success, the Irish advanced on
 
 AT BAY 437 
 
 Cappoquin, where fortunately, at the entreaty of Lord 
 Barrymore, Inchiquin had left Captain Croker's regiment as 
 garrison. 
 
 Inchiquin wrote to Lord Cork that if he could but fit out 
 an expedition he did not doubt but he should easily raise 
 the siege ; so Lord Cork set to work, and among his friends 
 gathered up and borrowed .1000, Inchiquin himself con- 
 tributing, and Lord Cork gave bonds charging the repayment 
 on the Parliament and Kingdom of England. 
 
 But the Irish general Purcell did not wait for Lord 
 Inchiquin at Cappoquin, for when he found the town too 
 strong to be taken by assault, he turned his attention to 
 Lord Cork's own house, and marched on Lismore. 
 
 The defences there had lately been strengthened by iron 
 grates and chains, made at Lord Cork's iron works, ' for the 
 garden door and the terrace of the turret,' and in the winter 
 a great iron ' outgate ' weighing nearly two tons had also been 
 finished and hung up. It was ready, therefore, to make a 
 stout resistance, and Lord Cork described proudly how the 
 enemy attacked one side of the castle after another, and were 
 driven back in turn from each. 
 
 ' On the 23 rd of July began their battery from the church 
 to the east of Lismore house and made a breach into my Brew 
 House, which Capt. Brodripp and my warders, being about 
 150, repaired stronger with earth than it was before, and they 
 shot there till Thursday 2yth, and never durst attempt to 
 enter the breach, my musket shot and ordinance from the 
 castle did so apply them. Then they removed their battery 
 to the south west of my castle and continued beating against 
 my orchard wall, but never adventured into my orchard, my 
 shot from my turrets did so continually beat and clear the 
 curtain of the wall. The 28th of July God sent my 2 sons
 
 438 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Dungarvan and Broghill to land at Youghall out of England, 
 and the 29th they rode to the Lord of Inchiquin, who with 
 our army was drawn to Tallagh, and did stand there in 
 expectation of Col. Myn with his regiment from Timoleague, 
 who failed to come.' 
 
 Then comes a rather confused entry, which is hard to 
 follow on the tattered paper, but it appears that Dungarvan 
 had brought over letters from his Majesty recommending that 
 a treaty should be made with the enemy, and a six days' 
 cessation of hostilities was therefore concluded with Lord 
 Muskerry. Before the expiry of this truce the Irish con- 
 cluded that Lismore was too hard a nut for them to crack, 
 and removed their ordnance and scaling-ladders, and with- 
 drew, leaving two hundred and one of their men dead behind 
 them, while but one of the garrison had been killed. Lord 
 Cork sent as reward to Captain Brodrip for his eight days' 
 resistance, five pounds in money and ' a cloak of mine of 
 black Waterford frieze lined throughout with black Tuftaffety, 
 with a riding coat, doublet and breeches suitable.' 
 
 With the record that his well-loved home at Lismore was 
 safe, the diary that the old Earl had kept for more than thirty 
 years comes to an abrupt close ; * the rest is silence.' 
 
 It is possible that age and infirmity pressed too heavily 
 upon him to allow him to sit to his desk and chronicle the 
 events of the war; but long years before, when all thought 
 him at the point of death, the Earl's indomitable spirit had 
 nerved his palsied hand to write out the items of * the large 
 revenue with which God had blessed him ' : that spirit one 
 would think would never have let him lay down his pen while 
 life lasted. No ; the empty pages that follow tell their story 
 plain enough for those to read who understand the old man's 
 temper ; never had the Earl allowed his journal to hold a
 
 AT BAY 439 
 
 complaint against his royal master ; now when his sons 
 brought a word from the King which spoke the doom of all 
 patriotism and loyalty in Munster, the old man made no 
 comment, but closed his book for ever. There are those 
 who, when shame and horror overtake them, can ease their 
 breasts by lamentations or protest ; the Earl of Cork took this 
 last blow in silence, and when men take it that way they die. 
 
 The truce with the Irish, of which Dungarvan and Brog- 
 hill brought the news, was no mere breathing-time snatched 
 in order to allow of the war being afterwards renewed with 
 fresh vigour. It was a cessation of hostilities, sought by the 
 King in order that he might negotiate with his rebellious 
 subjects as though they were an independent power, a truce 
 during which his Munster soldiers were to speak words of 
 peace to men whose hands were yet red with the blood of 
 English women and children. 
 
 Nowadays we are tolerant, with the tolerance born of 
 indifference, and can smile at the blind Protestant zealots 
 who ignored their own cruelties, and only saw those of their 
 antagonists. We can take broad views of politics, and blame 
 the dogged Munster obstinacy that persisted in carrying on a 
 hopeless warfare. Even Ormond, in Dublin, could see further 
 than the desperate garrisons of the south. It was clear to him, 
 that so far from the King having forces to spare for Ireland, he 
 needed all he could gather for a far more vital issue, and it was 
 suicidal for Protestants and Catholics to waste their energies 
 in a fruitless struggle when both might be doing him good 
 service in England. The English Roman Catholics had rallied 
 to the royal standard, and to many of the King's advisers it 
 seemed unreasonable that mere religious differences should keep 
 the Irish gentry out of his Majesty's army, especially as they 
 had never ceased to protest their personal loyalty to him.
 
 44 o LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 The King therefore found it convenient to remember that 
 the Irish really had some causes of complaint, and that the 
 graces were even yet unratified, and it struck him as politic to 
 take this opportunity to renew his promises, and express him- 
 self ready to summon an Irish Parliament to consider the 
 public grievances. 
 
 To our cooler judgment the scheme may appear astute 
 enough, but like most devices for the benefit of Ireland, it 
 was invented too late. If the King had so asserted himself 
 two years earlier, he might have solved the problem, but those 
 two years had heaped up horrible memories, and to the 
 Munster Protestants the thought of such a treaty had become 
 as abhorrent as it would have been to John Nicholson to take 
 the hand of Nana Sahib. 
 
 When at the Redshard pass the insurgent Irish declared 
 that they had taken arms under royal warrant, the Munster 
 gentlemen indignantly repudiated the parchment flaunted 
 before them as a commission from the King. Now these 
 Munster gentlemen received an undoubted message from his 
 Majesty, desiring them to accept an almost identical agree- 
 ment, while the Irish, with whom they had then refused to 
 treat, had spent the intermediate year in slaughter and 
 devastation, and instead of merely saying they were under 
 arms to support their ancient liberties and the royal pre- 
 rogative, now boasted that they were embarked in a war of 
 religion blessed by the Pope himself. The Earl of Cork had 
 endured the loss of his children, of his wealth, of all that 
 made life pleasant to him, and, wonted to adversity, he had 
 still held on his way, but the report of this treaty, f fatal to 
 liberty,' fatal to the pride, and even the self-respect, of a 
 ruler of Ireland, struck his death-blow. 
 
 In Ireland, more surely than in any other land, the paths
 
 AT BAY 441 
 
 of glory lead but to the grave. In the days that had passed 
 since that memorable midsummer eve when Richard Boyle 
 first landed in Dublin, he had seen many a valiant spirit pass 
 away, sick with the defeats of life, and many a comrade laid 
 broken-hearted under the Irish sod. Now his own name was 
 to be added to the sorrowful roll. When he learned the will 
 of the King he said no word ; he turned his face to the wall, 
 and died. 1 
 
 The great Earl did not die alone ; with him passed away 
 the old order, the Elizabethan age in Munster, and the old 
 glorious days when a man would dare the impossible, confi- 
 dent in himself, in England, and in his God. 
 
 He lies under the tomb he set up in the Chantry at 
 Youghal. Above it is carved and painted his effigy, guarding, 
 even in death, the purse of the Irish Treasury intrusted to 
 him by the King. And written on the monument is the 
 epitaph he devised for himself during those last desperate 
 days of the war, recounting with sober pride the good deeds 
 he had done for the Commonwealth, and praying Christ's 
 mercy for what he had left undone. 
 
 ' RICHARDVS BOYLE miles, DOMINVS BOYLE, Baro de 
 Yoghall, Vicecomes Dungarvan, Comes Corcagensis, Dominvs 
 svmmvs hvivs regni Hiberniae, thesavrarivs, & de private 
 concilio dni regis tam Angliae qvam Hiberniae, ex antiqvissima 
 Boylorum familia Herefordiensi orivndvs, qvi patrem habvit 
 ROGERVM BOYLE armigervm, matrem itidem generosam IONAM 
 NAYLERAM e solo Cantiano profectam, cvm dvas sibi invicem 
 ivnxisset vxores, primam IOANAM filiam & cohoeredem 
 GVLIELMI APPSLEY armigeri nvlla svperstite prole, alteram 
 proeclare foecvndam, CATHARINAM natam DOMINI GALFRIDA 
 FENTONI eqvitis, regiae maiestati in hoc regno a secretis ; 
 
 1 Borlaise, Red. Ire., p. 209.
 
 442 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 postqvam varies pro repvblica cepisset labores, nee immeritos 
 honores conscendisset, ipse iam septvaginta septem annos 
 natvs, ac mortem indies imminentem expectans sibi & posteris 
 svis hoc posvit monvmentvm sacrvm memoriae.' 
 
 ' Ipse de Se 
 
 Sic posvi tvmvlvm, svperest intendere votis, 
 Parce animas, carnem solvito, CHRISTE ! veni/
 
 , /he tirrrur of- rsloa&r- ^(fouLes of- J'r 
 
 / .x* y x ^" *s ^- /'>-/ > 
 
 n tut <'/ // f,l rs'r/< /''I'" /if''f'f 
 
 < ,r/ f/ V'/ (>t>r/,-,tr/ , '/ir t < /',i/t<t
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 RESTORATION 
 
 'Anon repairs his drooping head, 
 And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore, 
 Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.' 
 
 LYCIDAS. 
 
 THE death of the great Earl dissolved the last link that held 
 the Munster English in nominal unity, and quarrels and 
 intrigues, mutual distrust and mutual accusations distracted the 
 forces that should have held the province against the Irish. 
 
 The cessation of hostilities that had broken the old Earl's 
 heart held good but for a moment. Inchiquin soon recom- 
 menced the war. In pique with the King, he definitely 
 declared himself in favour of the Parliamentary party in 
 England, and received from it the title of President of 
 Munster, but he fought very much for his own hand, and 
 kept his army together as best he could. 
 
 Broghill and the principal Munster gentry sent over a 
 petition imploring the King to disavow the Irish, and mean- 
 time continued to serve under Inchiquin, asserting they were 
 soldiers of the Government of England, not of any English 
 party. Dungarvan, now the second Earl of Cork, was careful 
 to make it understood that he took no part in the civil war in 
 England, nor ever held any command ' except against the 
 Irish rebels, by commission from the King and Parliament.' l 
 
 The negotiations between Ormond and the confederate 
 
 1 Lady Cork to Cromwell, Nicholls's Milton Papers. 
 
 443
 
 444 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Irish were never absolutely broken off, although they never 
 came to any complete agreement. But the knowledge that 
 Ormond was treating in the King's name with the enemy 
 alienated the Munster officers more and more from the Royal 
 cause, and the Munster army, ragged and half-starved, 
 wavered miserably between King and Parliament, growing 
 daily more hopeless of finding any support, or even any 
 honesty, in either party in England. But when news reached 
 Ireland of the King's execution, all parties there forgot their 
 differences in horror of the deed, and leagued themselves 
 together against the audacious new rulers of England. Brog- 
 hill at once announced that he must go to Spa for his 
 gout, secretly intending to beat up reinforcements on the 
 Continent to renew the Munster war in the name of Charles 
 the Second. 
 
 But when passing through London he was startled by 
 receiving a message from Cromwell asking for a private inter- 
 view, and he was still more startled to hear, when the General 
 appeared, that his schemes for raising foreign troops were 
 already well known to the English government. After 
 attempting, rather lamely, to deny the whole matter, denials 
 which Cromwell quietly put aside, Broghill, with his usual 
 delightful audacity, admitted his whole intentions, and begged 
 Cromwell to advise him what he had better do. 
 
 Cromwell, who knew very well what a valuable adherent 
 Broghill would be to his side, at once offered him a General's 
 command in Ireland, with the promise that he should be 
 asked to take no incriminating oath, nor to fight against any 
 but the Irish rebels. Broghill, it is said, hesitated whether to 
 accept this rather sudden proposal, but the brilliant young 
 fellow was in the hands of a stronger man than himself, and 
 Cromwell clinched the offer by telling him there was no time
 
 RESTORATION 445 
 
 for consideration, as the Council had resolved to clap his 
 lordship immediately into the Tower, and was now only 
 awaiting the General's return to send out officers with a 
 warrant of arrest. 
 
 Naturally Broghill's scruples, if he had any, were settled 
 by this information, and the friendship so strangely begun 
 between these two remarkable men lasted till Cromwell's 
 death. It is too long to tell here of Broghill's varied career, 
 and how his silver tongue won over the Munster army to 
 Cromwell's side, and afterwards charmed the stern Presby- 
 terians of Edinburgh into a half satisfaction with the 
 Protectorate government. 
 
 Meantime, Ireland having been thoroughly and remorse- 
 lessly conquered by Cromwell, was beginning to revive into 
 some sort of prosperity under the admirable governorship of 
 his son Henry. 
 
 The diary which the second Earl of Cork kept, in dutiful 
 imitation of his father's habits, tells how he went a-hunting 
 with Lord Henry Cromwell on the i5th of November 1656, 
 ' and at my return did dine with him and spent most part of 
 the afternoon with him. That day his horse fell upon hirr^ 
 and he was saved from being dragged, his foot hanging in the 
 stirrup, by my catching hold of the bridle.' 
 
 It was before the war was really at an end that the 
 Munster gentlemen began their hunting-parties, and some- 
 times ended by being the quarry themselves. In 1653 Lord 
 Cork writes in September that he met ' Capt. Maynard near 
 the shore a stag hunting. The stag did run towards Castle 
 Lyons. I was told afterwards that there were Torys who 
 did lie in wait for me, who the next day in those woods did 
 kill Ancient [sergeant] Leech and took young Mr. Gerard 
 as they were a hunting. God make me thankful for this
 
 44 6 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 preservation.' Another time, when hunting the wolf upon 
 the mountains, he mentions meeting with his cousin, Sir Percy 
 Smyth, * who desired me to be reconciled with him, which I 
 consented unto, upon his promise of injuring me no more as 
 he had in this last business.' 
 
 The diary tells of a kindly, prosperous, ordinary sort of 
 life ; of money given to old Lady Muskerry and ' Mrs. Mac- 
 Carthy Reagh,' who were in great want ; of meetings with 
 Broghill and their young nephew Barrymore ; and records on 
 July 3, 1654, the satisfactory information, 'This day my wife 
 and I have been married twenty years, and I praise God for it, 
 have lived as happily one with the other as any two I think 
 ever did.' 
 
 Poor Katherine Jones had a different tale of family life to 
 tell : but fortunately her husband, who soon became Lord 
 Ranelagh by succession to his father, seems to have spent 
 most of his time in Ireland, leaving her peacefully in London, 
 and he had the discretion to die while still in middle life, 
 allowing Katherine to have a happy twenty years of widow- 
 hood, adored by her brothers, and surrounded by a circle of 
 the most religious and most intellectual persons of her time. 
 She sent her son to be educated by John Milton, and the poet 
 was used to say that the friendship of Lady Ranelagh was of 
 more value to him than that of all his other friends or 
 kinsfolk. 
 
 But it is strange to see that the noblest spirits of both 
 English parties were so nearly agreed that we might almost 
 say a spiritual commonwealth embraced both the Parlia- 
 mentary army and the Royal camp. And so it befell that 
 Katherine Ranelagh was not only the friend of Milton, but 
 also of Lucius Gary, Lord Falkland. The old childish 
 intimacy between the Boyles and Carys had ripened into a
 
 RESTORATION 447 
 
 friendship that was worthy of Lady Ranelagh and Lord 
 Falkland, and doubtless it was from him that Katherine 
 learned so to combine Milton's lessons of liberty with the 
 Elizabethan traditions of her father, that she was no blind 
 partisan, whether of King or Parliament. When Falkland 
 fell at Newbury she wrote an eloquent letter 1 to Hyde 
 entreating him by the memory of their lost friend to make 
 yet another effort to secure the peace he died regretting. 
 With perhaps Irish hopefulness, she believed that a very 
 small concession on the part of the King would open the way 
 for negotiations, and if he would but vouchsafe the title of 
 Parliament to the Houses in arms against him, all might 
 yet be well. It must, however, be doubted whether practical 
 Englishmen would have been satisfied with words, or would 
 have laid down their arms in return for an empty name. 
 
 A kindred soul soon came to make a third in Katherine's 
 friendship with Milton. The same year that Falkland died 
 Robert Boyle raised sufficient money by the sale of his jewels, 
 to bring him back to England. He arrived in London an 
 absolute stranger, and by a chance which he always ascribed 
 to the providence of God, he found his sister. One likes 
 to fancy the Diodati family, whom he had known in Geneva, 
 directed him to Milton, and that the poet had the pleasure 
 of reuniting the brother and sister. 
 
 Robert tells in his own inimitably naive way that it was a 
 happy providence that brought him into his sister Ranelagh's 
 company, for had he not found her, his only resource would 
 have been to go to the royal army, where, ' in spite of the 
 King and many worthy persons being there, the most part of 
 the gentlemen were very debauched.' 
 
 Robert remained with Lady Ranelagh for some months, 
 
 1 Cl. S. P., ii. p. 1 66.
 
 44 8 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 and then went to Stalbridge, now his own property. He 
 describes it as such a very hermitage that the flagstones in the 
 court were all overgrown with grass. However, he made 
 himself very content there with his books, endeavouring to 
 keep out of sight of the contest that shocked his gentle spirit. 
 ' Good God,' he wrote, ' that reasonable creatures, that call 
 themselves Christians too, should delight in such an unnatural 
 thing as war ! ' After he had got his money-matters into 
 order he went abroad to repay Mr. Marcombes the money he 
 had so generously advanced to him in his necessities, and 
 afterwards divided his time between Oxford, Stalbridge, and 
 London, where, as he grew older, he lived more and more 
 constantly with Lady Ranelagh. 
 
 The learned researches of Robert Boyle are too well 
 known to need more than a passing reference. His days, 
 when not occupied in study, were passed in doing acts of 
 kindness, compounding medicines that Lady Ranelagh dis- 
 tributed, arranging for the translation of the Bible into Irish, 
 counselling and helping his relations. His life seemed to 
 beam with a sort of gentle radiance that attracted all the wise 
 and good to him, and made him beloved by many who were 
 neither wise nor good. Charles the Second, who rather 
 enjoyed the society of virtuous people so long as they did not 
 bore him, urged Robert to become Provost of Eton ; but the 
 good philosopher refused to violate the wishes of the founder 
 of the College by becoming Provost while still a layman, and 
 preferred not to take orders, as he believed he could exercise 
 more influence for good when he had no professional reason 
 for a pious life. He never married : he was used to say that 
 he never had been in love, but his brother Francis more than 
 once wrote teasing him about his affection for some lady who 
 was cruel enough to marry another admirer. This unknown
 
 RESTORATION 449 
 
 mistress may have been that Lady Anne Howard whom the 
 old Earl had chosen to be Robert's bride, and to whom he 
 bequeathed ' a silver sistern, ladle and kettle ' if the desired 
 marriage took place. But Lady Anne became Countess of 
 Carlisle, and we never hear if she and Robert ever even made 
 each other's acquaintance. We need, however, invent no 
 romance of disappointed affection to account for Robert's 
 remaining unwedded. His affectionate and refined nature was 
 naturally revolted by the brutal mercenariness of fashionable 
 marriages. Possibly he did not find the example of his sisters 
 and brother Frank encouraging. ' I have so seldom,' he said, 
 ' seen a happy marriage, or men love their wives as they do their 
 mistresses, that I am far from wondering our lawgivers make 
 marriage undissolvable to make it lasting.' He admitted, 
 nevertheless, that ' there is a peculiar unrivalled sort of love 
 which constitutes the true conjugal affection.' 
 
 He could make his little jests over his lot as an old 
 bachelor, and excused himself for his cold-heartedness in a 
 charming letter to his niece, the young Countess of Barrymore. 
 ' You have,' he wrote, ' carried away too many of the perfec- 
 tions of your sex to leave enough in this country for the 
 redeeming of so stubborn a heart as mine.' 
 
 The young Earl of Barrymore had not been slow in 
 taking to himself a wife, and married some say as early 
 as 1649. 
 
 Lady Barrymore herself had married again, for Ireland 
 was no place for a young widow with a half-grown family, 
 and for all the young Earl's commission as Colonel of Horse, 
 he was neither old enough, nor staid enough, to be much 
 support to his mother. Lady Barrymore' s second husband 
 was a cousin, Colonel Jack Barry of Liscarrol, an ardent 
 royalist and one of Ormond's most constant and most witty 
 
 2 F
 
 450 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 correspondents. Although Lady Barrymore kept up her 
 warm affection for her brothers, she made no secret of her 
 disagreement with their submission to Cromwell, and of 
 her devotion to the exiled royal family. It was therefore 
 natural, when young Barrymore happened to be in Paris, that 
 he should pay his respects to the little court of the widowed 
 Henrietta Maria, and there he saw and loved a charming 
 maid of honour, a kinswoman of ' Mrs. Betty,' the wife of his 
 uncle Francis Boyle. For some reason or other his mother 
 was exceedingly angry at this match. She had no reason to 
 like Betty Boyle, and she may have feared that another 
 Killigrew introduced into the family would do no more credit 
 to it. Robert Boyle wrote an exceedingly kind and sensible 
 letter to his sister on this occasion, reminding her that what 
 was done could not be undone, and she must therefore make 
 the best of it, for as she had openly declared for the Royalist 
 party, it would only prejudice her friends against her if she dis- 
 regarded ' the crowned intercessor,' who took the bride's part. 
 
 Of Alice, Lady Barrymore, we hear little else ; she sur- 
 vived Colonel Jack, and was buried in her father's tomb at 
 Youghal, June 27, 1668. 
 
 The Restoration brought wonderfully few changes to the 
 Boyle family. 
 
 Even Broghill, the trusty friend of the Cromwell family, 
 took no hurt from their fall. All that energy and adroitness 
 could do he loyally did to support Richard Cromwell's suc- 
 cession to his father's seat ; but even Broghill could not for 
 long bolster up that ' meek usurper ' of the English throne. 
 When the position of Richard Cromwell became hopeless, 
 and it was evident the country was trembling on the verge of 
 a fresh civil war, Broghill, as usual, wasted no time in regrets, 
 but, making the best of matters, sent off his brother Francis
 
 RESTORATION 451 
 
 with a letter quilted into his coat-collar inviting King Charles 
 the Second to land in Cork, and promising that all Ireland 
 should rally to his side. 
 
 Broghill's sword was not needed to assist the King to his 
 own again, but the timely letter was not forgotten. Francis 
 was created Earl of Shannon, and Broghill was elevated to be 
 Earl of Orrery and President of Munster. There, in spite of 
 suffering tortures from gout, he led an active life, driving in 
 a coach when too ill to ride on horseback, organising and 
 governing with all his father's industry added to his own 
 brilliant resourcefulness, happy in the tenderness of his 
 delightful wife, sending his children to Geneva to the care of 
 patriarchal Mr. Marcombes, collecting views on the art of 
 war, writing poetry and romances and spinning yarns to his 
 chaplain, who took them all for gospel truth. Ormond 
 perhaps never entirely forgave Orrery his affection for the 
 Cromwell family, and at intervals there were accusations 
 brought up, whether of high treason or lesser misdemeanours, 
 but he triumphed over all, and his life, for all its anxieties 
 and its dangers, was a happy and brilliantly successful one. 
 He died October 16, 1679, wnen Robert, in his letter of 
 sympathy to Lady Orrery, begs her now to remember she is a 
 mother as well as a wife, and to take comfort in the thought 
 that those sufferings were at an end, of which she knew so 
 much, through her extraordinary kindness in attending to 
 them. The titles of Orrery and Broghill were inherited by 
 Lord Orrery's eldest son Roger. His second son Henry was 
 father of a distinguished lawyer, who, after rilling many 
 honourable positions in the government of Ireland, was 
 created Baron of Castle Martyr, Viscount Boyle, and Earl 
 of Shannon, which titles still remain in his line. 
 
 The Restoration brought fresh honours to the second Earl
 
 452 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 of Cork, who by that time had succeeded to his wife's large 
 estate in the north of England, and was therefore created by 
 the King Lord Clifford of Londesborough in the peerage of 
 England, and afterwards made Earl of Burlington. He and 
 his wife strike one as lively, fashionable people, excellent, but 
 not deeply interesting. Lady Ranelagh, for all her family 
 affection, had to admit she was sadly bored at their smart 
 parties. ' Alas ! ' she wrote to Robert, * the entertainment of 
 lords, ladies, and reasonable creatures, are yet several [different] 
 things, to the great grief of your K. R.' 
 
 John Evelyn tells rather a good story of the second Earl 
 of Cork : When Charles u. was newly come to his crown, 
 and used frequently to sail down the river in his yacht for 
 diversion, accompanied by all the great men and courtiers 
 waiting upon him, it was often observed that when the vessel 
 passed by a certain place opposite to the church at Deptford, 
 my Lord Burlington constantly pulled off his hat with some 
 kind of reverence. This being remarked by some of the 
 lords standing by him, they desired he would tell them what 
 he meant by it : to which he replied : * Do you see that 
 steeple there ? Have I not reason to pay a respect to the 
 place where my eldest brother lies buried, by which I enjoy 
 the Earldom of Cork?' 1 
 
 The descendants of Lord Burlington continued to enjoy 
 his titles for two generations, when Richard, fourth Earl of 
 Cork, leaving only one daughter and heir, Charlotte, she 
 carried the Irish estates and the Barony of Clifford to the 
 Cavendish family by her marriage in 1748 with William, 
 fourth Duke of Devonshire. 
 
 The Earldom of Cork passed to John, fifth Earl of 
 Orrery, who became at the same time Viscount Boyle of 
 
 1 Evelyn, iv. 415.
 
 RESTORATION 453 
 
 Kinalmeaky, Baron Boyle of Youghal, and Baron of Bandon 
 Bridge. His father, the fourth Earl of Orrery, had already 
 been admitted to the English peerage by the title of Baron 
 Boyle of Marston. 
 
 Of the private life of Francis Boyle, the first Lord 
 Shannon, we know little, and that little is sad. In 1647 
 Robert accompanied him to the Hague to fetch Mrs. Betty 
 home, but she did not long remain there. She preferred a 
 gay and not very reputable life at court to her husband's 
 society and the seclusion of his beautiful Irish home at 
 Shannon Park, not far from Carrigaline. He spent a useful, 
 busy, and dignified life in Munster, and bequeathed his title 
 to his son ; but his descendants ended with the death of the 
 third Earl of Shannon in 1 740. 
 
 At the Restoration Lady Kinalmeaky returned to England, 
 and flourished and grew great, being made Countess of Guild- 
 ford and Groom of the Stole to the Queen Mother, Henrietta 
 Maria. After spending her youth as a court beauty she 
 turned Roman Catholic in her old age, and became so devote 
 that she nearly made a child-martyr of a little maid-of-honour, 
 Margaret Blagge, when trying to convert the girl from the 
 Anglican faith. 1 
 
 Poor Mary, Lady Warwick, had many sorrows. Her 
 only son was married at nineteen to Lady Anne Cavendish, 
 but died in two years' time, leaving no children. Lady 
 Warwick's later life was chiefly devoted to nursing her 
 husband, who suffered terribly from gout, when the strong 
 language the poor gentleman used shocked his wife so greatly 
 that she was often obliged to retire to weep in private over 
 his sins. But the frequent visits of Robin, as she always 
 called her brother, and of Lady Ranelagh, were a great con- 
 
 1 See Evelyn's Life of Mrs. Godolphin.
 
 454 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 solation to her. She spent much time in good works and 
 hearing sermons, and died in the odour of sanctity in 1678. 
 
 Lady Ranelagh died in 1691. Her brother Robert only 
 survived her for a week ; happy as was his life in many 
 things, perhaps happiest of all that in his death he and this 
 beloved sister were not divided. 
 
 And so the children of the great Earl of Cork lived out 
 their lives ; but as we gaze on them the gay days of the 
 Restoration grow dim, and the figures we have conjured up 
 for a little crumble back into ashes. 
 
 4 Dear dead women, with such hair too, what 's become of all the 
 
 gold 
 
 Used to hang and brush their bosoms ? I feel chilly and grown 
 old.' 
 
 The dust of well nigh two centuries and a half has gathered 
 over the glories of the great Earl of Cork ; his wealthy eldest 
 son is forgotten ; even the brilliant Orrery and gallant 
 Shannon are no more to us than names. Of all the Boyle 
 family only one is familiar to us to-day, Robert the philo- 
 sopher, who never made money, nor accepted a title, nor 
 desired to rule over any kingdom but that of his own gentle 
 spirit.
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 THE BOYLE ESTATES IN MUNSTER 
 
 THE three seignories which Boyle purchased from Ralegh gave 
 him a little kingdom at the price of gd. an acre ; for the land was 
 bou'ght-at what we call to-day prairie value. 
 
 Munster, formerly one of the most fertile parts of Ireland, had 
 been left a desert by the Desmond wars : the Irish leaders were in 
 exile, and more than thirty thousand of their followers lay dead, while 
 wolves prowled around the desolate villages. So few inhabitants were 
 left that the intrusion of English settlers was not so barbarous as it 
 might seem, and no Government plantation could have had a better 
 chance of succeeding, if all had not been ruined for want of a judicious 
 plan and the delay in carrying out any plan at all. The land for- 
 feited to the Crown was granted to undertakers, as the new settlers 
 were called, who were to hold their estates in free socage at a yearly 
 rent of j66, 133. from each seignory, the first payments of which were 
 not, however, to begin till i6go. 1 No one was to have more in a 
 seignory than 12,000 acres, every owner of 5000 acres was to empark 
 600 of them for the breeding of horses, and every settler was to import 
 a certain number of Englishmen as tenants, and furnish a certain 
 number of soldiers in proportion to the size of his holding. 2 After 
 laying down these admirable rules, the first thing done was to break 
 them and grant Ralegh three seignories and a half in Waterford and 
 Cork! 
 
 Boyle, therefore, after buying the seignories from Ralegh for 
 ^1500, had still to pay nearly ^300 as head rent yearly to the Crown, 
 a sum which, according to the value of money then, may have really 
 meant from 900 to ^1200. But a more serious matter than the 
 rent was the quota of soldiers that each undertaker was bound to 
 furnish. They were not a mere matter of display, but were needed to 
 protect the new settlements against prowling cattle-thieves, disbanded 
 
 1 Dunlop, Eng. Hist. Rev., iii. 250. 2 Care<w MSS., Cal. i. 452. 
 
 455
 
 456 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Irish soldiers, and the original owners of the land, if any chanced to 
 survive. Boyle often noted with pride in his diary how he carried his 
 English visitors to see his soldiers mustered at Tallow or at Bandon, 
 and by the time his sons were growing up his estates in various parts 
 of Ireland furnished in all 1679 foot and 501 horse. 1 Well might 
 Cromwell say if there had been an Earl of Cork in every county in 
 Ireland there would have been no insurrection of 1641. 
 
 Youghal was the capital town of Boyle's possessions in the east of 
 Munster. North-west of Youghal lay another town, Tallagh or 
 Tallow, known even before the days of Boyle's forges by an Irish 
 name signifying * the hill of iron.' Ruined in the Desmond wars, it 
 was restored to prosperity by Boyle, who was very proud of the array 
 of his armed Tallagh tenants, and who used his influence to have 
 assizes held there, and to gain it representation in parliament. As it 
 was not a frontier town, it was never walled, but in the wars of 1641 
 it was entrenched and gallantly defended by Hugh Croker, Boyle's 
 tenant at Cappoquin, who had a lease of that town and its fairs and 
 market fees for five years, on a 10 rent, on condition of building 
 there a castle, a market-house, and a prison for the town. This is an 
 example of what the nominal rents of Irish land really meant ; the 
 payments were merely imposed to mark ownership ; the expenses of 
 clearing, fencing, and building were a heavy enough tax on new 
 settlers, not to speak of the military services due. Frequently in the 
 leases the exact materials of the buildings are mentioned, the staircases 
 of ash, the castle-hall of oak, and the floors of deal. In 1614 Boyle 
 granted a lease of the Earl of Desmond's house in Youghal for sixty- 
 one years at ^4 a year, on condition that the tenant built two stone 
 slated houses, for which, however, the landlord provided the necessary 
 timber. 
 
 To return to Tallow. It was well named the hill of iron, for at 
 one time its neighbourhood and the green valley of the Blackwater 
 bid fair to be the Black Country of Ireland. Croker's castle of 
 Cappoquin overlooked the iron-mines in the old red sandstone strata, 
 and new forges were set up from time to time all along the river 
 valley. In 1620 Boyle wrote, 'God in heaven bless my honest 
 endeavours, for in His holy name this day I began my works to build 
 the new double forge near under the castle of Lysfinnon Castle, which 
 good Commonwealth's work I pray unto God to prosper, as I hope 
 He will.' 
 
 1 Smith, i. 32.
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 457 
 
 Boyle's estates extended round the south-western side of Cork 
 harbour, and it is said he proposed to build a town on the sheltered 
 creek at Carrigaline, which should divert all the trade from Cork. If 
 true, the scheme was worthy of him. Cork city was by no means 
 friendly to the English, and lies on a narrow tidal river. If Carri- 
 galine, which is much nearer to the sea, had been erected into a city 
 under the shelter of its impregnable castle, it would not only have 
 been an excellent trading centre, but would also have been the port 
 for England and haven of refuge that Youghal afterwards became 
 under Boyle's influence. But Carrigaline city was never built. 
 
 In Sir Richard Cox's History of Ireland a list of six towns built by 
 Boyle is given. Lismore and Tallow are the only ones in the eastern 
 part of Munster ; the others lie towards the west, where the most 
 important of them was placed to command the wild country known 
 in those days as the fastnesses of Kinalmeaky, through which flows 
 the Bandon river. 
 
 The first English proprietor in that country was Captain Nuce, 
 who built Nucestown high up on the Bandon river. When Boyle 
 bought his estate he saw that a better site would be lower down the 
 stream, on the most frequented ford, and there he built his town of 
 Bandon Bridge. Henry Beecher owned a great part of the land round 
 Boyle's new settlement, and in 1618 Boyle agreed to buy his Bandon 
 and Ballymodan lands, perfecting the agreement in May 1619; and 
 in 1624 ne added to these lands Beecher's Castle Mahown estate. Sir 
 Vincent Gookin seems to have stepped in, and got some part of 
 Beecher's Kinalmeaky lands while Boyle was bargaining, and a long 
 struggle for their possession followed, which was not decided till 1630,* 
 when Gookin gave Boyle his choice of ^500 'to release unto him the 
 title I make to those lands he purchased of Mr. H. Beecher, or to con- 
 vey over his estate to me at the price he paid.' Boyle seems to have 
 accepted the money, as Gookin afterwards sold some of the lands to 
 Sir J. Bernard. 2 
 
 Boyle saw to it that the houses of Bandon were solidly built, with 
 stone gables and chimneys j the other parts of the buildings were of 
 wood and plaster, like the cottages and farms of the period in the west 
 of England. The roofs were shingled with oak, and as the streets 
 were planned that each house should have its own garden, the 
 picturesque black and white houses appeared to be standing in an 
 enormous orchard. The town-walls, of which Boyle wrote with such 
 
 1 See ante, chap. xix. 2 Note by Mr. F. W. Gookin.
 
 458 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 pride, were about nine feet thick, and thirty to fifty feet high, built of 
 a strong black slate rock. The foundations of them, wrote Boyle in 
 his diary, were laid in 1620, and he piously added, * I hope the God of 
 heaven will bless and prosper my good purposes therein.' The church 
 had been one of the first buildings erected in the town, and in 1614 
 Boyle had given a year's rent of his parsonage of Ballymodane towards 
 the cost of building it. Other public buildings followed in due time. 
 In 1634 a free grammar school and almshouses were founded, and in 
 all Bo.yle spent over 14,000 on his town. 
 
 In the year 1613 it was incorporated, but the independence of 
 feeling fostered in the sturdy settlers of c Protestant Bandon ' by 
 having a Mayor of their own, was rather exasperating to Boyle. At 
 one time his displeasure with the townspeople so delayed the building 
 of the school and almshouses that he proposed to give to the town, 
 that they were not complete at his death, and he therefore bequeathed 
 in his will legacies for the stipend of the schoolmaster and almsmen at 
 the Bandon Foundation, l when it shall be finished,' as he greatly 
 desired * the good increased prosperity of the town and the inhabitants 
 thereof, whom I have ever (till now of late) much beloved and 
 respected.' He also commanded that a substantial stone bridge should 
 be built with his arms cut on the side wall, where the timber bridge 
 then stood. 1 
 
 Dingle, on the Kerry coast, and the wild Blasket Islands with 
 their eyries of hawks and rights to wrecks, carried Boyle's estates 
 right across the country from east to west. Garret Trant, the 
 Sovereign or Mayor of Dingle, wrote thanking Boyle for helping to 
 restore ' this poore towne,' and to express his hopes that ' his Majesty 
 and the State ' would yet help to raise it from its ruins. 
 
 Not so far from the Dingle property was the Castle of Askeaton 
 that Boyle had seen fall into the victorious hands of Sir George Carew, 
 and now owned himself. That splendid fortress pointed the way 
 eastward again to the Limerick estates Joan Apsley had brought as 
 her dowry to her young husband. 
 
 1 Sir R. Cox, in his dedication of Regnum Corcagiense to Boyle's grandson, says : 
 ' It is easy to observe that the great expense [of building the town] was not lost, but 
 did fully answer the noble designs of the wise architect, for this towne became a 
 sanctuary to the adjacent country, and a safeguard to the neighbouring English, and 
 indeed to the whole county of Cork, all the time of the Irish rebellion. Moreover 
 this other advantage was reaped by it, that his contiguous lands, in 30 years' time, 
 became worth treble what they were before, and in 30 years more so doubled their 
 value again/ Printed in Cork Arch. Jour., 1902, p. 68.
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 459 
 
 It would be difficult and wearisome to catalogue each purchase 
 that added to the size of Boyle's estates, but the property bought from 
 Sir Bernard Grenville, son of the heroic Sir Richard of the Revenge^ 
 was, next to the Ralegh grants, the most important acquisition of all, 
 and it gave Boyle more trouble to secure than all the rest of his 
 property. He greatly desired to get it, as the Kinalmeaky part of it 
 marched with his estates at Bandon, Gill Abbey was close to his lands 
 at Carrigaline, the Grenville town of Fermoy was a near neighbour to 
 his home of Lismore, and the seaport and castle of Dungarvan were 
 close to Youghal, and were chosen to give the title to Boyle's eldest 
 son, Viscount Dungarvan. But the purchase was no easy matter; Boyle 
 catalogued the story of his worries over it very fully in a long letter 
 to his sympathetic and powerful friend, Sir Edward Villiers, whose 
 help he desired to gain. He explained that Sir Bernard Grenville had 
 sent over an agent authorised to sell the property for ^3500, but 
 Boyle thought the price too high, as the estates were all either 
 mortgaged or c maimed with long leases at very base rents,' and the 
 woods had been cut down. The estate was then offered to two other 
 gentlemen who also refused to buy it, and in 1619 Boyle was again 
 urged to take the property, and he consented to do so, although he 
 knew he was paying a fancy price. The deeds were drawn up in the 
 presence of Sir Edward Harris, a kinsman of the Grenvilles, and Sir 
 John Harris, Chief Justice of Munster ; Boyle agreeing to pay the 
 money within a year in two instalments, and to receive possession at 
 All Saints' Day, 1620. The purchase-money was made up with much 
 difficulty, seven pounds' worth of pipe-staves being counted as paying 
 six pounds of money due, and so in merchandise and coin the first 
 instalment was shipped to Bristol and formally received there by the 
 Mayor and five aldermen, and in their keeping it remained for a year 
 and a half. Then it came out that Sir Bernard had fallen out with 
 Harris, and to vex him, had sold the estates over Boyle's head to the 
 Lord Treasurer, Lionel Cranfield, afterwards Earl of Middlesex. 1 'A 
 thing,' Boyle wrote to Sir Edward Villiers, that he was 'loath to 
 believe,' but should it prove true, he begged his friend to use his 
 influence with Lord Cranfield to get him to re-sell the land at the 
 same price, for Lord Cranfield having no adjoining land to make the 
 Grenville estates valuable, would find the purchase a dear one. Never- 
 
 1 ' Lionel Cranfield . . . had been bred in the City, a man of wit and understanding 
 in all the mysteries of trade/ Clarendon, Hist. Rel>., i. 34. f
 
 460 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 theless, to gain his goodwill, Boyle would send over ' a hundred pounds 
 to buy his Lordship a horse withall.' l 
 
 All Boyle's friends were asked in turn for help, but not till April 
 1625 did the Earl of Middlesex at last consent to fix his price, asking 
 for ^5000, which, says Boyle shortly, c I refused.' But although 
 Boyle saw that for once he had been completely overreached, he was 
 determined to have the land, and at last paid ^4500, and was at rest. 
 There were probably wheels within wheels : the powerful Lord 
 Treasurer had very likely got the needy Cornish Knight into his 
 power, for poor Sir Bernard and his heir seemed to have gained 
 nothing by the broken bargain. The legal delays managed by 
 Middlesex were worthy of Bleak House, and a certain bond for 
 j8oo which he had agreed to pay to Boyle on behalf of the Grenvilles 
 was, it appears, never paid at all, for in 1641 when Sir Bernard and 
 Middlesex were both dead Boyle was still drawing up memorials to 
 the House of Lords concerning this grievance. 2 No wonder if Boyle 
 felt some small triumph when his London friends wrote to him that 
 the Earl of Middlesex had retired from public life, and was l a man 
 clean forgotten,' while his own good fortune flourished more bravely 
 year after year, and Gill Abbey was being rebuilt and beautified with 
 cut stone chimney-pieces and windows imported expressly from 
 Bristol. 
 
 When Boyle could compromise a claim by paying some small sum 
 he was usually willing not to refer the matter to the courts. A 
 characteristic example is that of part of his Tallagh property, which 
 was in 1630 claimed by a man who finally carried his complaints 
 before the English Judges ; they referred the case to arbitrators, who 
 unluckily died before giving their decision ; then the Lord Deputy 
 ordered it to be heard by the Master of the Rolls in Dublin, who in 
 his turn sent it to the Courts of Common Law. At last the claimant, 
 wearied with the endless delays, proposed to refer the whole case to 
 4 two honest gentlemen ' ; for it was generally held that equity was on 
 his side and law on Boyle's. Whether by advice of the two honest 
 gentlemen or from sheer despair does not appear, but he finally handed 
 in all his documents to Boyle himself, who lost interest in his case as 
 soon as his adversary ceased to fight, and paid the claimant 100, 'for 
 which,' he writes, c I had all their blessings.' 
 
 Once Boyle was very anxious to buy up the lease of certain lands, 
 which James Fitzgerald held of Mervyn Archdale for his own and his 
 1 L. P., ii. 3. 17, 1 8. 2 Lords Journs., iv. 376.
 
 APPENDIX I 461 
 
 wife's lives. Fitzgerald held out for j6o, a higher price than Boyle 
 chose to pay, but on Mrs. Fitzgerald's death, the widower gave over 
 his lease to Boyle unconditionally, when Boyle immediately handed 
 over the /6o to him c as a free gift ' ! 
 
 A* O 
 
 Dr. Hayman gives the following account of Ralegh's estates in his 
 Handbook for Toughal: 
 
 * 1604. April 2. Inquisition held at Tallagh, Co. Waterford, 
 before E. Coponger, gent., Deputy of W. Kenny, Escheator of 
 Ireland, and a Jury. Who find that Sir Walter Ralegh, lent., lately 
 attainted of high treason, was seized as of fee at the time of such 
 attainder, 17 Nov. 1603. Waterford Co. Of the manor, castle, and 
 town of Lismore, and 4 carucates, viz. the Castleplowland, otherwise 
 Carrownecloghie, Ballynaspick, otherwise Bishopstoune, Ballyea and 
 Bally-In in Waterford co. with court baron and view of frankpledge 
 in Lismore ; also a common in Ballinraghter, for the use of the provost 
 of the town for the time being, who was annually elected by the Lord 
 of the manor from among the burgesses, and for the burgesses and for 
 the inhabitants of Lismore ; which common has been occupied time 
 out of mind as a common for pasture and tillage ; at a rent to the 
 lord of the manor of 8d. Eng. for every acre under tillage, and of los. 
 Eng. for the pasturage thereof, besides duties and customs due there- 
 out : that a weekly Saturday market and two fairs, one at Whitsun- 
 tide, and the other on St. Valentine's day, to continue for 3 days each, 
 were held at Lismore, subject to the usual tolls and customs : that he 
 was also seized of the soil and ground and bank of the river Awmore, 
 otherwise Blackwater or Broadwater, with its fishing and stream from 
 Glanmore near Mocollop in Waterford co. to the two points of the 
 mountain of Cornawnkyndroneigh, on the lands of Eustace Roche, 
 gent, in the same co., and also of the office of admiralty of the said 
 river, with all the rights and advantages thereof, and of two salmon- 
 weirs, an eel-weir, a ferry, a water-mill and water-course ; all being 
 parcel of the manor ; and of the annual rents following ; IDS. English 
 out of the lands of Artzale, and those of Eustace Roche, gent. 6s. 8d. 
 Eng. out of Rossgrelly, and the lands of John Roche FitzThomas ; 
 6s. 8d. out of Tworin, and the lands of Edmund Roche, gent. as. out 
 of Monytrime, and the lands of Edmund Og Power, gent. ; is. 4d. out 
 of Ballinvelly, and the lands of David Lownt ; is. 4d. out of Balline- 
 cargie ; ^2, 133. 4d. out of the lands of the provost and burgesses of 
 Lismore ; with the services of the tenants in thjsse lands ; all being 
 parcel of the manor of Lismore, and worth 2 Eng. by the year ;
 
 462 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 besides a rent of ^13, 6s. 8d. payable to the bishop of Lismore and his 
 successors a moiety of i carucate near Kilbree called Norres's Land 
 
 the manor and castle of Lyffeenyn the ruinous town of Tallagh 
 
 5j carucates of land in Lyffeenyn with a salmon-weir there on the 
 river Bride, Talloe, le Egglishe, Kilmore, Kilcagh, Killowen, Knocne- 
 muck, Aganbwy, Crogh, Reogh, and Ballynegallowe ; all being parcel 
 of the manor of Lyffeenyn and town of Tallagh the castle and town 
 of the Shane with % carucates of land in Shane and Ballyduff, and a 
 burgage in Lismore, formerly belonging to John O'Feighe the town 
 of Tercullen-more, i carucate Tercullen-begg and Garrigera, I 
 carucate, and a water-mill and a water-course there Ballygarran, 
 Canmucky, Ballynemodagh, and Kilnewty or Ballyneetie, containing 
 i carucate each the manor, castle, and town of Shroncally or 
 Stronecally, with a salmon-weir on the Awmore, and 5 carucates 
 thereto belonging; viz. the Castle-plowland, Skartnecurcoge, Kil- 
 cockane, Ballyngoan, and Ballyogallagh the manor of Ballinetra, 
 with its appurtenances in Ballingarran, Ballymotie or Ballymoskie, 
 Cowlebeggan, and Ballydesson in Templemichell, a water-mill and 
 water-course in Ballinetra, and two weirs on the Awmore ; together 
 with a parcel of land called the Claron, \ carucate, and half the weir 
 of Claron ; all being parcel of the said manor David FitzEdmund 
 Roche, late of Kilrobistowne in Waterford co. was seized in fee at 
 the time of his attainder, of Kilrobystown, i carucate Sanderstown 
 or Ballyhandon with i carucate in Shanderstown or Ballyhandon 
 \ carucate in Carrigroe, and the burgage called Burgess-more, 
 usually held herewith in the town of Lismore, of which burgage 
 the moiety is claimed by John Kenland, by right of mortgage, 
 Kilwatermoy, ya country measure, lately belonging to the abbey or 
 house of canons of Molannan, otherwise Molanassa, the prior and 
 convent of which, at the time of its dissolution, were seized, as of 
 fee, in right of the monastery, of the site, &c., of the same situate on 
 the Awmore near the castle of Templemichell and Ballinetra, and 
 containing within its walls i|a also of a water-mill called the 
 Chanon's Mill, 3 salmon-weirs, I2a arable, 6a pasture in Temple- 
 michell and Ringcrowe of Killnegannanagh, 2 carucates Down- 
 moone, 2 carucates the walls and ground of a ruinous chapel .in 
 Diskirty, with I2a arable, and 8a furze and briars in the same of 
 5Oa besides pasture in Ardmore of i8a called the Quarters 2 islands 
 near Conhie, containing 6a 2 salmon and eel-weirs on the Awmore 
 the tithes of the weir of Bally-mejonick the said prior and convent
 
 APPENDIX I 463 
 
 were also seized, as before, of the rectories, churches, and chapels of 
 Templemichell, Killcocain, Killoghtermoy, Tallagh, Collegan, Licoran, 
 otherwise Lyboran, Killvallon, Killynan, Baremeghoe Bramegho or 
 Bararmegho, and Lackadoran, with their glebes, tithes, alterages, and 
 other profits, and also of the advowsons and right of presentation of 
 the churches and vicarages of the parishes above-named, as also of the 
 cell of Aghenore, with divers lands and tithes in Kerry and Desmond 
 co., and of the church, rectory, and chapel of Kilfemyne, with its 
 tithes in Limerick co., and that of Kilbolane, with its tithes in Cork 
 co., and with the advowsons and right of patronage of Kilbolane and 
 Kilfeeny ; all of which now belong to the King by right of his crown. 
 
 1 Thomas Witherhead, formerly bishop of Waterford and Lismore, 
 was seized of fee, in right of his bishoprick, of the manor of Ardmore, 
 and of the town and lands of Ballynemony and Crobally, otherwise 
 Cowley, 8|a, which by consent of the dean and chapter of the 
 cathedral church of St. Carthage, otherwise Mowdi of Lismore, he 
 demised, by a lease dated 15 Jan. 33rd Eliz. to Sir Walter Ralegh 
 for 101 years, at a rent of 6 Ir. who continued in possession thereof 
 until ejected by Sir John Dowdall, knt., late of Piltown in Waterford 
 co. 17 Jan. 35th Eliz. who still holds the same, but by what right the 
 Jury knows not. Sir Walter Ralegh was also seized of the manor of 
 Kilbree, with its appurtenances, of which the town and lands of 
 New Aghvane are parcel and of the Dean's house and garden, and 
 Tample-Christ, and of the towns and lands of Ballindeganagh and 
 Ballynesaggard, for several terms of years not yet expired. 
 
 c The deed, prepared in 1602, was between Sir Walter Ralegh, Knt., 
 Captain of the Queen's Guard, Lord Warden of the Stannaries in 
 Devon and Cornwall cos., and Governor of Jersey Isle and castle, and 
 Richard Boyle, Esq., Clerk of the Council in Munster, being a native 
 of England ; whereby Sir Walter, in consideration of ^500 English 
 money beforehand paid, 500 to be paid at Michaelmas 1603, and 
 j5OO to be paid at Easter 1604, demised to the said Boyle the lands 
 following : The manor, castle, and barony of Inchequin and White- 
 Island ; the towns and lands of Corkcorgraine, Collicranagh, the half 
 plowland near Yoghall next to Bally Clement, Rahanolane and Knock- 
 negepae ; the manor, castle, town, and lands of Ballynetra, with five 
 plowlands called the Castle Plowland, Coolebeggan, Kilnetorae, 
 Ballemoytie or Ballymoskie, Balligorran, certain lands in Tample- 
 mighell and the half plowland of Clarown, with four weares and the 
 water-course and mill of Ballinetra j the manor, castle, and town of
 
 464 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Stronecally or Stronecalliagh, containing five plowlands ; the town and 
 lands of Camnucke, Ballinemaddaghe, Killnewtye, Ballymachonycke, 
 Kilfenton on Ballyneiorie, Ballinefunshogge, Tyrcullenmore, Tyre- 
 cullenbeg, and Garrigerae ; the manor, castle, and town of Lisfynen, 
 and decayed town of Tallaghe, with the villages and lands of Kilmore, 
 Kilcahe, Killowen, Knocknemuck, Aghanbroye, Croghrew, Balli- 
 garrow, containing 6 plowlands ; half the towns and villages of 
 Tamplevally, Curriglasse, Lysnobryn, and a parcel of land called The 
 Parson's Close ; the towns and villages of Ballycollane, Shanokill, and 
 Garriduffe ; the manor, castle, town, and lands of Mogeylae, and the 
 villages of Glanatow and Caragayn, containing about 2^ plowlands ; 
 the manor, castle, and town of the Sheane, and 2 plowlands ; one 
 parcel of land called Norres's land ; the town and lands of Aghmean 
 or Aghvane ; the castles, towns, and lands of Kilbree and Kilmakeo ; 
 the castle, manor, lordship, and town of Lismore ; the towns, villages, 
 and hamlets of Balliea, Bally-In, and Ballinaspicke or Bishopstown, 
 with the weirs, and salmon and eel-fishings, and tithe and custom- 
 fishing of Lismore, with the river Awemoare, and the fishing thereof, 
 and all the water-mills, mill-ponds, mill-streams, water-courses, and 
 chief rents of Lismore, and 2OOa annexed to the mill of Lismore, in 
 the town and fields of Lismore, the Dean's house, and old chapel in 
 Lismore, with the townlands of Ballinedgane ; all other seignories, 
 manors, lordships, and other possessions, rights, and hereditaments 
 whatsoever, both spiritual and temporal, which are, or at any time 
 were, the inheritance of the said Sir Walter in Ireland, excepting the 
 lands which are stated in the schedule annexed to this indenture, to 
 have been sold or leased in fee-farm, or for a term of years. 
 
 ' To hold for ever : All the estate of the said Sir Walter in the 
 College of Yoghall, called the New College of the B. V. Mary of 
 Yoghall, with all its rights and hereditaments, spiritual and temporal ; 
 in the lands and woods called the Vicar's Wood ; in the ... of 
 Lismore, and the tithes and profits thereof ; in the manor, and castle, 
 and town of Ardmore, and 8 plowlands thereunto belonging ; in 
 the manors, castles, towns, and lands of Killbree, Ballynecolley, 
 Tracton-Abbey, and Ballymarter ; in the lands of Kilbarie, containing 
 9 plowlands ; in the castle, town, and lands of Kilmacpatrick ; in 
 the castle, manor, town, and lands of Mocollop, with 5 plowlands 
 thereto belonging ; in the town and lands of Kill-macnicholas ; in the 
 castle, town, and lands of Balliphilip, with 2 plowlands, with all the 
 seignories, lordships, rights, and hereditaments, spiritual and temporal,
 
 APPENDIX I 465 
 
 wherein the said Sir Walter is in any way interested, and held by him, 
 for divers terms of years : To hold for like terms of years. Edmund 
 Colthurst, of Lyffynnen, gent., Richard Smith, of Ballynetrae, Edmund 
 Coppinger, of Youngess, gent., Manus McSheye, of Kylnetora, gent., 
 Ullick Wale and John Chillester, are appointed attornies by Sir 
 Walter, to give possession. 
 
 ' Memorandum. Sir Walter gives to Mr. Boyle his brass piece with 
 the carriage, and such iron pieces as he had in Ireland, with authority 
 to him to seize on them at Moyallo, or wherever else they may have 
 been carried by Sir Thomas Norris, without licence. 
 
 1604. 3 April. Grant from the Queen to Sir George Carew, 
 knt., Vice-Chamberlain to the Queen. In Yoghall town. Two 
 messuages and gardens, and all the lands and hereditaments, spiritual 
 and temporal, of the New College of the B. V. Mary of Yoghall ; 
 rent 2s. ; with the advowsons, presentations, etc., of the wardenship, 
 and all churches, rectories, vicarages, and chapels, of all other benefices 
 belonging to said wardenship ; rent 33. 4d. ; parcel of the estate of 
 Gerald, Earl of Desmond, attainted ; demised in fee farm, to Sir James 
 Fullerton, knt., 7 Nov. 1603, at a rent of 45. The moiety of 
 Uniack's mansion-house and garden in Yoghall the moiety of 
 4 messuages, and of several small closes or parks, and of Knockgot- 
 tigan, and of Ballyclennesy near Kilcoran, and of a water-mill and of 
 the fourth part of the weir of Yoghall the moiety of 8oa arable and 
 pasture, small measure, in Ballihubert the moiety of Ballywarrygh- 
 woightragh, containing \ carucate or plowland the moety of Bally- 
 warry-Ightrie, \ carucate the moiety of Barnenighi, | carucate the 
 moiety of Balleverregin, 1 carucate the moiety of Mocrue, | carucate ; 
 all lying in or about Yoghall, and known by the name of Uniack's 
 Lands, and were parcel of the estate of Maurice FitzEdmund Gerald, 
 gent., slain in rebellion ; \ Irish. 
 
 * 1604. 10 May. Grant from the King to Sir Richard Boyle, knt., 
 Cork co. The whole barony, manor, and castle of Inchiquin other- 
 wise Inchecoigne, with 5 plowlands or carucates adjoining, and 
 usually occupied with the said castle, and one water-mill and one 
 water-course, and one salmon-weir near the said castle, on the river 
 Woany otherwise Woom, and also all the said river, and the free 
 fishing thereof. The Priory, or late House of Observant Friars near 
 Yoghall, called the Black Friars of Yoghall, with all their possessions, 
 spiritual and temporal whatever, with courts baron and leet. And 
 whereas Sir Walter Ralegh at the time of his attainder, by virtue of 
 
 2 G
 
 466 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 a lease by Thomas Withcrhcad, then Warden of the New College of 
 the B. V. Mary of Yoghall, in the diocese of Cloyne, Cork co., and 
 the priests, collegioners, and convent of the same College under the 
 common seal, dated, 28 Sept. 1588, made to Sir Thomas Norris, knt., 
 late Lord President of Munster, deceased, for 60 years, was lawfully 
 possessed for the term uncxpired of the said lease, of and in the said 
 New College of St. Mary of Yoghall, by mesne conveyance from said 
 Norris, with all the hereditaments, spiritual and temporal, thereto 
 belonging, paying to the said Warden and his successors the yearly 
 rent of ^13 6s. 8d. sterling; and also, by virtue of a lease, dated 
 14 July, 33rd Eliz. [1591], made to said Sir Walter Ralegh, by the 
 bishop, dean, and chapter of Lismore, for 60 years, he was possessed 
 of the economic or rectory of Lismore, with all the tithes, glebe, etc., 
 thereof in Waterford co. ; also by virtue of a lease, dated 16 Jan., 
 33rd Eliz. made by the said bishop, dean, and chapter to Randall 
 Knevett, gent., for 80 years, and purchased by Sir Walter, he was 
 possessed of the manor and town of Kilbree with 2 plowlands thereto 
 belonging, in Waterford co., whereof the town and lands of New 
 Aghvane are parcel ; also by indenture from Thomas Witherhead, 
 Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, dated 15 Jan., 33rd Eliz. for 
 101 years, with the consent of the dean and chapter of Lismore, 
 he was possessed of the manor, lordship, castle, towns, etc., of Ardmore, 
 Ballinemonie, and Crobally or Cowly in Lismore diocese, and the rent 
 of 6 Irish, and so continued possessed for two years and more, until 
 Sir John Dowdall, knt., ejected him thereout, 17 Jan., 35th Eliz. 
 [1593], and still detaineth the same; all which interests the King 
 grants to Sir Richard Boyle, with power to take possession of the said 
 manor of Ardmore, etc., without suit, or else by law to recover the 
 same. 
 
 * Queen Elizabeth, for the peopling of the Province of Munster, 
 granted by patent to Sir Walter Ralegh, now lately attainted of high 
 treason, and then one of the principal undertakers of said province, the 
 barony and manor of Inchiquin, with divers other lands, spiritual and 
 temporal, Who for his better and more commodious planting and 
 strengthening himself in the said province, and to the end he might 
 be the better enabled to re-people the same with civil English people, 
 purchased divers other possessions adjoining his said lands ; all which 
 being wasted and depopulated by the late rebellion in that province, 
 the said Sir Walter, in consideration of ^1500 English, sold, as well 
 as all his other lands in Ireland, unto Sir Richard Boyle for ever ; by
 
 APPENDIX I 467 
 
 force whereof, the said Sir Richard possessed the same, and with very 
 great travail, and charge hath drawn over thither so many English 
 subjects, as do now fully re-inhabit those lands, to the great strength 
 and security of all the neighbouring borders. And having paid the 
 said 1500, and become suitor to the immediate tenant and patentee 
 of the same, the King for the considerations aforesaid, and also in 
 respect of the said Sir Richard Boyle's good, true, and faithful services 
 to the Crown, now by his patent grants the same. To hold for ever, 
 without accounting to the Crown, in fee-farm, as of the castle of 
 Carrigrohan in Cork co., in free and common soccage. 
 
 * 1609-10. 8 March. Grant from the King to Donogh, Earl of 
 Thomond, The College, or tenement within the walls of Yoghall, 
 called the New College of the B. V. Mary of Yoghall, in the diocese 
 of Cloyne, with all its hereditaments whatever. 
 
 4 1609-10. 23 March. Grant from the King to Sir Richard 
 Boyle, knt. All the lands, etc., granted to him by patent, dated 
 29 Nov. 1603, and those granted to him by patent, dated 10 May 
 1604, are hereby confirmed to him, and the following are added. 
 The advowson, patronage, and presentation of the Wardenship of the 
 New College of priests and clerks of the church of the B. V. Mary of 
 Yoghall, Cloyne diocese, and of all the churches, rectories, vicarages, 
 chapels, and the nomination of the several curates and all other spiritual 
 benefits to the said Wardenship belonging. 
 
 4 A ruinous messuage in Yoghall called Bennett's Gate-House, near 
 the North Gate of the town. 
 
 4 A toft adjoining and lying therefrom, N., to Uniacke's lands, S., 
 and from the town-wall, E., to the Common-street, W. 
 
 * Another toft adjoining, lying from Uniacke's land, N., to 
 Copinger's land, S., and as the preceding, E. and W. 
 
 *A great garden without the walls, not far from the said North 
 Gate, lying from the street called the Abbey-land, N., to the Common 
 Lane, S., and from the highway, E., to Galway's lands, W. 
 
 c Another garden in the Church-lane, extending to Uniacke's lands, 
 S., and from the Earl of Desmond's, E., to the College lands, W. 
 
 4 A garden and toft in the northern part of Church Lane, lying 
 from Collen's land, N., to the Church lands, S., and from Patrick 
 Walshe's, E., to the Earl of Desmond's, W. 
 
 'A ruinous house, called Morishe Geyrie's House, and a small 
 messuage annexed, extending from Arthure's lands, N. to Listen's, S., 
 and from the town-wall, E., to the street, W.
 
 468 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 * Two messuages in or near Key-lane, extending from thence, N., 
 to Anyas' lands, S. E., and W. as before. 
 
 * A park or close, lying between the Leper's House, the lands thereof, 
 and Collen's park in Yoghall. 
 
 * A mansion-house near the Castle of the Holy Trinity in Yoghall, 
 and two other messuages with their gardens ; parcel of the estate of 
 Gerald, Earl of Desmond, attainted. With power to appoint a clerk 
 of the market, a master of the assayes, and other officers, for the 
 punishment of tanners, brogue-makers, and other artificers within the 
 premises. To hold the three messuages in Yoghall, in common 
 soccage, and for a rent of 4., 45. od. for a fine of 40 Irish, and in 
 virtue of the commission for the remedy of defective titles.' 
 
 It will be seen from the above extracts that various lands were 
 first granted to Thomond and Carew as well as to Ralegh, and were 
 bought from the grantees by Boyle. 
 
 APPENDIX II 
 
 SEPTPARTITE INDENTURE 
 
 THE Earl of Cork's great 4 Septpartite Indenture ' vested all the 
 Boyle estates on behalf of his sons in the hands of four trustees, Sir 
 William Parsons, Sir William Fenton, Sir John Browne, and Sir Percy 
 Smyth. The deed was examined and approved by the Lord Deputy, 
 and was signed on the I4th of May 1636. 
 
 The lands enumerated are scattered all over Ireland : Cork, 
 Waterford, Meath, King's County, Queen's County, Limerick, Clare, 
 Tipperary, Kerry, Roscommon, Mayo, Sligo, Dublin, Kildare, Wick- 
 low, Wexford, c and elsewhere.' The daughters of Lord Cork's 
 younger sons were to be suitably provided for, but the land was 
 strictly entailed on male heirs, with all the elaborate precaution and 
 legal flourishes that were dear to our ceremonious forefathers. Lewis, 
 Viscount Kinalmeaky, Baron of Bandon Bridge, was given the 
 estates in the West, with Bandon as their capital, held of the Earl 
 of Cork on the condition of rendering a horse yearly at Lismore, and 
 that the Earl of Cork, the Lord Deputy, or the President of Munster, 
 should have power to command the attendance of Baron Kinalmeaky 
 and twenty horsemen for the services of the kingdom.
 
 APPENDIX II 469 
 
 Lord Cork also bought a residence for Kinalmeaky to occupy at 
 Bandon as Governor of the town, a new brick house that had been 
 built in Coolfadda by their kinsman, Mr. Wiseman, shortly before his 
 death, and which his widow, one of the Smyths of Ballynetra, was glad 
 to dispose of to her uncle, the Earl of Cork. 
 
 The castles over the gates at Bandon were left under special con- 
 ditions. Lord Kinalmeaky had the charge and keys of Lewis gate 
 and Cork gate, unless the Earl of Cork, the Lord Deputy, or the 
 President of Munster came in to those parts, when the great man 
 might claim the keys of Lewis gate and lodging in the castle over it. 
 Francis gate was left to Francis Boyle on the same conditions. 
 
 For an eastern residence for Kinalmeaky, Lord Cork also proposed 
 to rebuild a ruined abbey on the outskirts of Cork, that had once 
 belonged to the Grenville estates. Gill Abbey was named after its 
 founder, a seventh century abbot, Gilla daeda O'Mugin, and must 
 have been a stately pile in mediaeval days, when the monks boasted of 
 their broad gardens, and the salmon weir and mill on the pleasant 
 river Lee, but now all the buildings of the abbey save the abbey 
 church had fallen into ruin. 
 
 Lord Cork commissioned his merchant friend, George Hillier of 
 Bristol, to procure him cut stone from the famous Dundry quarries 
 for new building the mansion. The chimney pieces, doors, and 
 windows, were shipped for Ireland all ready cut, with c twenty stones 
 or tunnels of chimneys, round, each eleven feet high, bases thirteen 
 inches, stem clean and plain, the top a finishing of four arches with 
 five bows, all of one entire stone, costing twenty-six shillings and 
 eightpence each.' 
 
 For Broghill, the ruined castle from which he took his title, was 
 to be rebuilt, and in October 1636, Lord Cork sent two artists 'to 
 take a model of the Lord President's house at Doneraile, to make the 
 like for my son Francis Boyle, at or near Carrigaline or at Magnes- 
 carews Court,' no doubt Maigh Cruim or Macroom. 
 
 Broghill's estates lay at Mallow, Askeating, and Doneraile ; for 
 them he was to bring as feudal due to Lismore, a fair sword or rapier 
 and dagger every St. James day, and to do service with ten horsemen. 
 Francis was given Carrigaline and lands in Kerrywherry, and was to 
 render a pair of fair pistols yearly at Lismore, and to do service with 
 ten horsemen. Robert's residence was to be at Mallow, and his lands 
 lay in Tipperary and Kildare. He also was to bring out ten horsemen 
 when called, and to render a pair of gilt spurs at Lismore every year.
 
 470 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 The College House at Youghal had already been settled on Lady 
 Dungarvan as her dower house, and her Cumberland estates would give 
 her an English home. For an Irish residence for the young pair Lord 
 Cork selected Mallow, and added to the estates which he had bought 
 there from Jepson in 1624, the whole seignory purchased from 
 St. Leger and Mr. Bettisworth for 15,000. The gardens, orchard 
 and deer-park covered 150 acres, and were valued at 140 yearly, 
 and probably the old Desmond Castle was to be restored for a dwelling- 
 house. 
 
 APPENDIX III 
 
 WILL OF THE EARL OF CORK 
 
 THE estates of the Earl of Cork had been divided among his sons by 
 the Septpartite Conveyance of 1635; but the death of Kinalmeaky 
 necessitated a new arrangement, and Lord Cork drew up and signed a 
 new will on the 4th of November 1642. 
 
 The entreaties and councils which break in with pathetic iteration 
 upon the formal lists of legacies, and the plain-spoken judgments 
 passed upon the kinsfolk of whom he disapproved, make it plain that 
 the document was written or dictated entirely by the Earl himself, 
 and that he trusted nothing to the conventional wording of the 
 lawyer's clerk. The Bishop of Cloyne is the first witness. 
 
 THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF RICHARD BOYLE THE FIRST 
 EARL OF CORKE, LORD HIGH-TREASURER OF IRELAND. 
 IN THE NAME OF THE HOLY AND BLESSED TRINITY, AMEN. 
 
 I, S r . Richard Boyle Knight, Lord Boyle Baron of Youghall, 
 Vicount of Dungarvan, Earl of Corke, Lord High Treasurer of 
 Ireland, One of His Ma'ties Honble Privy Councill of the Kingdoms 
 of England and Ireland, Being infirm in Body, but in sound and 
 perfect Memory, Taking into my due Consideration the Uncertainty 
 of Life and the Certainty of Death, It being in the Pleasure of 
 Almighty God, for the settling of such Worldly Estate which it hath 
 pleased God in His Mercy plentifully to bless me withall, DO hereby 
 Revoke, Disanull, and Declare all former Wills and Testaments by
 
 APPENDIX III 471 
 
 me heretofore made and all and every Act Clause or Thing with the 
 Devise Grant or Bequest of any my Lands, Gifts, or Legacys in them 
 or in any of them Contained or Mentioned to be Devised, Granted, or 
 Bequeathed to any of my Sons, Grand Children, or any other Person 
 or Persons whatsoever, with all and Singular the Declarations of Uses 
 or Limitations over for the Disposition of any of my Manners, 
 Castles, Lands, Tenements, and Hereditaments or Hereditary Profits 
 Mortgages or Leases in them or in any of them Limitted Expressed 
 or Declared to be utterly void, Frustrate and of no Effect in Law and 
 do make and ordain This to be my Last Will and Testament to be 
 only in Force and Effectual in manner and form following. FIRST I 
 bequeath and humbly Commend my Soul to Almighty God my Maker, 
 and his only begotten Son my Sole Saviour Jesus Christ confidently 
 believing that thro' his Death, Passion, Merits and Mediation all my 
 Sins are forgiven and washed away by the Shedding of his most 
 Precious and Innocent Blood, that his Sufferings are Satisfaction for 
 them, and that by his Glorious Resurrection and Ascension I shall be 
 Raised again from Death and glorified in his Heavenly Kingdom, 
 amongst the Angels and Blessed Saints Everlastingly, and into the 
 hands of the Holy Ghost, being well assured that nothing can perish 
 or be Lost, that is Committed and willingly Yielded up unto the Holy 
 Blessed and Individual Trinity to Whom I willingly and Joyfully 
 Surrender as their due my Mortal Body and Immortal Soul to be both 
 Glorified in Heaven as by my Faith and Confidence I undoubtedly 
 trust they shall be. And as for my Body, as it came whole into the 
 World, So I charge my Extors, Children and friends that it may be 
 decently and privately buryed whole without any Bowelling or Divid- 
 ing and without unnecessary Pompe or Ceremonys, and my Funerals 
 to be after Solemnized (as my late Wife's were) honourably and 
 Decently suitable to my Estate and Degree, and as it is made of 
 Earth, So it may be Returned into Earth without too much of Glorious 
 Shews or Funeral Offices, And if God shall call me to his Mercy in or 
 near Dublin, It is my Desire that my Body be Buryed (as before) in 
 the Vault of my new Tomb erected over my last Dear Deceased 
 Wife in the Chancell of St. Patrick's Church in Dublin, But if God 
 shall call me out of this World in Munster, then it is my Will that 
 my Corps be Interr'd with my Eldest Brother Dr. John Boyle late 
 Bishop of Corke, Cloyne and Ross, and my good Mother-in-Law the 
 Good Lady Fenton in my Vault in my Chappell and Tomb In 
 Youghall Church ; but if I shall be in England when God shall call
 
 472 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 me out of this Vale of Misery, It is my Will that my Body be Buried 
 in manner aforesaid in the Chancell of the Parish Church of Preston 
 near Feversham in Kent under the Tomb that I erected there for my 
 Deceased Father and Mother who both lye there. And forasmuch as 
 by my former Will bearing Date the last day of January Ann. Dom. 
 1637 which was then by me duly perfected I bequeathed that in case 
 my Second Son S r . Lewis Boyle Kn*. Lord Baron of Bandonbridge 
 and Lord Viscount Boyle of Kinalmeakie should depart this World in 
 my Life-time or without Heirs of his Body lawfully begotten, That 
 then so much of my White plate and Silver Vessells whereupon my 
 said Son Lewis his Arms with a Crescent distinguishing it to be made 
 for my Second Son, and whereon a Viscount Corronet is engraved, 
 should descend unto my Son S r . Roger Boyle Kn*. Lord Boyle Baron 
 of Broghill NOW in pursuance of my said former bequest, Seeing it 
 hath pleased God to take away out of this Life my said Second Son the 
 Lord Viscount Kinalmeakie myself Surviving him, I do hereby Give 
 Legate and Bequeath, All that Plate and Silver Vessells so engraven 
 and marked as aforesaid unto my said Son S r . Roger Boyle, Kn*. Lord 
 Boyle, Baron of Broghill. AND WHEREAS I have by Indenture Septi- 
 partite bearing date the fourteenth day of May Anno Dom: 1636 
 made between me and S r . William Parsons, S r . William Fenton S r . 
 Percy Smith and S r . John Brown Kn ts . my Feoffees of Trust con- 
 veyed assigned and limitted certain Mannors, Religious Houses, Lands, 
 Tenements and Hereditaments To the use of my four Younger Sons 
 S r . Lewis Lord Viscount of Kinalmeakie since deceased, S r . Roger 
 Boyle Kn*. Lord Boyle Baron of Broghill, Frances and Robert Boyle 
 with power of Revocation and Alteration of the old, and Limittations 
 of new uses and Estates, as by the said Deed more at large appeareth 
 AND WHEREAS It hath pleased God of his great mercy and Goodness, 
 Since the Acknowledgment of my Several Fines and making my first 
 Separtite Conveyances of my Lands and Inheritance to the Lord 
 Esmond, S r . William Parsons, S r . Richard Bolton and other my Noble 
 Friends in the said Fines and Conveyances named and expressed, 
 which Conveyances were dated on or about the first day of March 
 Anno Dom. 1624, to bless me with life and opportunity to purchase 
 some other Lands, Tenements and Hereditaments, Mortgages and 
 Leases, and to make some enlargement and Addition to the Estate I 
 then had, as also to bless me with another Young Son called Robert 
 Boyle, who was not then in being, for which youngest son of mine I 
 neither then did or could make any Good or certain Provision of
 
 APPENDIX III 473 
 
 Livelihood, for which Reasons and other Considerations me thereunto 
 moving, and especially to enable me to make such a Joynture to my 
 Son Dungarvan's Lady the Daughter of the Lord Clifford now Earl 
 of Cumberland, as upon the Conclusion of that marriage by Articles 
 and Covenants with the Lord Wentworth then Lord Deputy of Ire- 
 land and others, I was bound to do, I have according to the Provisoes 
 and Conditions in the said Separtite Deed, Revoked my sd. separtite 
 Deed, and disannulled and made void all the Uses, Estates, Limitations 
 over Provisoes, and other Grants, in the said Separtite Deed comprized, 
 and also do by these presents utterly Revoke and Disannull the former 
 Estates, and all Intents and Uses thereby and therein granted, Limitted 
 or declared, and do by these presents in pursuance of the power in the 
 said separtite Deed, left and Reserved unto me and as an addition and 
 Increase of the Estate then granted and limitted unto him and to his 
 use, Devise, Will, Legate and Bequeath to my now Second Son S r . 
 Roger Boyle Kn*. Lord Boyle Baron of Broghill, the Castle Town 
 Mills and Lands of Ballicolly, alias Ballycollipoe in the County of 
 Limerick which I purchased for Three hundred and Sixty Pounds 
 Ster. of Morrice Supple and others since the making of my said 
 Separtite Deed which with the Manner of Broghill and Rathgoggan 
 and the Lands of Liscolane and all other my Manners Towns Villages 
 Rectory Tyths Advowsons, Presentations Lands Tenements and 
 Hereditaments Mortgages Leases and all other Hereditary Profits 
 whatsoever which I have or shall have in the County of Limerick and 
 Kerry Except the Mortgages which I have from S r . Hards. Waller 
 and his Lady and S r . Percy Smith Knights, of the Parsonage of Adair 
 als. Athdare, and the Town and Lands of Cloghrane and Cloghne- 
 gownagh hereafter given and bequeathed to my Son Robert Boyle. 
 ITEM as an Addition to the Mannors Lands and Tenements that my 
 said Separtite Deed conveyed to my said Feoffees in Trust for and to 
 ye use of my said Son S r . Roger Boyle Kn*. Lord Boyle, Baron of 
 Broghill, I do hereby Give, Grant, Legate and bequeath unto him the 
 Manner of Marston als. Marston Bigood with the Rights members 
 and Appurtenances thereunto belonging Situate in the County of 
 Somerset in the Realm of England, which I purchased of S r . John 
 Eppesley and S r . Thomas Fotherly Kn ts . and Gabriel Eppesly Esq 
 for Ten Thousand Three Hundred and fifty pounds English, 
 Together with all those my Messuages, Houses, Buildings, Edi- 
 fices, Gardens and Orchards, Lands, Tenements and Hereditaments, 
 in the City of Dublin wch sometimes were his Grandfather's
 
 474 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 S r . Jeffrey Fenton Kn l His Mat'ys Principal Secretary of Ireland and 
 which I purchased from His Son and Heir S r . William Fenton Kn l . 
 my Brother-in-Law and others, and are now in Lease from me to 
 Robert Gilbert the Pursivant at one Hundred Marks per Annum, 
 And also that the late Abbey, Monastery or Religious House called 
 St. Francis Abbey, near ye North Gate of the City of Corke with all 
 messuages, Houses, Edifices, Buildings, Towns, Villages, Lands, Mills, 
 Fishings, Tyths and all other Rights, Members and Appurtenances, 
 to the said Abbey belonging, And also all those the Towns, Lands, 
 Tyths, and other Hereditaments called or known by the Name or 
 Names of Knocknehenny the Killeens and Killnegannanagh als. 
 Channanstown with their Tyths and Appurtenances, containing by 
 Estimation three Plow Lands and half, being parcell of the possessions 
 of the late Dissolved Religious House of Gill als. Gill Abbey als. 
 Monasterium de Antro St. Finbarry prope Corke, now or late in the 
 Tenure of or Occupacon of John Gratrikes Gent, or his assigns And 
 also that the Castle or Port in the Town and Wall of Bandonbridge 
 called Lewis his Gate, Leading towards the Barony of Colbry with 
 Ten acres of Ground to be laid out near and contiguous to the said 
 Castle TO HAVE AND TO HOLD all and singular the Premises with all 
 and every the Appurtenances whatsoever hereby devised, granted, 
 willed, or bequeathed, or mentioned, to be devised, granted, willed, 
 or Bequeathed, to my said Son S r . Roger Boyle Kn*. Lord Boyle, 
 Baron of Broghill, for and during the Term of his natural Life, 
 without Impeachment of Strip or Waste, and after his Decease to ye 
 first Issue Male of his Body lawfully begotten and to the Heirs Males 
 of the Body of such his first Issue Male of his Body lawfully begotten 
 with such further and other Remainders and Limitations over of Uses 
 and Estates as by my said Deed Septipartite dated on or about ye said 
 fourteenth day of May Anno Dom: 1636 in and upon the Manner of 
 Broghill thereby conveyed unto him are limitted mentioned and 
 expressed. 
 
 WHEREAS to prevent Inconveniences to my noble Son-in-Law the 
 late Earl of Barrymore and at his Lordship's and my dear Daughter 
 his Lady's request, I have disbursed and paid in ready money to S r . 
 William Sarsfield Kn*. now Lord Viscount of Killmallock the Sum 
 of Twelve Hundred Pounds currant and Lawfull Money of and in 
 England, for which sum of Money the Castle and Lands of Bellvelly 
 in ye County of Corke rented to Peter Courthorp Esq: for Sixty 
 pounds English per Annum or thereabouts, and the Castle Town and
 
 APPENDIX III 475 
 
 Lands of Inchinebackie in the said County of Corke rented to Captain 
 Halse Deceased for Seventy-five pounds English money or thereabouts 
 per Annum are assigned unto me my Heirs and Assigns, (Vizt.) by my 
 computation and this my division, Six hundred pounds thereof upon 
 the Mortgage of Balvelly and the other Six hundred pounds upon the 
 Mortgage of Inchinebackie aforesaid, the whole Rents and Profits of 
 wch. Lands since my payment of the said Twelve hundred pounds 
 have been by me freely bestowed upon my said Daughter, who by 
 the Hands of my Receiver John Walley Esq hath been half-yearly 
 paid the same as it hath half-yearly been brought into my Receipt. 
 AND WHEREAS to prevent the coming of a Great and powerfull man 
 into the Town of Carrick Tohill and the Burgesses and Burgage 
 Lands Grounds and Fields thereabouts that might be offensive and 
 prove an unpleasing Neighbour to the said late Earl of Barrimore 
 (which was strongly endeavoured), and I having a purpose to make ye 
 said Town of Carrick Tohill intire of my said late Son-in-Law and 
 my said Daughter and the Heirs of their two Bodys begotten, have to 
 that End Disbursed in ready money other five hundred pounds Sterling 
 lawfull English Money and therewith purchased to me and my Heirs 
 for ever an absolute Estate in Fee Simple of ye Several Burgages and 
 Burgage Lands, Tenements and Hereditaments in and near the Town 
 and Fields of Carrick Tohill aforesaid and of the Town and Lands of 
 Ballylonge near the same from the Newtons and Terries who were ye 
 Ancient Founders, Inheritors, and Freeholders, thereof, and moreover 
 at ye earnest request of the said late Earl of Barrymore and his Lady 
 my Daughter and for their Debt, I have lately and intirely paid unto 
 S r . Robert Tynt Kn*. the full sum of One thousand Seven Hundred 
 thirty-three pounds currant English money, and have likewise supplyed 
 the said late Earl of Barrymore with the Sum of Seven hundred Sixty- 
 Seven pounds English for the Re-edifying and new building of his 
 decayed Manor House of Castle Lyons, making in both, the intire 
 sume of two thousand five hundred pounds English by me as aforesd. 
 in Ready Money disbursed for wch. the sd. late Earl and Garrett 
 Myagh his. surviving Feoffee have Conveyed to me and my Heirs a 
 condiconal Estate in Fee of the sd. Castle, Town, Manor, Lands, and 
 Mills, of Barrie's Court, and the three Plow Lands thereunto belonging 
 for payment of the sd. Two thousand five hundred pounds English, 
 wch. said Mannor of Barries Court with the appurtenances, the said 
 late Earl of Barrymore and myself have leased to Edward Morley, 
 Oliver Parsons, Henry Parr at ye Rent of Two Hundred Pounds
 
 476 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Sterling per Annum, payable unto me my Heirs and assigns untill 
 Redemption. Now it is my will and pleasure and I DO hereby devise, 
 will legate and bequeath unto my Third Son Francis Boyle the said 
 Mannor of Barrie's Court with all the Castles, Lands, Tenements, 
 and Hereditaments thereunto belonging and the said Castle Town and 
 Lands of Belvelly, and all the moneys for which they were mortgaged 
 unto me and my Heirs or assigns as also the Burgage, or Burgage 
 Land in Carrick Tohill aforesd. and the Town and Lands of Ballylonge 
 wch. I purchased from ye Newtons and Terries absolutely, in Fee 
 Simple as is beforesaid TO HAVE AND TO HOLD the aforesaid Mannor of 
 Barrie's Court and the Castle Town and Lands of Belvelly and the 
 Burgages and Burgage Lands of Ballylonge aforesaid unto the said 
 Francis Boyle during his natural life, without Impeachment of Strip 
 or Waste, and after his Decease to his first Issue Male of his Body 
 lawfully Begotten and the Heirs Male of the Body of such his first 
 Issue Male Lawfully to be begotten with the like and such other 
 Remainders and Limittation over of Estates as the Mannor of 
 Cargaline als. Bover and other Lands, in and by the said Septipartite 
 Deed appointed to the said Francis are limitted, expressed, and 
 declared. 
 
 It is my Will that if the now Earl of Barrimore my Grand Child 
 or the Heirs Males of his Body lawfully to be begotten or any other 
 the Heirs Males of ye Body of David late Earl of Barrymore and my 
 said Daughter's shall pay unto my said Son Francis or the Heirs Males 
 of his Body lawfully begotten or others in Remainder the full Sum of 
 five hundred pounds Sterling that upon due payment thereof the aforesd. 
 Burgages and Burgage Lands in Carrick Tohill and the aforesd. 
 Town and Lands of Ballylonge shall remain and be to ye use of ye 
 now Earl of Barrimore and the Heirs Males of his Body lawfully 
 begotten or other the Heirs Males of ye Body of ye said David late 
 Earl of Barrymore and my said Daughter his Lady. 
 
 THEN I devise Will Legate and bequeath to my said Son Francis 
 all my Lands and Tenement which upon my payment of four hundred 
 pounds English I have lately purchased to me and my Heirs from 
 Thomas Barry Fitz James Gent: and Thomas Martell of Corke Ald n . 
 or both or either (R. CORKE) or either of them in Bally Vologhan, 
 Carricktobin, Killnestoole, and Ballida in ye Barony of Barrimore and 
 County of Corke, or which I shall hereafter have in the said Lands 
 under Such Conditions as are, or shall be mentioned, in the Deeds and 
 assurances of these Lands to me made or to be made of the last
 
 APPENDIX III 477 
 
 Recited Premises, and also all other my Manners, Lands, Tenements, 
 Hereditaments and Hereditary Profits, Mortgages, and Leases, as I 
 now have, or at the time of my Decease shall have, or any other 
 Person or Persons are or shall be Seized of Estated in, to the use of 
 me, my Heirs or assigns, of and in the Several Baronys or Canthreds 
 of Kirrycurricky, Kinalla and Coursi's Country, by what name or 
 Names they or all or any of them be distinguished or known, Situate 
 in the County of Corke. ITEM as an addition to those Manners 
 Lands and Tenements Hereditaments and Hereditary Profits, that 
 hereby and by my Septipartite Deed I conveyed to my said Feoffees 
 In trust for and to the use of my said Son Francis Boyle, I do hereby 
 give, grant, legate, and bequeath, unto him the said Francis, ALL 
 that the Mannor and Land of Corbenny with the Appurtenances 
 in the Barony of Kirrycurricky in the County of Corke now in 
 the possession of my nephew Roger Power or his assigns with 
 the Rents and Reversions thereof, and also all that my Mannor 
 calkd and known by the Name of Ballymodan als. Ballybandon 
 als. Clogh McSimon Fleming, situate near Bandonbridge, and all 
 the Lands, Tenements, Mills, Waters, Water Courses, Meadows, 
 Pastures, Woods, Underwoods, and other Appurtenances thereunto 
 belonging which do not Exceed, or are within the Walls of Bandon- 
 bridge aforesaid, and also the Town and Lands of Kill Me. Simon and 
 Annish Roe with the Mill, Wears, Parks, and Park called Garren 
 Uragher, and all other the Lands, Tenements, and Hereditaments, 
 conveyed unto me and my Heirs by John Fleming Gent, situate in 
 the County of Corke, And also all those Two Messuages situate in 
 Castle Street in the City of Dublin, with all the Gardens, Backsides, 
 Shops, Cellars, Ways, Easements, Passages, Comodities unto them 
 belonging now or late in ye Tenure or Occupation of Thomas Cole, 
 Taylor, and Zachary Shortred, Upholster, with the Rents and Rever- 
 sions of them, and also all that my Capital Messuage Barton Park of 
 Annery, and all the Buildings, Edifices, Orchards, Gardens, Hopyards, 
 Lands, Tenements, Meadows, Pastures, Woods, Underwoods, Rivers, 
 Waters, Wears, Fishings, Hereditaments and Hereditary Profits what- 
 soever thereunto belonging situate in the Parish of Monckleigh in ye 
 County of Devon in England, which I lately purchased of Jno. 
 Arscott and Robert Jason Esq: for ^5000 Ster: and which I have 
 leased to one Hartwell for or about 270 English per Annum ; and 
 also all that my Right, Title, Interest, Reversions, or Reversion 
 Estate, and Demand which I purchased of my Noble Friend S r .
 
 478 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Thomas Stafford Icn*. for 2000 English of, in, and unto, ye Manner 
 ofSaltcombe with ye appurtenances, in the County of Devon, with 
 all the Castles, Houses, Buildings, Edifices, Lands, Tenements, 
 Hereditaments, Woods, Underwoods, Wears, Fishings, Rents, Rever- 
 sions, Services or Hereditary Profits whatsoever thereunto belonging, 
 as also of in and unto ye Rectory or Parsonage of Halberton with 
 the Glebe Barns, Tyths, Sheaf and Appurtenances thereunto belong- 
 ing, in the said County of Devon, which Manner ofSaltcombe and 
 Rectory of Halberton the said Sir Thomas Stafford by my direction 
 and appointment did convey over in Revercon after his own and his 
 now Lady's Death, to John Nayler of Grays Inn Esq: and William 
 Hackwell the Younger of Lincolns Inn Esq: to the use of me, my 
 Heire, Extors, or assigns, and I do now by these presents give, legate, 
 and bequeath, all my Reversion or Reversions, Interest, Right, Title, 
 Estate and Demand, of, in, and unto, the said Manner of Sal tcombe, 
 with the appurtenances and Rectory and Parsonage of Halberton, with 
 the Sheaf and other profits thereunto belonging, to my said Son Francis 
 Boyle, praying and authorizing the said Jno. Nayler and William 
 Hackwell the Younger to see them legally conveyed over unto him 
 the said Francis according to the Trust I reposed in them TO HAVE 
 AND TO HOLD all and singular ye premises with all and every of their 
 appurtenances whatsoever hereby devised, granted, willed or Bequeathed 
 or menconed to be devised, granted, willed or Bequeathed, to my said 
 Son Francis Boyle during his natural life, without Impeachment of 
 Strip or Waste, and after his Decease to the first Issue Male of his 
 Body lawfully begotten, and to the Heirs Male of the Body of such 
 his first Issue Male lawfully begotten wth. such further and other 
 Remainders and Limittations of Uses and Estates as by my Septipartite 
 Deed dated on or about the sd I4th day of May Anno Dom: 1636 are 
 limitted and Expressed for the Beaver als. Cargaline, if ye Condiconal 
 Estates, Mortgages and Leases respectively, do so long continue and 
 be in Force provided always. And my Will is, for that I have been 
 cordially desired ye Restitution and Recovery of the Earl of Barrimore's 
 noble and anciently Honble House, that his Posterity may raise ye 
 same to its former Lustre and Greatness again, and in regard (that in 
 my Judgment) there is no way so likely and probable (God blessing 
 it) to redeem and bring home the Incumbred and disjointed Estate of 
 the said Earl and his House, and Posterity, as by giving a Noble, 
 Virtuous and Religious, Education to the said now young Earl my 
 Grand Child, who by good Honoble Breeding may (by God's Grace)
 
 APPENDIX III 479 
 
 either by the favour of his Prince, or by his Service to his King and 
 Country, or a good Marriage, redeem and bring home that ancient and 
 honble House which upon the Marriage of my Daughter unto the late 
 Earl I did with my own Money freely clear, I do hereby for his 
 Lordship's better Maintenance and accommodation in ye premises, 
 devise grant and bequeath unto my said Grand Child Richard, now 
 Earl of Barrimore, or from the time of my Decease for and during and 
 untill he shall attain unto ye full age of Two and Twenty years, one 
 yearly annuity or Annual Rent of Two Hundred Pounds Curr*. 
 Money of and in England, to be levyed and paid to His Lordship or 
 his assigns half yearly by even and equal portions at May Day and All 
 Saints or within forty days next after any of the said Feasts, by my 
 said Son Francis, his Heirs or Assigns, out of the Rents, Issues and 
 Profits, of All and every the Manners, Castles, Towns, and Lands, 
 Tenements, Hereditaments, and Hereditary Profits, Situate, lying, and 
 being, within the County of Corke, by me as above bequeathed 
 granted or conveyed to my said son Francis or to his use, and upon 
 my said son's Failure of Payment of ye said Annuity or yearly Stipend 
 or Allowance at any ye aforesd Feasts and the forty days next after any 
 of them, that then I do hereby give and grant unto the said Earl or 
 his assigns full power to Distrain for the same or such part thereof as 
 shall be behind and unpaid upon any of ye lands Tenements or Heredita- 
 ments within ye said County of Corke and ye same to Impound and 
 detain untill ye said Annuity or such part thereof as then shall be 
 behind shall be duly satisfied and paid anything before limitted willed 
 or bequeathed to my said Son Francis Boyle or the Heirs Male of his 
 Body to the Contrary notwithstanding. ITEM as an Addition and 
 Confirmation of all those Hereditaments and other things Conveyed to 
 my youngest Son Robert Boyle by my aforesaid Septipartite Deed, I 
 do hereby devise will legate and bequeath unto my sd youngest Son 
 Robert Boyle all and every my Manners, Castles, dissolved Abbeys, 
 Monasterys, and late Religious Houses, Rectorys, Tyths, Advowsons, 
 Donations, Patronages, Presentations, Rivers, Ferries, Islands, Wears, 
 Fishings, Franchises, Court Barons, Court Leets, Benefits of Courts, 
 Fairs, Markets, Mills, Towns, Villages, Lands, Tenements, Rents, 
 Reversions, Services, Rights of Entrys and all other Hereditaments 
 and Hereditary Profits, Commoditys, Royaltys, and advantages what- 
 soever, and all Mortgages, Leases, Estates for years either in possession 
 or Reversion or Remainder or that any other or others to my use are 
 or ought to be possessed or seized of or shall may or can have or here-
 
 480 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 after be estated in or shall be seized or possessed of in the province of 
 Connaugh, which before these Troubles were Rented at about four 
 Hundred and fifty pounds English per Annum, and in the King's 
 County and Queen's County, and which before these Troubles were 
 Rented at about Two Hundred and forty pounds English per Annum, 
 the County or Countys of Tipperary and Cross Tipperary which 
 before the said Troubles were rented at about four Hundred and fifty 
 pounds English per annum, The Manners, Lands, Tenements or 
 Hereditaments in the Countys of Clare and Wexford which yielded in 
 good Rents before these Troubles about Two Hundred and forty Six 
 pounds English per annum, and in all every or any of the said Countys 
 and also all that the Abbey, Monastery or late' Dissolved Religious 
 House of Fermoy, als Fermoy, als Ardmoy, with all the Rights, 
 Members, and Appurtenances, thereunto belonging or appertaining, 
 Situate in the County of Corlce, rented before these Troubles at about 
 four Hundred and fifty pounds per Annum, and also all that late 
 dissolved Abbey or Religious House of Castle Lyons als Castle 
 Oleghane, with their and every of their Rights, Members and appur- 
 tenances as well Spiritual as Temporal by what Names, Titles or 
 Incorporations soever they were or are named, called, known or dis- 
 tinguished, Rented before these troubles at Twenty pounds Sterling 
 per Annum, with all the Manners, late Religious Houses, Buildings, 
 Towns, Villages, Hamlets, Lands, Tenements, Rents, Reversions, 
 Services, Rectorys, Tyths, Hereditaments, and Hereditary Profits, 
 whatsoever to the said Two Several Abbeys, Monasterys or late 
 dissolved Religious Houses, or to both or either, or any of them 
 respectively, now or any time heretofore belonging or appertaining, 
 Situate lying and being in the said County of Corke, and also the 
 Castle Town and Lands of Inchinebacky in mortgage to me for 600 
 Sterling and now in the Tenure or possession of Thomas Badnege Esq: 
 rented before these Troubles for Seventy five pounds Sterling per 
 Annum And also all these Lands Tenements and Hereditaments 
 called Twormore now in possession or occupation of ye Widow Smith, 
 Rented at ^28 Sterling per Annum, and also ye Town and Lands of 
 Bailygowne rented at 6. 13. 4d. per Annum And also all ye Town 
 and Lands of Bailygowne rented at ^6. 13. 4d. per Annum, And 
 also all ye Town and Lands of Ballycloghie now or late in the 
 Possession of Richard Condon, rented at 8 per Annum, And also all 
 those Lands, Tenements, and Hereditaments in Ballynehaur, Nock- 
 maple and Nockdrumcloghie, now or late in the Several Tenures and
 
 APPENDIX III 481 
 
 Possessions of Honora Barry als Condon Widow, Morris Condon 
 Deced. and William Condon, now rented at four Shillings per Annum 
 and in Reversion at higher rates, And also the Chief Rent of Twenty 
 Ounces of Silver Issuing out of the Territory of Aghagreenagh als 
 Killbarry, And also all those Lands called Bosnebrun in the Tenure of 
 John Forster or his assigns, rented at four pounds per Annum, And 
 also all those Lands, Tenements and Hereditaments called or known 
 by the Name of Ballytowran and Glenerush mortgaged unto me or to 
 my use for a Thousand pounds Sterling, now in the tenure of Peter 
 Courthorpe Esq: or his assigns, rented at jioo Sterling per Annum, 
 And also all ye Town and Lands of Ballymoriogh mortgaged unto me 
 for ^200 Sterling and now in the possession of Henry Rossington 
 Gent, rented at ^20 per Annum, And also the Chief Rent of four 
 pounds per Annum out of Twormore and Ballytrasney in the said 
 County of Corke, Mortgaged to me or others to my use for ^50 
 Sterling, and also the Town and Plow Land of Ballyneale parcell of 
 Rathcormock with the Advowson of the Parsonage or Church of 
 Rathcormock in the possession of Robert Hedges Gent, at ye yearly 
 rent of ^45 Sterling, And also the Manner Town and Lands of Cuill 
 als Coole with the appurtenances whereof Jno Whetcombe Gent, late 
 Deceased was my Tenant at jioo Sterling per Annum, And also the 
 Castle Town and Lands of Ballydangan Killcroyne, and Ballybrittas 
 with their and every of their appurtenances situate in ye said County 
 of Corke wch. Ulick Roche of Ballydangan Gent, hath leased and 
 demised unto me, and my said Son Robert, for fourscore and nineteen 
 years with Condition of Redemption upon payment of ^1000 Sterling 
 which I paid him in ready money as ye fine and Consideration of 
 making that Conditional Lease unto me and my said Son, And also 
 ye Castle, Town and four plow-Lands and half of Dungillane situate 
 within ye sd. County of Corke Mortgaged unto me by William Lord 
 Viscount of Killmallock, for 630 Sterling and rented at j6o per 
 Annum, and Also all the Castle Town and Lands of Ballyhendon with 
 ye appurtenances in ye said County of Corke, mortgaged unto me by 
 Redmund Roche Esq: for ^1200 Sterling current and Lawfull Money 
 of and in England, and is rented at ^100 per Annum, And also all 
 the Mortgage, Estate, Right, Title, Interest and Demand which my 
 late noble Son in Law David Earl of Barrymore, and Garret Myaga 
 his surviving Feoffee hath passed and Conveyed over unto me and my 
 said Son Robert or both or one of us in ye Manner Castle and Town 
 of Buttevant, with all the Rights Rents Reversions Services, Members 
 
 2 H
 
 482 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL -OF CORK 
 
 and Appurtenances and all ye Lands, Tenements and Hereditaments 
 and Hereditary Profits thereunto belonging, containing by Estimation 
 Eight Plow Lands and the Moiety of three plow Lands be it more or 
 less, called Rice's Land in ye Mannor and Fields of Buttevant, for 
 which I paid Eight Hundred pounds Sterling to John Anlctill Esq: 
 and afterwards I Supplyed ye sd. late Earl of Barrimore with another 
 /IOOO English to clear ye rest of his Estate from Debts, Userers, and 
 Mortgages wch. Mannor and Lands are Leased to Thomas Bettes- 
 worth Esq: for ji6o Sterling per Annum And also the Town and 
 Lands of Moneyyeage containing half a Plow Land for which the said 
 Earle of Corke paid unto Philip McDonogh O'Mulcaghie the Sume of 
 Two Hundred pounds English and is rented to James Fitz Redmond 
 Barry at ^24 per Annum, And also all that ye Capital Messuage and 
 all other ye Edifices, Buildings, Stables, Orchards, Gardens, Lands, 
 Tenements, and appurtenances in Bandonbridge within the County of 
 Corke which I lately purchased for five hundred pounds Sterling from 
 the Exors of William Wiseman Esq: Deceased with the Utensils and 
 Household Stuff in and belonging to the said Capital Messuage wherein 
 now Sir Chas. Vavasour resideth and also all such Mortgage Estate 
 Right Title Interest and Demand as my Nephew Sir Percy Smith 
 Knight [R. Corke] hath made over unto me or my use of in and unto 
 the Rectory, Parsonage, Tyths, appurtenances of Adaire, als Athdaire 
 in ye County of Limerick, for which I paid him in ready money one 
 thousand pounds English, and whereof he is now my Tenant of 
 Eighty pounds Sterling per Annum and also all the Right, Title, 
 Interest, Mortgage, conditional Estate, Demand, wch. I have or ought 
 to have of and in the Towns and Lands of Cloghrane and Clogne- 
 gownagh containing Two Plow Lands in the said County of Limerick 
 in Mortgage to me from S r . Hards. Waller and his Lady for jCiooo 
 English, which I lent him in ready money, for which he is now my 
 Tenant at four score pounds Sterling per Annum, And also those 
 ^3000 English which I lent my Honoured and dearly beloved Son-in- 
 Law late Deceased Robert Lord Digby Baron of Geas Hill in ready 
 money for four years Gratis, which four years ended, and the said 
 Moneys ought to be repaid me at or upon Michaelmas day Ann Dom: 
 1636 for repayment whereof upon that day his Lordship and the Lady 
 Offaly his Mother and the Feoffees have made me a Lease of the 
 Barrony and Mannor of Geas Hill with the appurtenances and the 
 Advowson of ye Church or Prebend thereof the Abbey of Killcagh 
 with ye appurtenances and all other lands, Tenements, Hereditaments
 
 APPENDIX III 483 
 
 and Hereditary Profits in ye same Conveyance Specified named and 
 contained for ye Term of ninety nine years, and for that ye sd Lord 
 Digby and the Heirs of his Body begotten upon ye Body of my 
 Daughter the Lady Sarah Digby deceased were by my promise in 
 regard I lent him the said three thousand pounds English for four 
 years freely and without any benefit or Consideration to be paid me 
 for that time TO HOLD and enjoy the premises and to have and receive 
 the Rent Issues and Profits thereof till the said Michaelmas Day 1636 
 now past without rent or accident, and if at the said Feast day of 
 Michaelmas 1636 the said Lord Digby his Heirs or assigns should fail 
 or make default in the payment of ye said ^3000 (as now the time 
 being past he hath failed to perform) It is my Expressed Will and 
 pleasure that no advantage be taken or forfeit had upon the Breach of 
 ye Condition, so as that the said ^3000 be paid by his Lordship's Heir 
 my Grand Child at or before such time as my said Son Robert shall or 
 may or might (if he lives so long) attain to ye full age of one and 
 Twenty Years. 
 
 AND whereas there is ^750 Sterling or thereabouts Rent and 
 arrears of Rent now due unto me since Michaelmas 1636 from the 
 Heirs or Executors of the said Robert late Lord Digby which for the 
 most part incurred in the said Robert Lord Digby's life-time for and 
 out of ye premises I do freely not only give and bequeath the said 
 ^750 to my Grand Child the now Kildare Digby, But also the yearly 
 rent of Two Hundred and forty pound Sterling untill my said Son 
 Robert shall come to full age towards his the said Lord Digby's main- 
 tenance and Support And if it shall please God that my said Grand 
 Child ye now Lord Digby should Dy before my said Son Robert shall 
 or might attain to the full age of one and Twenty years Then it is my 
 Will and I do hereby give legate and bequeath the said ^750 Sterling 
 and all the aforesaid Rent that shall grow due after his Death untill 
 my said Son Robert come or might come to one and Twenty years of 
 age, to my two Grand Children his Sisters, Lettice and Catherine 
 Digby, to be equally divided betwixt them, and when it shall please 
 God my said Son Robert shall attain to the full age of one and Twenty 
 years (then and not before) It is my Will that he shall enter upon the 
 Barony, Manner premises aforesd and the same to retain untill the 
 ^3000 be paid unto him ; his Executors or assigns without taking any 
 Consideration for ye time past before he shall attain unto ye age of 
 twenty one years which Lease so made me of the said premises, and 
 all my Right, Title, Estate, Interest and Demand, in ye sd. I/ease and
 
 4 8 4 
 
 in and unto the said ^3000 Sterling So by me Disbursed, and all other 
 thing or Clause therein mentioned expressed and Contained I do 
 hereby wholy give grant legate and Bequeath to my said Son Robert 
 in manner and form aforesaid, and I do likewise in regard to the great 
 Addition of Estate that is Come to my Son and Heir the Lord 
 Dungarvan by the late Death of his Brother the Lord Viscount 
 Kinalmeakie, Confirm, give, Legate, and Bequeath, unto my said Son 
 Robert for Term of his Life (with the Abbey or Religious House of 
 Fermoy als Jermoy als Ardmoy) with all the Members and Appur- 
 tenances the manner of Tubbor with the Appurtenances and also the 
 Towns and Lands of Waterstown als Wasterstown Newhayes, Canni- 
 court, Drumkit, Ratharget, and the Barrows Land in or near Kilgoan 
 with all and every their Rights Members and Appurtenances, Lying 
 and being in the Countvs of Kildare, Dublin, Wicklow, or in all or 
 any or either of them, and also all the Estate, Right, Title, Interest, 
 or Demand, which my Cousin Richard Parsons Esq: late Deceased hath 
 Conveyed unto him to the only use of me my Heirs and Assigns from 
 Thos. Lord Viscount FitzWilliam of Merryon and his son and Heir 
 of in and unto the Mannor of Merryon with all and Singular the 
 Castles, Edifices, Lands, Tenements, and Hereditaments thereunto 
 belonging and the Lands and Tenements called the Rings End with 
 all sych other Lands as are by good and Effectual Deeds duly Per- 
 fected by the said Lord Viscount FitzWilliams and his Son and Heir 
 Conveyed and assured or intended or mentioned to be Conveyed and 
 assured to the said Richard Parsons Esq: and his Heirs in Confidence 
 to my use situate within the County of Dublin or County of the City 
 of Dublin or both or either of them upon which the said Mannor and 
 Lands there was due to me at the Feast of All Saints last past the full 
 sum of ^1740 English or thereabouts and also all those the Tenements 
 and Lands Mortgaged unto me by Dockwra his Mother, called Tibb 
 and Tom near Hoggenbutt near ye walls of Dublin, Mortgaged unto 
 me for Three Hundred Pounds Sterling and rented at ^24 Sterling 
 per Annum to Sir Philip Percival Knt. and also all that the House in 
 the City of Dublin situate near His Majesty's Castle Bridge there now 
 in ye Tenure or Occupation of John Smith who marryed Collins his 
 Widow, or his Assigns rented at 22 Sterling per Annum and I do 
 also devise will and legate and bequeath unto my said Son Robert the 
 1000 odd money English with the proceeds and Increase thereof 
 which is owing unto me and wch. I lent unto James Watson of 
 Dublin, Aldn. then Mayor of that City and Abraham Richesis of
 
 APPENDIX III 485 
 
 Dublin Merchant if ye said Moneys be not repaid me during my Life. 
 I do give grant legate and bequeath to Mrs. Ann Howard Daughter 
 of ye Lord Edward Howard my Silver Cistern weighing 680 ounces, 
 my Silver Kettle or Pot weighing 162 ounces, my Silver Ladle weigh- 
 ing 27 ounces, whereon my own Coat of Arms is engraven, with three 
 pieces of Plate I bought of Sir Thomas Jerm in the Younger Knight, 
 and paid him for them 274. i8s. 6d. besides what I paid for Engrav- 
 ing my Arms, if the said Mrs. Ann Howard shall be marryed to my 
 said Son Robert, But in case she shall not be marryed unto and become 
 ye wife of my said Son, Then I give the said three pieces of Plate to 
 my said Son Robert if he live and attain unto ye age of twenty one 
 years, Otherwise I give and bequeath them to my son Dungarvan's 
 eldest Son Charles Boyle. I do also devise will legate and bequeath 
 unto my said Son Robert all those the ^8600 Sterling which I lent in 
 ready Money unto my noble Brother George Lord Goreing Vice 
 Chamberlain to the King's Ma'ty, payable by his Statute or Bond of 
 the Staple ye Twentieth day of January next Ensuing the date of 
 these presents, wch. Statute or Bond of ye Staple and all the Moneys 
 due thereupon, I give will and bequeath to my said Son Robert and 
 also all my Right, Title, Claim, Estate, Reversion, Remainder, and 
 Demand, whatsoever, of in and unto the Manner of Waltham als 
 Walthamcross, being ye late Dwelling House of the Earl of Norwich, 
 and so much of the lands thereunto adjoining as are of ye fu value of 
 jiooo English per Annum, And also the Manners of Nasin and 
 Nasingbury and the Rectory of Nasingbury in the County of Essex 
 which were conveyed unto me by ye said Lord Goreing for ye better 
 Securing of the said ^8600 Sterling with all the Deeds, writings, 
 Evidences, concerning the Premises which Statute or Bond of the 
 Staple, Writings and Evidences so made by me of the Premises, and 
 all my Right Title Estate Interest and Demand in the same and 
 unto ye said ^8600 English and all other Clause or thing therein 
 mentioned, expressed and contained, and all the abovementioned 
 Manners, Lands, Tenements, Hereditaments and Hereditary Profits, 
 Mortgages, Leases, Bonds, Statutes or Bonds of Staple, Recognizances 
 or other Evidences whatsoever for and concerning the Premises or any 
 part of them I do hereby freely and wholly devise give grant will 
 legate and bequeath to my said youngest Son Robert Boyle TO HAVE 
 AND TO HOLD all and singular the before recited premises with all and 
 every their Members, Rights and appurtenances, what kind of Tenure 
 soever they be of, to my said fourth Son Robert Boyle for and during
 
 4 86 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 his natural Life, without Impeachment of Strip or Waste and after his 
 Decease to the first Issue Male of his Body lawfully begotten and to 
 the Heirs Male of ye Body of Such his first Issue Male of his Body 
 lawfully begotten, with ye same and such other and further Remainders 
 and Limittations over as in and by my said Septipartite Deed on or 
 about the said fourteenth day of May Anno Dom: 1636 are limitted 
 and expressed to the said Robert Boyle his Heirs and assigns for and 
 of the said Mannor of Tubber, (if the Conditional Estates Mortgages 
 and Leases respectively so long continued and be in force) all wch. 
 Sums of Money, Manners, Castles, Towns, Lands, Tenements, 
 Hereditaments, and Hereditary Profits, Mortgages, Leases, are parti- 
 cularly before mentioned and expressed and by me hereby devised, 
 Willed, bequeathed given and Allotted, for ye Estate and Livelyhood 
 of my said Son Robert and his Heirs in manner and form as is afore- 
 said. It is my Will and so hereby I do declare shall be the Portion 
 and livelyhood of my said Son Robert according to the Estate and 
 Limitation aforesaid whom I beseech God to bless PROVIDED ALWAYS 
 and my Will is that my Daughter Alice Countess of Barrimore shall 
 after my Decease receive and enjoy the rents and profits of ye afore- 
 said Abbey of Castle Lyons and ye rents and profits of ye Town of 
 Ballvelly and Inchinebacky aforesaid during her natural life and no 
 longer, anything in this my present Will or otherwise limited or 
 bequeathed to my said Son Robert Boyle and Francis Boyle or either 
 of them or to the Heirs Male of ye Bodys of them or either of them 
 to ye Contrary Notwithstanding. 
 
 ITEM I further give, legate, and bequeath unto every of my said 
 four sons respectively all such Rents and arrears of Rents, Customs 
 and Dutys, as now are, or shall be, due unto me at the time of my 
 Decease, out of ye Several Manners, Lands, Tenements, Heredita- 
 ments, and other ye premises wch. I have bequeathed or Conveyed to 
 the Several uses of every of them, or by my last Gales Rental Book 
 Subscribed with my own hand limitted, laid out, assigned and Dis- 
 tinguished to each of my said Sons respectively, what proportion of 
 Land respectively every one of them shall have, It being my Expressed 
 Will that my Son and Heir shall content himself and rest satisfied with 
 those Rents and Arrears only which shall be due and unpaid at my 
 Death ought of ye Lands to his use and each of his three younger 
 brothers respectively TO have enjoy receive (without account) ALL the 
 Rents and Arrears that shall be owing out of each of their Lands 
 towards the Rebuilding of their Ruined Houses, and it is my further
 
 APPENDIX III 487 
 
 Will, and I do hereby principally and Especially charge the Souls and 
 Consciences of my trusty and well beloved Son and Heir as also my 
 Cognizees, Feoffees & Donees in Trust and all such others as are 
 anywise respectively Seized trusted or Estated in the aforesd Mannors, 
 Castles, Abbeys, Monasterys, Rectorys, Tyths, Lands, Tenements, 
 Hereditaments and Hereditary Profits Mortgages, Leases Sum or Sums 
 of Money, Statutes or Bonds of the Staple Recognizances or all any or 
 either of them or any part or parcell of them whether it be by Estate 
 in Fee Simple, Fee Tail, Mortgages, Leases or otherwise, as also the 
 Overseers of this my Last Will and Testament as they will answer the 
 Neglect or Breach of this my Great Trust, Will and Testament 
 before God at the Dreadfull day of Judgment to do and cause all the 
 said Mannors, Abbeys and late Religious Houses, Castles, Lands, 
 Mortgages, Leases, Tenements, Rectorys, Tyths, Rents, Reversions, 
 Services, Hereditaments and Hereditary Profits with their and all and 
 every of their appurtenances by what Name Title or place soever 
 called or Distinguished, or before in these presents particularly 
 mentioned and expressed, and every of them with the Rents and 
 Reversions of all and every of ye Premises to be upon Demand or 
 request (as Occasion from time to time shall Necessarily require) 
 Surely Effectually and legally passed over, assured, conveyed and con- 
 firmed, and held possessed, and enjoyed by and to each and every one 
 of them my aforesd three sons Sir Roger Boyle Knt. Lord Boyle, 
 Baron of Broghill, Francis Boyle, and Robert Boyle, in such sort and 
 according as ye aforesd Mannors, Castles, Towns, Lands &c., are by 
 my Deed Septipartite aforesd or by this my Will and Testament and 
 shall by my last Gales, Rental-Book, my hand respectively limitted to 
 my aforesaid sons and each and every of them and what proportion of 
 Lands respectively every one of them shall have for ye respective Term 
 of their and every of their Natural Lives without impeachment of 
 Strip or Waste and after their or any of their Decease to ye first Issue 
 Male of ye Body or Bodys lawfully begotten of him or them that 
 shall do so dye and to the Heirs Male of ye Body or Bodys of Such his 
 or their Issue Male of his or their Body or Bodys lawfully begotten 
 with Such other and farther Remainders and Limittations over of 
 Estates or Uses as in and by my said Septipartite Deed dated on or 
 about the said fourteenth day of May Anno Dom: 1636 of ye Lands 
 Conveyed to him them or any of them or to their or any of their Uses 
 are Expressed and Declared for it is my Resolution and Expressed Will 
 and Desire that my said last half years' Rental (R. Corke) Book which
 
 4 88 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 shall be made next upon my Decease and shall be signed with my own 
 Hand, shall be the Leader and Guide to every of my said four Sons to 
 Distinguish what Livelyhood I have allotted unto them and Bequeathed 
 and Left to them and every of them Respectively, from which Direc- 
 tion I charge my Son and Heir Especially and every one of them 
 respectively, not to swerve in the least degree as they hope for Blessed- 
 ness in Heaven and Prosperity in this World, AND WHEREAS I did 
 allow unto my said Son and Heir for his Maintenance the full Sum of 
 ^1500 English per Annum and that he Undertook to the King 
 without my Privity to raise Arme and Provide 100 Horse to attend 
 his Ma'ty in the Expedition against the Scotts in the north of England, 
 for which and his other Occasions, besides his Yearly Maintenance 
 aforesaid I supply him with the full Sum of ^5553 Sterling as by his 
 Acknowledgement and Engagement thereof under his hand and Seal 
 dated on or about the Third day of May, Anno Domino 1639 
 Appeareth which Sum of ^5553 Sterling he hath Obliged himself 
 his Heirs Executors and Administrators to Satisfy and pay according 
 as I shall Dispose thereof either by my Last Will or Testament or 
 otherwise and to Exonerate, Acquit and Discharge all his Younger 
 Brothers so that neighther persons or Estates shall be liable thereunto 
 as by his aforesaid Acknowledgement and Engagement Dated as above 
 doth and may appear in pursuance whereof I do Devise Legate will and 
 bequeath the Sums of Money following to be by him my said Son and 
 Heir paid in manner Ensuing IMPRIMIS I do give legate and bequeath 
 unto each one of my Grand Children the two daughters of the late 
 Earl of Barrimore begotten of my Daughter, namely to each of the 
 Ladies Ellen and Catherine Barry 1000 currant Money of and in 
 England, apiece, and unto my two Grand Children Lettice and 
 Catherine Digby the Daughters of Robert Lord Digby, Baron of 
 Geshell and my Daughter Sarah both Deced. the Like Sum of ^1000 
 apiece for and towards their several and respective Marriage Portions, 
 and unto my Niece Cath Boyle als Tynt the sum of j8oo of Like 
 Currant Money of England (as above) over and above the ^200 
 Sterling which I paid in ready Gold since their Marriage as part of 
 my said Niece her Marriage Portion to her Father in Law Sir Robert 
 Tynt, Knt. by the Delivery of my Servant Thomas Badnedge Esq : 
 which several Legacy of mine Amounting to ^4800 Sterling I do 
 hereby Charge my said Son and Heir to see duly Satisfyed with the 
 best Expedition that with any Conveniency he may and when these 
 five Legacys are thus discharged that he employ the Remainder of ye
 
 APPENDIX III 489 
 
 S( i ^5553 being ^573 Sterling for payment and Discharge of such 
 other Leggacys as hereafter in this my Will I have bequeathed to 
 Several others of my Kindred Friends. It is my Will that untill 
 such time as Sir Robert Tynt and William Tynt his Son or any of 
 them do make and perfect unto ye use of My said Niece Catherine 
 Tynt a competent Valuable and Legal Joynture of good Lands and 
 Tenements in ye County of Corke Answerable to the Marriage Portion 
 of j^iooo which is in part and shall be paid as aforesaid, that untill 
 such Competent Joynture be fully duly and legally perfected unto her, 
 that my said Son and Heir forbear to pay the said #oo unto her for 
 that my said Niece hath not had that respect and kind usage with her 
 husband and Father in Law aforementioned as may deserve my 
 forwardness in the payment thereof, Yet upon the perfecting of Such 
 a Competent and answerable Joynture, It is my Will yet ye Money 
 should be paid in Discharge of my promise. 
 
 ITEM my Will is that if any one of my Two Grand Childeren the 
 Daughters of the late Earl of Barrymore shall die before she be 
 marryed, That then the ^1000 bequeathed unto her as aforesaid shall 
 remain and be paid unto my young Grandchild James Barry her 
 Brother and in Case both of my said Grand Daughters die before their 
 Marriage that then my Will is, and I do hereby devise legate and 
 bequeath the aforesd ^2000 formerly legated to them both to their 
 said brother James Barry my Grand Child. 
 
 ITEM my Will is that if any one of my said two Grand Children 
 Daughters to the late Lord Digby and my Daughter Sarah dye 
 unmarrved, that ye ^1000 legated to her (as above) remain and be 
 paid unto her surviving sister for her better preferment, and in Case 
 both of them Dye before Marriage, That then my Will is, and I do 
 hereby legate and bequeath the ^2000 bequeathed to the said Two 
 Sisters, to my Grand Child their Brother, the now Lord Kildare 
 Digby, Baron of Geshell. 
 
 ITEM I give to every of my Daughters that are or have been already 
 marryed and to ye several Husbands of each and every of my said 
 married Daughters a Diamond Ring price Ten pounds Sterling to be 
 bought and presented to every of them by my Executor within Six 
 Months after my Decease, Entreating every and each of them to wear 
 those rings during their lives as a Remembrance of their Deceased and 
 most affectionate Father with God's blessing and my own. 
 
 ITEM I give legate and bequeath to my Nephews Edward Boyle 
 and John Boyle (to whom I have not been wanting but helpful already)
 
 490 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 as follows, (vizt.) to my nephew Edward Boyle I release forgive and 
 acquit him all such Debts Rents & Arrears as he shall be owing unto 
 me at ye time of my Decease And also I give and bequeath unto him 
 all the Rents, Tyths and Profits, of those Impropriate Rectorys, 
 Prebendarys, or Vicarages, of Leitrim, Clondullame, Moycrony, 
 Kilcrumper, Nelanand, Felam, Situate in ye County of Corke, Some- 
 times parcell of the possessions of ye late Dissolved Abbey of Glas- 
 carrick in the County of Wexford which were before these Troubles 
 by one demised unto Thomas Holford Clk. Deceased, and Thomas 
 O'Broder for ye yearly Rent of ^100 Sterling or thereabours TO HAVE 
 AND TO HOLD ye before recited premises and all and every their 
 appurtenances unto my said Nephew Edward Boyle and his now Wife 
 for and during both their lives and the longest liver of them. And to 
 my Nephew John Boyle and his Wife and the longest liver of them 
 I give and bequeath all the Glebe Lands, Tyths, Rents, Profits and 
 Comoditys of the Impropriate Rectory of Knockmorne in ye County 
 of Corke which Edward Eyres Clk. is my Farmer of at ^40 Sterling 
 per Annum, 
 
 ITEM I give and bequeath unto my Two Cousins Roger Boyle 
 who lately dwelt near Waterford and is now resident in Youghall and 
 Michael Boyle the Son of Joshua Boyle deceased, all that the Blade 
 Tyths, Sheaf and other profits and appurtenances belonging to the 
 Impropriate Rectory of Stradbally in ye County of Waterford for 
 which James Wallace Esq : paid me ^60 per Annum, to be Equally 
 Divided betwixt them for and during their Natural Lives, they 
 proportionably paying the King's Rent due out of ye same ; and in 
 Case that any one of my said Cousins Roger Boyle or Michael Boyle 
 shall die, then my Will is that ye Moiety of ye said Rectory held by 
 him so Deceasing should be and remain to the use of my Executors, 
 he paying the Moiety of ye Rent due thereout to his Matye. 
 
 ITEM I do Straitly charge and Conjure my said Son and Heir and 
 it is my Express Will, that he content himself and rest fully satisfied 
 with all such Manners, Lands, Tenements, Mortgages and Leases as 
 he shall find assigned and Laid out for him in my last half Year's 
 Rental Book that shall be made and Signed with my own proper hand 
 next before my Decease notwithstanding any Deeds Estates Grants or 
 Conveyances made by me to the use of him his Lady or Heirs to ye 
 Contrary, and to be tyed, restrained and limitted only thereunto, for 
 that every half Year God by his great Mercy and Bounty hath and 
 doth enable me either by Purchase, Mortgage or Leases to encrease
 
 APPENDIX III 491 
 
 my Livelyhood, which as I do so for Reason and Conveniences unto 
 me best known, I distribute and Enter them in my Rental Book 
 under ye Title and Name of ye Son's Portion, Patrimony and 
 Assignment, Who it is my Will, Bequest and Purpose shall Inherit 
 and enjoy ye same, And I do therefore Charge my said Son and Heir 
 upon my Blessing principally and also the Feoffees of my Lands and 
 Overseers of this my Last Will and Testament, as they desire my 
 Soul shall rest in peace after my Decease And as they and every of 
 them desire to have their own Wills justly performed after their 
 Several Deaths, and as they and every of them will answer the Con- 
 trary doing before ye Judgment Seat of Almighty God, That ye last 
 half Year's Rent Book that shall be made before my Decease and by 
 me to be Signed as is before Specify ed, shall be the Sole and only 
 Direction to express in Trust, Guide and make known unto them 
 what my Will is touching the disposition of my Lands, Estates and 
 Possessions, to every of my four Sons, and accordingly each one of my 
 said four Sons to be contented with that assignment and Allottment 
 without Dispute or other Division, Changes, Addition or Alteration 
 whatsoever and what other Assurance or further Conveyance shall be 
 Necessary and expedient for Securing of each of my said there younger 
 Sons Estates and proportions in ye same half Year's Rental Book to be 
 particularly Mentioned, yet my Son and Heir (as he intends ye 
 Salvation of his own Soul and his Honour, Reputation and Conscience, 
 both with God and Man in this world and in ye world to come) That 
 he and they upon ye like Conjunction do cause ye same in every 
 respect to be really and punctually performed Legally Conveyed, 
 passed over and perfected respectively unto every and either of them 
 and their respective Heirs Male of their Body lawfully begotten as 
 aforesd with such Limittations of Estates and Remainders as are 
 mentioned and comprized in my Grand Conveyance Septipartite Deed 
 dated on or about ye sd i4th day of May, Anno Dom : 1636. ITEM 
 it is my Will and I do hereby charge my said Son and Heir that He 
 and his Heirs forever hereafter Continue and uphold the payment of 
 20 Sterling per Annum to ye School Master at ye Free School by 
 me at my Sole Charge Erected in Youghall Ten Pounds to ye User 
 thereof and to each of ye six old decayed soldiers or Alms Men already 
 placed or hereafter to be placed there five pounds Sterling apiece with 
 their Houses and to pay yearly ye like allowance forever to ye School 
 Master, Usher, and Alms Men of ye free School and Alms Houses by 
 me lately erected at Lismore in ye County of Waterford, towards the
 
 492 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Charge of which free School and Alms Houses at Lismore and ye 
 Several Persons that are to Supply and reside there, James Roch is 
 bound by his Lease of Currenniboaght to pay 40 Sterling per Annum 
 and also to cause ye like Free School with Lodgings for the School 
 Master and Usher and Houses for Six Alms Men to be erected of Lime 
 and Stone, Sawn Timber and Slate, in the place where I caused ye 
 Foundation to be digged, and where before these Troubles I procured 
 great part of the Square Timber and hewn Stone and other Materials 
 to be brought in place for finishing of that good work, and to assign 
 over and pay yearly ye like Salary and Stipend to ye School Master ; 
 Usher and six Alms-men, and Each of them, as is paid to those of 
 ye Free School and Alms-Men of Youghall and Lismore aforesaid, 
 and this to be done as soon as it shall please God to send Peace into 
 this Kingdom, The Charge of all which Free Schools and Alms- 
 houses saving the ^40 abovementioned payable by Mr. James Roch, 
 is to come out of my said Son and Heir's Revenue, and he is likewise 
 to keep the said School Houses and Alms Houses in good repair, and 
 to see ye Masters, Ushers and Alms-Men Quarterly and respectively 
 paid their Annuitys and Stipends, as I have formerly done, since the 
 Erection of those Schools and Alms-houses at Youghall and Lismore 
 as also that of Bandonbridge aforesaid when it shall be there finished, 
 and I have appointed it to be, and for that I much desire the Good 
 Increase and Prosperity in ye Town of Bandonbridge and ye 
 Inhabitants thereof whom I have ever (till now of late) much tendred 
 and respected, I do therefore declare it to be my Will that there be 
 a very Strong and substantial bridge of Lime and Stone with my Arms 
 Cutt in Stone to be sent upon the Side Wall thereof made and Erected 
 over ye River of Bandon within the Town where ye Timber Bridge 
 now Stands, for ye overseeing and Ordering whereof I do hereby 
 entreat and intrust my good friends and Tenants, ye Provost for the 
 Time being, Mr. William Newce, Mr. Randall Fenton, Mr. Jno. 
 Langton, Augustin Atkins, and Jas. Elwell to take upon them the 
 Charge and Oversight of the making, well ordering, and following, 
 of the Work of that Bridge, that it may be Gracefully, Strongly and 
 substantially done without any false or deceitfull work, (as other 
 Bridges of late have been) and to see the Workmen duly paid, towards 
 the Charge whereof I do hereby bequeath assign and set over a Debt 
 of ^67. 155. od. Sterling which Peregrine Bannister owes me by his 
 Bond for wch Herbert Nicholas deceased was bound with him as his 
 Surety, the said Bond to be delivered by Mr. Walley and ye Moneys
 
 APPENDIX III 
 
 493 
 
 thereout due to be paid to the said Mr. John Langton and Augustin 
 Atkins to be expended in that work and what ye said Work shall come 
 unto more than that Money, which I think will be ^30 or thereabouts 
 be it more or less, I do appoint the said Mr. John Langton to Supply 
 ye Money for ye same out of my son Dungarvan's Rents of Bandon 
 Mills, whereof It is my Will that due allowance shall be made unto 
 him. ITEM WHEREAS I paid unto John Lodden of Bandon Bridge 
 Mason near about four score pounds Sterling for ye Building of a 
 Bridge of Lime and Stone ouer ye River near under Castle Coney, 
 called the four Mill Water from Clonmell wch he was bound 
 to me in an obligation of Two Hundred pounds Sterling to 
 perfect and perform strongly and Substantially as by Articles 
 for doing thereof under his hand and seal appeareth, but therein 
 deceived my Trust, and Built ye said Bridge falsely and deceitfully 
 with ill stones, Gravell, Lime and Mortar, whereby so soon as it was 
 finished part of it was overthrown, and ye rest in the most Dangerous 
 part of ye River is yet standing and Remaining, for ye new Building 
 of which Bridge in that or any other near and convenient place of ye 
 River, for it is my will and pleasure it should be rebuilt again where it 
 may Stand firm and Secure, and for ye well doing thereof, I do not 
 only give and assign over ye sd Jno Lodden's Bond and articles unto 
 my said Son and Heir who I do intrust to see that Work Strongly 
 Substantially and Speedily finished, But I do also give and bequeath 
 ;i2O English more for the Strong Building making and finishing of 
 ye said Bridge, which ji2O Sterling Roger Me Cragh of Courtswood 
 Gent, oweth me upon his own bond and ye Bond of Darby O'Brian 
 Esq : his Surety for which when I lent him the Money, he promised 
 me that his Brother Phillip McDanial McCragh should also Joyn in 
 ye said Bond which as yet he has not done, and if ye Mayor and 
 Inhabitants of ye Town and Corporation of Clonmell and ye Gentle- 
 men, Freeholders, and Inhabitants of ye County after they shall be all 
 returned to their Loyalty and Subjection, will Undertake the Carriage 
 of the Materials and bring them in place for the Building of the sd. 
 Bridge and that the Masons and Workmen by my sd Son to be chosen 
 and Agreed withal, shall and do give sufficient Security unto my said 
 Son for the Building of the sd Bridge Strongly and Substantially in all 
 Respects that it may Continue for the Passage easy and Safely of the 
 Country (R. Corke) and Traveller, then and in such Case, I do not 
 only Give and Bequeath the Benefit of the sd. Jno Lodden's Bond and 
 Articles but also the said ^120 due by the sd Bond for the new
 
 494 LIFE F THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Building and finishing of the sd Bridge as a Testimony of my good 
 affection to that Work and howsoever that this sd Jno Lodden hath 
 failed in this Work and the Trust yet I reposed in him thro' too much 
 Negligence or Covetuousness or both, Yet I am of Opinion that he is 
 the fittest man to Rebuild it, to Redeem his own Error and Disgrace, 
 and I advice that he may have the doing of it, putting in good 
 Security for the performance thereof, or if ye sd. Daniel McCragh and 
 Darby O'Brien his Surety shall and do give in good and Sufficient 
 Security to have the sd Bridge Strongly and Substantially Erected and 
 Finished in some Convenient time, Then it is my Will that they 
 shall have the sd Bond restored unto them at such Time as it shall 
 appear the Work thereof is Substantially Finished with side Walls and 
 my Arms Thereupon in Stone. Moreover for that I Esteem it a 
 Work of great Charity much Tending to the Ease and Safety of 
 Travellers to have Bennet's Bridge in the County of Kilkenny to be 
 Strongly Repaired where it is defective or new Built with Expedition 
 wherein I am Confident my much Hond. Lord the Marquess of 
 Ormond will not only contribute himself will also prevail with ye 
 Gentlemen and Freeholders of that County to help to bear ye Charge 
 of so Great and General a Good Work towards which it is my Will 
 (if his Lordship and ye County will assist in the Charge) for to give 
 and bequeath ^200 Sterling to perfect that Work which is usefull and 
 necessary for the Country of wch ^200 Sterling Richard Osborne 
 Esq : and Nicholas Osborne his Brother owes me ^130 Sterling and 
 the remain being ^70 Sterling John Butler of Cloghbready in ye 
 County of Tipperary Esq : oweth by Bond duly indebted unto me the 
 Bonds for repaying of which Sums as well by the said Richard and 
 Nicholas Osborne as John Butler remaining with my Receiver Mr. 
 John Wallie I do hereby will and appoint the said Mr. Wallie to 
 deliver over unto my good Friends Sir Patrick .... Knt. and 
 .... Rooth of Kilkenny Esq : (or any of them) to whom ye 
 money will be duly paid so as they both or any of them upon ye 
 Receipt of the money will enter into Bonds to my Cousin Joshua 
 Boyle for ye Strong and Substantial Building of ye Bridge within Two 
 years next after my Decease, or upon their failure to repay ye said 
 ^200 to ye said Joshua Boyle his Executors Administrators or assigns 
 to whom upon their failure I freely give and bequeath it. 
 
 AND WHEREAS I have heretofore been at Great Charges for ye 
 Building of a Timber Bridge ; wherein 800 Tuns of Choice Timber 
 were by me bestowed over ye River of Awmore als Black Water near
 
 APPENDIX III 495 
 
 Fermoy, which by an Extraordinary Flood was carried away, and for 
 that I desire ye Ease and Safety of ye Neighbours and Travellers and 
 to have a very Strong and Substantial Bridge of Lime and Stone built 
 in the place thereof (as it is at Moyallo) I do hereby Signifie that it is 
 my Will and desire that my Brother in Law William Fenton Knight, 
 Richard Fisher Esq : his Mat'ys Attorney of Munster, and Joshua 
 Boyle Esq : with the assistance and Service of my Tenant George 
 Hartwell, should cause a very gracefull and substantial Bridge to be 
 built of Lime and Stone over ye River of Fermoy and for ye Defraying 
 ye Charge thereof I do hereby give ^200 Sterling that I lent my 
 Nephew John Brown Knt. upon his Bond, with ye proceed thereof, 
 wch Bond it is my will and Direction that Mr. Wallie shall deliver to 
 my said Brother in Law Sir William Fenton Knt. Richard Fisher and 
 Joshua Boyle Esq : Who I hereby authorize to Demand, receive and 
 recover the said moneys, and upon Securitys given by such Masons 
 and Workmen as they make Choice to Build ye said Bridge in such 
 Manner and Form as the Bridge of Moyallo is now built ; or better 
 to pay and distribute those Moneys as the Work shall go forward 
 untill it be Strongly and Substantially in all Respects finished, and if 
 ye Moneys due upon that Bond and proceed will not finish ye work, 
 then I do hereby authorize and appoint the said Richard .... Esq : 
 his Mat'ys Attorney at Munster to add ^30 or ^40 more out of his 
 own Rents as it shall require for wch his so doing this shall be his 
 sufficient Discharge and acquittance, and for this Charitable work 
 tending to ye Ease, Safety and Conveniency of all Travellers and 
 Strangers, I am willingly induced to bestow these Moneys tho' I also 
 loose ye benefit of my Ferry Boat thereby, praying them to so Guide 
 direct and oversee this Work That it may be Strongly and Substan- 
 tially done for perpetuity, without any unnecessary Delay or Loss of 
 time, and that my arms may be cut in a Table of Stone and Set upon 
 a Side Wall thereof. AND WHEREAS Sir John Leeke Knt. at his first 
 arrival in Ireland borrowed of me one hundred pounds Sterling which 
 I lent him Gratis without any Consideration and in Regard he pro- 
 mised me ye Repayment thereof in a Short Time after I lent it, I 
 neither till some years past (when he returned out of Yorkshire) took 
 Bill or Bond for ye same, AND WHEREAS also ye said Sir John Leeke 
 is duly and justly indebted to me for ye rents and Arrears of ye lands 
 he held of me in Liffimy in the farther sum of ^350 Sterling for which 
 he gave me his Security under his Hand and Seal all remaining with 
 Mr. Wallie to be paid at my will and pleasure but never as yet paid
 
 496 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 any of those Two Debts or any part thereof and that I also at his 
 Importunity and going into England Supplyed his Lady with other 
 ^"40 Sterling in ready Money at his Earnest Intreaty and Deep pro- 
 testation to repay it me at a Day now long since past, which he hath 
 also failed in, So as his whole Debt now due unto me Amounts unto 
 ^490 Sterling, Nevertheless it is my will that the ^100 I so long 
 since lent him freely shall be by him paid within some reasonable and 
 convenient time in manner following : , Vizt : ^33.6.8d. to my 
 Cousin Mr. Robert Nayler Dean of Limerick, ^33.6^. thereof to 
 my Cousin and his Uncle Mr. Thomas Nayler, and ^33.6^. unto 
 the Children of my Cousin John Allen deceased to whom I give and 
 bequeath the said 100 to be equally Divided betwixt Them or 
 amongst such of them as shall be Living at my Decease, and the other 
 ^40 last Sent him Gratis I give and Bequeath unto my Cousin 
 Richard Boyle Son of Joshua Boyle Esq : and when that ^140 are 
 paid unto them according to this my Bequest then it is my Discretion 
 and Will that Sir John Leeke be freed thereof as also of the Debt of 
 350 which he Owes me by his Specialty which I hereby Desire may 
 be then Delivered unto him and not before, and I do Conditionally 
 and in manner and form aforesaid, freely Give and forgive him that 
 Debt of 350 Sterling as a Testimony of my good Affection to him 
 and his so he pay ye ^140 lent him as I formerly Bequeathed and 
 Disposed of the same. ITEM I bequeath to my Cousin Mary Cupse 
 the Sum of ^20 Sterling due unto me from Donogh O'Mulcaghie of 
 Nockampoze in the County of Waterford, David O'Mulcaghie of the 
 same, Gent. David Pruddenragh of Knockroe and Morgan Evans of 
 Clotthenny in the said County by their Bond, 10 whereof was 
 Payable upon May Day 1639 last Past, and the other ^10 at the feast 
 of All Saints then next Ensuing which moneys if not paid me in my 
 Lifetime and the said Mary then Living, I do appoint my Cousin 
 Dean Nayler to receive for her Use, but if she be then Dead or if any 
 part thereof be Unpaid, to my Cousin Dean Nayler's Eldest Son and 
 Daughter to be equally Divided betwixt them. ITEM altho' my 
 Cousin Thomas Boyle hath not Deserved it at my hands YET I give 
 and Forgive him the 10 he Borrowed of me upon his Bill, together 
 with such Rents and Moneys which are of a good Value that he hath 
 Gathered and Received out of my Lands Clan-Awliff of both which 
 I hereby Release him. ITEM WHEREAS There is due unto me for 
 Arrears of Rent from Owen O'Loghie McSweeny by his Bond or Bill 
 the sum of ^35 Sterling I do hereby give and Bequeath the said Bill
 
 APPENDIX III 
 
 497 
 
 of Debt to the Children of my Cousin Francis Boyle Deceased and 
 Charity his Wife and do Appoint Mr. John Wallie to deliver up the 
 said Bond or Bill, whereby the said Children may Recover and 
 Receive the Same. ITEM WHEREAS the Lady Una Boyle the now 
 Wife of Richard Fisher Esq : his Mat'ys Attorney of Munster Did in 
 her Widowhood perfect unto me her Bill or Assurance for the due 
 Payment of Eighty eight Pounds Sterling which my kinsman her 
 former Husband Sir George Boyle Knt. did Justly Owe unto me with 
 more at his Death AND WHEREAS also her now Husband Richard 
 Fisher Esq : aforesaid stands justly Indebted to me by Bond in the 
 full Sum of jioo Sterling I do hereby Bequeath and Legate those 
 Two Debts and the Bonds whereupon they grow due to my Daughter 
 the Countess of Barrimore to her own Use without any Account for 
 the Same. ITEM WHEREAS my Nephew Sir Piercy Smith Knt. by his 
 Bill Obligatory Dated 20th April 1635 Standeth Bound in 500 for the 
 Payment of 250 Pound Sterling at the End of one Year next after the 
 Death of Sir Richard Smith his Father I do give and bequeath that Bill 
 Obligatory and all the Moneys due thereon to my Cousin and Godson 
 Boyle Smith if he shall Live till it be due. And I do also Give and 
 Bequeath to my said God Son Boyle Smith All that ^30 Sterling 
 a year which the said Sir Percy Smith his Father is bound half Yearly 
 to pay me during his Father's Life and for one whole year next after 
 his said Father's Decease. ITEM I give and bequeath unto my Niece 
 Mrs. Catherine Supple of Aghaddah my White Silver Salt and Cover 
 unguilt wch. stands upon four pillars to be kept as a Memorial of me 
 her deceased Uncle who loved her dearly. ITEM to my dearly hond. 
 Lord the Lord Primate of Ireland, I do appoint my Executors 
 presently after my decease to deliver my best Jewell called Walter 
 Raleigh's Stone, for his Lordship to have wear and make use of during 
 his Life, and at his Decease to see it safely delivered up to my Son 
 and Heir, and to his Lordship also I give my own Bible. ITEM. I 
 bequeath my Six Suits of new Cloaths (excepting my Tawney wrought 
 Velvet Gown hereafter legated to ye Lord Ranelaigh) which I sent 
 with my Linnen out of England and which are in my Trunk at 
 Dublin to be equally Divided between my three younger Sons. ITEM 
 I Bequeath my new Scarlet Bed with all the appurtenances to my 
 Daughter Broghill. ITEM I Bequeath my Travelling Coach and 
 Furniture and Close Silver Chafen Dish to ye Lady Smith. ITEM I 
 bequeath my new Horse Litter lined with red wrought Velvet and ye 
 Furniture thereof to the Lord Chancellor as a Testimony of my good 
 
 2 I
 
 498 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 affection to him and that his proceedings about Cre Eustace doth not 
 Stick in me. ITEM I bequeath to my noble Lady and Cousin the 
 Ladv Ann Docwra all such Rents and Arrears of Rent as shall be due 
 to me out of the Lands and Tenements of Tib and Tom near 
 Hoggenbutt as shall be due unto me at ye time of my Decease from 
 Sir Phillip Percival Knt. who rents the same of me at 24. Sterling 
 per Annum. ITEM I give and bequeath to my dearly beloved 
 Daughter the Lady Joan Countess of Kildare All such Sum or Sums 
 of Money as at ye time of my decease shall be mine and remain in 
 ye Custody of my honoured Cousin the Lord Justice Parsons. ITEM 
 I will legate and bequeath unto my Daughter Dungarvan my Diamond 
 Ring which my mother at her death gave me, and I have wore it 56 
 years, praying her to wear it as a happy fortunate and lucky stone during 
 her life and to leave it to her Son. ITEM I give and bequeath to my 
 Virtuous and dearly beloved Daughter the Vicecountess Dowager of 
 Kinalmeakie (who I am infinitely grieved is by the untimely Death of 
 her husband separated from my Family) my Two Cream Silver Bowles, 
 my Six fruit Dishes, and one of my Silver Chamber Pots. ITEM I give 
 to my Son Francis his Wife, my double guilt Salt and Cover wch. 
 Stands upon four pillars with a Christial Globe in the Middle thereof. 
 ITEM I bequeath to my true and faithful Friend Sir Thomas Stafford 
 Knt. if he Survive me, my Diamond Hatband for which I paid him 
 ^200, but it is of far greater Value, which if my Son Francis Survive 
 him, I pray him to bestow it upon my said Son at his Death. ITEM 
 to ye Lord Bishop of Cloyne, I give the Richest pair of Gloves that I 
 have at my Death, and towards the new building Covering and 
 Garneshing the Chancell of ye Collegiate and parochiall Church of 
 Youghall, I give and bequeath a Debt of ^98 Sterling or thereabouts 
 which William now Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross, and Thomas 
 Frith Clk, owes me by Bond, hereby Authorising my Cousin Joshua 
 Boyle to Demand Receive or Recover the same and praying the said 
 Lord Bishop of Cloyne and the Mayor of Youghall for the time being, 
 to See that my said Cousin carefully dispose thereof to the Workmen 
 as the Work of the said Chancell goeth forward. ITEM I give the 
 great Spectacle Set in a frame of Silver to my Cousin Dean Boyle. 
 ITEM to my Noble Lord and Brother the Lord Viscount Ranelagh 
 I give my Tawney wrought Velvet Gown lined throughout with Plush 
 of the same Colour Trimmed with Lace and Buttons of Gold and Silk 
 Suitable. ITEM to my Noble Friend the Lord Estmond I give my 
 best foot Cloath which is embroidered with Gold and Silk with the
 
 APPENDIX III 499 
 
 Furniture thereunto belonging. ITEM to my Hond. Cousin the Lord 
 Justice Parsons I give and Bequeath my Sedan lined with Red wrought 
 Velvet and ye Furniture thereof, with my Black wrought Velvet 
 Gown lined with Plush and laced as ye Tawny Gown is, and Brace 
 of Bucks every Summer during his life to be taken out of my Park 
 and Sent to him yearly by my Son and Heir to Bellamount or Dublin 
 desiring him as he hath been my Cordial and Constant Friend so that 
 he would extend his Love and Care to my Son and Heir and all ye 
 rest of my Children and to his Uttermost defend them from wrong 
 and oppressions and above all things labour to keep them in Unity 
 amongst themselves and one to the other. ITEM to my Noble Friend 
 and Brother Sir Adam Loftus Knt. His Mat'ys Vice Treasurer I make 
 the like Suit and to him as a Dying Friend's Remembrance I give one 
 of my best Geldings or Horses, and my Damask Petronell and Case 
 wch is in Mr. Wallie's keeping. ITEM to my honest Cousin Sir 
 Garrett Lowther Knt. Lord Chief Justice of His Mat'ys Court of 
 Common Pleas I make ye like request to whom as a token of my love 
 I give ten pounds Sterling per Annum to be paid proportionably by 
 way of Annuity out of my four sons Estates during his Life, Praying 
 him to be to my Children as he has been to me a faith full Councillor 
 and firm Friend. ITEM to my Brother in Law Sir William Fenton 
 Knt. I make ye like request and to him I Give my ash coloured 
 wrought Velvet Gown lined throughout with Plush laced and Buttoned 
 with Laces and Buttons of Gold and Silver. ITEM, to my worthy 
 Friend Sir James Wear Knt. I give and bequeath my Standish now 
 here in Youghall. ITEM to my worthy Friend Sir James Wear and 
 Sir Phillip Percival Knts. I bequeath to each of them a Gelding of my 
 own Breed. ITEM to Sir John Brown Knt. I give my best Sword and 
 Belt and a pair of Silver Spurrs and to His Lady my Niece I bequeath 
 my warming Pan of Silver and to her sister Mrs. Mary Cole my 
 Silver Sugar Box. ITEM to my Nephew Sir Piercy Smith I give my 
 new Cloak Suite and Cassock of Hair Coloured Figured Satten Laced 
 with Gold Lace with the Garters and Stockings suitable and to Each 
 of his Daughters four Cows a piece which are in my park to bring 
 them into Stock to exercise their good House wifery, and to my said 
 Nephew Sir Piercy Smith and my Nephew Roger Power I give Eight 
 of (R. Corke) my Studd mares to be equally Divided betwixt them. 
 ITEM to my Noble and worthy friend George Courtney Esq : I 
 bequeath my Book of the History of King Henry the Seventh. ITEM 
 to my Dear Brother-in-Law Sir Richard Smith Knt. I bequeath my
 
 500 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Ash Coloured Wrought Velvet Cloak lined with Plush with the Suite 
 
 Stockings and Garters answerable thereunto, and my Black Velvet Coat 
 
 lined with Martin's Fur. ITEM to my Cousin Joshua Boyle I give my 
 
 Black Stuff Taffety Cloak lined with Plush with the Suite, Stockings 
 
 and Garters and Roses suitable. ITEM to Captain Strongman I give my 
 
 new suit of Cloath Rash of Marble Colour Laced with Gold Lace with 
 
 Silk Stockings Garters Roses and all things Suitable. ITEM to Captain 
 
 Richard Jolliffe I give my Stuff Cloak Suite Stockings Garters and 
 
 Roses Suitable wch. are edged with Gold Lace. ITEM to Mr. Jno. 
 
 Hunt I bequeath my new Cloath of Gold Doublett which I never 
 
 wore and ye points to ye same belonging. ITEM to my Trusty Friend 
 
 Mr. John Wally I appoint my Son and Heir to give 20 Sterling a 
 
 year and his own and his Man's Diet and Chamber in my House and 
 
 the feeding of Two Gelding, for so long time as he shall live there 
 
 with him and be pleased to continue my said Son and Heirs Receiver 
 
 of his Rents and Revenues, and my three younger Sons Receiver and 
 
 Auditor, and continue carefull in upholding of my Ironworks wherein 
 
 he is able and best Experienced having been lately Joint Farmer of 
 
 them with Adam Wering at ye Rent of ^650 Sterling per Annum, 
 
 And to him I give my Best Black Sattin Cloak lined with Plush and 
 
 the Sattin Suite, Stockings, Garters and Roses, Answerable thereunto, 
 
 to which are here in Youghall, praying him as I have ever reposed 
 
 great Trust and Confidence in him and found him to my best 
 
 Observations just and faithfull in all my Affairs and Accounts so that 
 
 he will continue .the like Care Faith and Trust to all my Sons and 
 
 be a just and faithfull Accountant for and unto them as he will answer 
 
 the contrary at the Day of Judgment when the Secrets of all Hearts 
 
 shall be discovered. And to him I do likewise and forgive the Statute 
 
 Staple which he hath Entered into to pay me ^500 which I ordain 
 
 my Executor freely to deliver up and release unto him. ITEM my 
 
 Will is that my old Servant John Jackson shall sit Rent free for his 
 
 House and Land in Lismore during his own Life. ITEM It is my 
 
 Will that the Widow of James Forster my antient Servant shall from 
 
 the time of my Decease untill her Death enjoy her Houses and Land 
 
 Rent free. ITEM I give to my Servant Thomas Badnege Esq : the 
 
 20 Sterling a Year I now allow him to be taken out of the Rents 
 
 of Ballyhubbert during his Life. ITEM to my Servant William 
 
 Chettle I give Twenty Pounds Sterling a Year during his Life to 
 
 be paid him out of the Rents of Poulmore in the Barony of Inchequin 
 
 and also a debt of 195 Sterling which Arthur Freake and Lieut.
 
 APPENDIX III 
 
 5 01 
 
 James Finch do owe me by their Bond by me assigned and given up 
 the said William Chettle as also all other my Wearing Linnen and 
 Apparell which I shall have at my Death and is not disposed of in 
 this my last Will and Testament And I do desire my Son Robert 
 that in regard of the Fidelity and Trust that I have found in the said 
 William Chettle (who waited upon me in my Chamber and Carried 
 my Purse for above 26 years) that he will entertain him into his 
 Service in the same Place and Condition wherein he hath so long 
 served me, whom I hereby seriously commend to my said son for 
 a faithfull true and honest Servant that will Carry his Purse and keep 
 his Accounts faithfully and Justly as he hath done mine. ITEM I give 
 to my Stewart Henry Smithwick a Debt of 100 Sterling which 
 I lent Gratis in ready money to Thomas Lord Viscount Baltinglass 
 for which I have his Bond and his Son's the now Lord Viscount, to 
 repay the same unto me, which Bond it is my Will shall be delivered 
 up unto my said Stewart whereby he may recover and receive the same 
 and all the Proceed due thereon in lieu of his Service, ITEM I give 
 to my Servant Abraham Prust one of my young Geldings and 10 in 
 money. ITEM I give to my Servant Charles Hooker 10 in Money 
 and a Debt of ^382, which his Father George Hooker was duly owing 
 unto me having received it from me and to my Use in ready Money. 
 ITEM I give to my Servant Thomas Pomfret a good Gelding of my own 
 Breed and forgive him all the Rents and Arrears he owes me being 
 about j6o Sterling. ITEM I give to my Servant John Eddowe 10 
 Sterling. ITEM to my Servant Thomas Langdale 10 Sterling. ITEM 
 I give and bequeath to my Servant John Forster ^5 Sterling which is 
 Due unto me by George Babies Bill and do appoint the said Bond to 
 be delivered up unto him. ITEM to my Servant Lionl. Beecher I give 
 ^10 Sterling. ITEM to Richard Deyes I forgive all the Rent he owes 
 me. ITEM it is my Will and I do hereby desire my Son and Heir that 
 for those my Servants aforenamed as also such other of my Servants as 
 shall be in my service at the time of my Decease that he receive so 
 many of them and use them well as he shall think fit and will be 
 willing to continue with him, and for such of them as he shall desire 
 to continue his Followers and Dependants, and yet shall otherwise 
 dispose of themselves, that he do them all the good he reasonably may 
 and Continue and use them well and kindly, not suffering any of them 
 to depart from him without some token of his own Liberality and my 
 Love towards them, and therein not forget my old Servant David 
 Gibbon but to let him Enjoy the Farm I have bestowed upon him
 
 502 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 with his good favour and Countenance, for he is true and honest, and 
 him also I give ^10 in money to help to Stock his Farm withall, and 
 that he be a favourable and friendly landlord to all his English Tennants 
 and not to take any advantage or Forfeiture of any of the Leases I 
 have made or shall make for non-Payment of the Rent at the Precise 
 Day or Place or upon any Conditions or Provisoes contained in their 
 Leases, except they shall prove false, Treacherous, unthankfull, 
 injurious or highly abusive unto him, but to be comfortable, for- 
 bearing, encouraging and helpfull unto such as are honestly inclined 
 and well affected unto him as I ever was and desire him to be in all 
 their just Occasions whereby they may find the less Loss of me, by 
 being supplyed with his Favour Countenance and Goodness towards 
 them. ITEM I give to Captain Croker my brass Musket with the 
 Firelock or Shaphance. ITEM I give to Francis Foulke Esq : and 
 Roger Carew to each of them a Musqet with Firelock or Shaphance 
 to be taken out of my Armoury as poor Token of my Love to them. 
 ITEM I give to my honest Servants Mr. Thomas Moore and Mr. 
 Henry Raffington to the first of them my Book called Purchas 
 Pilgrimage and to the other my Book called Pacata Hibernia, and to 
 every person Man and Woman to whom I have bequeathed my 
 Remembrance of my Affection It is my Will that the Men shall have 
 Blacks for Mourning Cloaks and the Women Blacks for Mourning 
 Gowns and to each of my Servants to whom I have given Legacies 
 Cloth and black Stuff to make them mourning Suits of. ITEM I give 
 to the poor of the Parish of Youghall Ten Pounds Sterling, to the 
 Poor of the Parish of Lismore 10 Sterling, to the Poor of the Parish 
 of Tallogh and Talloghbridge ^10 Sterling, to the Poor of Bandon- 
 bridge and Cool Fadagh 10 Sterling and to the Poor of Cloghin- 
 kellty jCio Sterling. Moreover I do entreat and intrust Mr. John 
 Wallie to be a faithfull and true Receiver and Auditor of all my Rents 
 Revenues and Payments which Concern each of my Three younger 
 Sons in Particular and to keep three perfect half Yearly distinct books 
 and Accounts of each of my said three younger Sons Rents, Receipts 
 and Disbursements during his Employment in that Trust. Moreover 
 I charge every one of my said Sons upon my Blessing not to make the 
 least Benefit or Profit of any Advowson or Presentation within their 
 several Possessions but as they respectively shall fall Void or in any of 
 their Gifts, that they Pick out and make Choice of Learned and 
 Religious Ministers and Preachers of good Life and Doctrine and 
 bestow them freely upon them tying them to Personal Residence, And
 
 APPENDIX III 503 
 
 it is my Will that upon the Vicarage of Mochell with the Members 
 thereof which was lately worth 200 Marks per Annum (shall next fall 
 void by the death of Dr. Goodwin the now Incumbent or otherwise) 
 whom after the Death of my present Presentee Mr. John Lancaster I 
 freely without Request presented thereunto (that my Son and Heir 
 present thereunto) Mr. William Snell my Chaplain Whom I know to 
 be a Learned, Religious and well deserving man and that they nor 
 Either of them give any Advowson or Presentation to any Man till 
 they respectively fall void and then freely to Present such Able, 
 Learned sufficient Men unto them for Life, Learning and Conversa- 
 tion as are before mentioned. ALL the Debts that I know I owe the 
 World are as follows : To Charles Rich Esq : my Noble Son in Law 
 as the Remainder of the ^7000 as his Lady my Daughter's Marriage 
 Portion which is yet unpaid the sum of ^3333. 6. 8d. Sterling or near 
 thereabouts, To Sir John Appesley and Sir Thomas Fotherly Knts. 
 and Gabriel Appesly Esq : for the Remainder of the ^10350 Sterling 
 for the Purchase of my Manner of Marston Bygod in Somersetshire 
 2000 Sterling, to an Irish Merchant wherewith I have acquainted 
 my said Son and Heir ,350 Sterling. And other Debts I do not know 
 that for myself I owe any, For the Payment of which ^2000 to Sir 
 John Appesley and Sir Thomas Fotherly Knts. and Gabriel Appesly 
 Esq : I am confident that there will be money sufficient in my Servant 
 William Chettle's Hands with the Proceed of such Barr Iron as I have in 
 the Store House in Youghall and in Money remaining in the Hands 
 of Mr. Smith of Torrington for Iron he sold for me and joo Tons of 
 Sow Iron for which George Hellyar of Bristol is to Pay me ^500 
 when I send it over unto him which Moneys in Cash and Iron will 
 fully Discharge those 2000 and the better to enable my Executor to 
 Discharge my said Debt owing to Charles Rich I did lend out these 
 several Sums of Money following : Vizt. To my Son in Law Sir 
 Arthur Loftus Knt. and his Uncle Nicholas Loftus Esq : ^500 in 
 ready money Gratis upon their Bond, and to the said Sir Arthur other 
 ^250 upon his own Security, To the Earl of Kildare, for which the 
 Rents of the Manners of Croonac and Adare in the County of 
 Limerick are secured unto me, j6oo Sterling, To the Lord Viscount 
 Ranelagh which I lent him in ready Money upon his Bond ^500 
 Sterling, To Sir William Hull f r which I have his Recognizance 
 ^450 Sterling, Lieut. Walter Croker owes me ^500 Sterling for 
 which I have a Judgement in the Exchequer against his Body, Goods 
 and Lands. The Earl of Roscomon owes me upon his Bond perfected
 
 5 o 4 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 to Arthur Champion of Dublin Merchant 200 Sterling which in 
 ready money I paid for him to my Cousin Birtwith Five Years For- 
 bearance, my Servant Thomas Badnedge Esq : owes me ^200 which 
 I lent him in ready money Gratis, Mr. Robert Mead owes me for 
 Ready Money I disbursed for him in England, for which Sir Piercy 
 Smith his Son in Law stands Engaged 200 Sterling, Edmund Fitz 
 Gerrald of Ballymalow owes me 100 Sterling which I lent him in 
 ready Money in England and took up upon use for him in London 
 and akho' these moneys or the greatest part of them were by me lent 
 Gratis to be Called in when my Daughter Mary should be married 
 and were by me laid aside for that Purpose from the rest of my 
 Personal Estate and that they are all very good and separable Debts 
 and would have been duly repaid me if this General Insurrection had 
 not happened, to answer (R. Corke) my Payment to Charles Rich, 
 Yet I charge my Executors not to defer ye Payment of my aforesaid 
 Debt due to Charles Rich until! he hath got in those several sums but 
 to make him the speediest satisfaction that with any conveniency may 
 and afterwards to get in those debts to repay himself withall and all 
 other my Moneys Goods and Chattels, Iron Works, Steel Works and 
 Stocks not formerly hereby Bequeathed nor hereby or otherwise by me 
 Given, Conveyed or Disposed of, I give and bequeath to my said Son 
 and Heir Sir Richard Boyle Knt. Lord Daungarvan, Lord Viscount 
 Kinalmeakie, whom I do hereby nominate, Constitute, Make and 
 Ordain my Sole and only Executor of this my Last Will and Testa- 
 ment and I do also make and ordain Sir William Parsons Knt. and 
 Bart, one of the Lords Chief Justices of this Kingdom, Sir William 
 Fenton, Knt. Sir Garret Lowther, Knt. Lord Chief Justice of the 
 Common Pleas and Joshua Boyle Esq : to be Overseers of the same, 
 whom I do seriously entreat to bestow their faithfull Pains and Care 
 in Endeavouring and Causing this my last Will and Testament to be 
 realy and punctually observed and performed in all Points so as no 
 differences nor Contentions may Grow and Arise betwixt my said Son 
 and Heir and the rest of my younger Sons or amongst or betwixt any 
 of them (which God forbid) but that without Suit or Misconstructions 
 of my Plain and Honest Intent and true Meaning herein Expressed 
 ALL Differences may be presently and Brotherlike ended composed 
 and reconsiled by my said Overseers according to my true Meaning 
 and Intent, even as they desire to have their Own Wills accomplished 
 after their Deaths, Moreover I do upon my Blessing Charge and 
 Command not only my said Son and Heir but also all and every of my
 
 APPENDIX III 
 
 55 
 
 three younger Sons, Roger Lord Baron of Broghill, Francis and Robert 
 Boyle, and all my Daughters, to be most zealous and Constant in that 
 undoubted true Protestant Religion now possessed and Established in 
 the Churches of England and Ireland in which they have been by 
 myself and their Worthy Religious deceased Mother season'd trained 
 up and bred, and that they and Each of them breed up their Children 
 in the same true Protestant Religion and that my said three Younger 
 Sons be and Continue observant respective kind and Loving unto their 
 Eldest Brother and that He will be helping Comfortable and assistant 
 unto them and they Lodged and Entertained by and with him in his 
 House in Dublin when their several Occasions draw them thither and 
 he or his Heir be there Resident and that all his younger Brethren do 
 hearken unto incline and follow all such good Council and Advices as 
 he and my said Overseers or any of them from time to time shall give 
 unto them. IN WITNESS thereof and that this is my last Will and 
 Testament and that I do hereby revoke disannull and declare all former 
 and other Wills and Testaments by me heretofore made to be Void 
 and this only to take Effect and be in force according to the Words 
 Sense and true Meaning herein I have here unto put my Hand and 
 Seal this 24th Day of November Anno Domini 1642 and in the i8th 
 Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord Charles by the Grace of 
 God King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the 
 Faith, &c., 1642, R. Corke. Being Present when the before named 
 Richard Earl of Corke signed sealed, published and Declared this to be 
 His last Will and Testament and did revoke, disanull and declare all 
 former Wills and Testaments by him made or conceived to be utterly 
 Void and of none Effect and this His last Will and Testament Con- 
 sisting of Seven Skins of Parchment whereof every Skin is signed 
 below with his own hand to be only in force We whose Names are 
 Underwritten GEORGE CLOYNE, RICHARD DEANE, EDW. ADAMS, 
 JOSHUA BOYLE, THOMAS LANGDALE.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ABBEYLEIX, 198. 
 Abbeys, dissolved, 479. 
 Abbeys 
 
 Castle Lyons, 145, 480, 486. 
 
 Fermoy, 480. 
 
 Gill, 139, 460, 469. 
 
 Glascarrick, 490. 
 
 Killeagh, 482. 
 
 Mellifont, 151. 
 
 St. Domenic's, 58. 
 
 St. Francis, 474. 
 
 St. Mary's, 33, 179. 
 
 St. Molina's, 79, 462. 
 
 South Abbey, 384. 
 
 Timoleague, 74. 
 
 Tracton, 164. 
 
 Abbot or Abbott, Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, 89, 145, 162. 
 Abercorn, Master of, 189. 
 Adair, Bishop of Waterford (see Killala). 
 Adams, Edward, 505. 
 Aldersie, Mr., 226. 
 Aldworth, Sir Richard, 56, 71-72, 98, 106, 
 
 183. 
 
 Allen, cousin John, 496. 
 Almshouses (see Bandon, Lismore, 
 
 Youghal). 
 Almsmen, 194. 
 Amesbury, 161. 
 Amsterdam, trade with, 102. 
 Angier, Lord, 217. 
 Anketill, John, 482. 
 Annandale, Lord, 190. 
 Anne of Denmark, Queen, 90, 105. 
 Annesley, Sir Francis (see Mountnorris). 
 
 or Apsley (see Apsley). 
 
 George, 58. 
 
 Annory, near Bideford, 336. 
 Anstice, Matthias, 411. 
 Antrim, Earl of, 176, 398. 
 
 Appleby, 361. 
 
 Appleyard, Sergeant - Major, defending 
 
 Youghal, 392. 
 Apsley, Sir Allen, 54, no, 119. 
 
 cousin, 54. 
 
 estates, 11-15. 
 
 Joan, wife of Richard Boyle, 11-12, 
 
 41 ; estates of, 458. 
 
 said to be a suicide, II. 
 
 Archdale, Mervyn, 460. 
 Ardmore, 55, 79, 101, 270. 
 Armada, Spanish, I. 
 Arms 
 
 Armour, 330. 
 
 Brass Basilique, 436. 
 
 Brass Minion, 118-119. 
 
 Brass Musket with snaphaunce, 502. 
 
 Brass piece, 465. 
 
 Brass siege piece, 424. 
 
 Brown Bill, 383. 
 
 Damask petronell, 499. 
 
 Drums, 419. 
 
 Iron guns, 436, 465. 
 
 Iron ordinance, 103, 393. 
 
 Lazard muskets, 382. 
 
 Matchlocks, 382. 
 
 Minion shot, 401. 
 
 Pikes, 383. 
 
 Powder and shot, 401. 
 
 Swords, 419. 
 
 Armstrong, Archie, no, 162. 
 Army in Ireland, 25, no, 183, 201, 237, 
 
 370, 377, 401, 436. 
 Arscott, Captain, 336. 
 Arundel, Earl of, 164. 
 Askeating Castle, 121-122, 246, 424, 458, 
 
 469. 
 
 Athlone Castle, 158. 
 Atkins, Augustine, 492-493. 
 Audley, Lord, 85. 
 
 Awney, Preceptory or Hospital of, II, 
 289. 
 
 509
 
 510 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 B 
 
 BACK LANE, Dublin, 189-190. 
 Bacon, Anthony, 13. 
 
 Francis Lord, 164, 202. 
 
 Badminton, 297. 
 
 Badnedge, Thomas, 153, 275-277, 298-299, 
 
 Bagnal, Marshal, 13. 
 
 Ball, Mr., 6 1, 109. 
 
 Ballyanchor Castle, 398. 
 
 Ballycrynnin, 113, 118. 
 
 Bally goran, 109. 
 
 Ballymodan, 44 ., 457. 
 
 Ballynetra, 8, 109. 
 
 Baltimore, 24, 115, 117, 237, 246. 
 
 Bandon 
 
 Almshouses, 458, 492. 
 
 Bridge, 44, 492. 
 
 Building, 43-44, 4S7-45 8 - 
 
 Churches, 44, 458. 
 
 Defence of, 382, 391, 419, 428. 
 
 Displeasure of Boyle, 458. 
 
 Forests, 101. 
 
 Fortifications, 14, 391-392, 418, 458. 
 
 Free school, 458, 492. 
 
 Gates, Cork, 469 ; Francis, 469 ; 
 Lewis, 469, 474. 
 
 Importance of town to Munster, 382, 
 458 . 
 
 Incorporated, 85. 
 
 Mutiny, 422. 
 
 Poor, legacy to, 502. 
 
 Preacher at, 79. 
 
 Protestant feeling, 45. 
 
 Provost of, 75, 492. 
 
 Recklessness of townsmen, 409. 
 
 Restlessness of young men, 410. 
 
 River, 43, 101. 
 
 Subsidy demanded, 266. 
 
 Trainbands, 55. 
 
 Wiseman, W., member for, 244. 
 Bannister, Peregrine, 492. 
 Bantry, 43, 115. 
 Barbary, 117. 
 Barber, Will, 364. 
 Bards, Irish, 109. 
 Barnstaple, 106. 
 Barret's Country, 72. 
 Barry, David, 144. 
 
 Lord (see Barrymore). 
 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Poer or Power, m. 
 
 2nd P. Sherlock, 144-147, 180. 
 
 Barry, Lady Ellinor, 150, 233, 330, 435, 
 
 488-489. 
 Ellis, wife of R. Bennet, 42. 
 
 Garret, 380. 
 
 Jack, of Liscarrol, 449. 
 
 James, 150, 435, 489. 
 James Fitzredmond, 482. 
 
 Lady Katie, 150, 330, 435, 488-489. 
 
 Lord, 85. 
 
 Mr., 145. 
 
 the M'Adam, 106. 
 
 Thomas Fitzjames, 476. 
 
 Barrymore, Baron,, vi. 
 
 1st Countess of (see Alice Boyle). 
 
 2nd Countess of, 449-450. 
 
 David Fitzdavid, 1st Earl of, 51, 57, 
 
 73, 377, 474-476, 481-482. Character 
 of, 148-149. 
 
 Early life, 144. 
 
 Education, 145, 146. 
 
 Wardship, 145-147. 
 
 Marriage, 147-148. 
 
 Buys title of Earl, 150. 
 
 Escorts Sara Boyle to Mellifont, 152. 
 
 At Lord Kildare's wedding, 217. 
 
 Irritates Lord Cork, 221. 
 
 Owns wolf-hounds, 230. 
 
 Visits Stalbridge, 233. 
 
 London, 293. 
 
 Raises regiment, 331-332. 
 
 Lectures Mary Boyle, 346. 
 
 Begs money for military expenses, 
 
 356-357- 
 
 Scorns Irish offers, 380. 
 
 Appeals to Lord Cork for help, 381. 
 
 Joins St. Leger's army, 390. 
 
 Persuades Lord Cork to assist St. 
 Leger, 399. 
 
 Joint Governor of Munster, 412-413. 
 
 Distrust of Inchiquin, 414. 
 
 Hangs rebels, 420. 
 
 Death, 426-427. 
 
 Earl of, 1 60. 
 
 Richard, 2nd Earl of, 150-151, 427, 
 
 429, 449-450, 476-479- 
 Barryscourt, 145, 149, 175-176. 
 Barsie or Bardsley, goldsmith, 49, 119, 
 
 162, 259. 
 Barter, 108-109. 
 Basing, 161. 
 Bates, Mrs. Mary, 76. 
 Bath, city of, 89, 96, 233, 297.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Bath, Earl of, 376. 
 
 stone, 105. 
 
 Baxter, Warden of Youghal College, 39, 40. 
 Bay line, Mr., 490. 
 Beaumaris, 175. 
 Beaumont family, 33. 
 
 Lady, 157. 
 
 Lord, of Coleorton, 156-157. 
 
 Sapcot, 156. 
 
 Becher, 44 n. 
 
 Lyon (see Servants). 
 
 Bedford, Earl of, 165, 297. 
 Beecher or Becher family, 136. 
 
 Henry, 457 
 
 Sir William, 180, 201, 244, 402. 
 
 Beggars, 81, 193-194. 
 
 Beleek Castle, 352-353. 
 
 Bellamount, 499. 
 
 Benn't or Corpus Christi College, 3, 4. 
 
 Bennet, Richard, 42. 
 
 Berehaven, 115, 375. 
 
 Berkshire, Earl of, 375. 
 
 Bernard, Sir J., 457. 
 
 Bet ham MSS., xi. 
 
 Bewdley, 103. 
 
 Bewly, 270. 
 
 Bingham, Sir R., 9. 
 
 Binvile, Humphry de, 3 . 
 
 Bird, Walter, Sovereign of Clonakilty, 80. 
 
 Birtwith, cousin, 504. 
 
 Blacknoll, Mrs. (Eliz. Brady), 103-104. 
 
 Richard, 103-104, 165, 168. 
 
 Blackwater River, 39, 42, 83. 
 
 Blagge, Margaret (Mrs. Godolphin), 453. 
 
 Blasket Islands, 88, 458. 
 
 Blennerhasset, Sir John, 151. 
 
 Bodlagh, steward at Maynooth, 221. 
 
 Bolton, Sir Richard, 472. 
 
 Books 
 
 Amadis de Gaul, 324. 
 
 Arcadia, 345. 
 
 Bible, 304, 497. 
 
 MSS., 165. 
 
 French Verbs, 60. 
 
 History of King Henry vil., 499. 
 
 Pacata Hibernia, xi, 18, 502. 
 
 Practice of Piety, 304. 
 
 Purchas' Pilgrimage, 502. 
 
 Translation of New Testament into 
 
 Irish, 79, 80. 
 Bor, Mr., 139. 
 Boucher, Sir Henry, 75. 
 
 Bourke, Lord, 390. 
 
 Boyle, Arms and Crest, 6, 41, 83, 127, 
 
 458, 492, 495. 
 Alice, Countess of Barrymore, 51, 
 
 56, 58, I44-I4S, 147-iSi, 221, 258, 289, 
 
 292, 297, 373, 380, 431, 449, 450, 474- 
 
 475, 486, 497. 
 
 Anne, wife of John Boyle, 69. 
 
 Barbara, wife of Sir J. Browne, 1 1 . , 
 
 59, 69, 289. 
 
 Catherine Verge, 261. 
 
 Charles, 3rd Earl of Cork, 261, 344, 
 
 485. 
 Dorothy, Lady Loftus, 51, 159, 222, 
 
 384-385. 
 
 Edward, 67, 69, 489. 
 
 Elizabeth, m. R. Smyth, 8, 42, 54, 69. 
 
 m. Edmund Spenser, R. Seeker- 
 stone, and Sir R. Tynte, 8, 13, 54, 138, 
 299. 
 
 Elizabeth Lucy, m. Bishop John 
 
 Boyle and Sir W. Hull, 67, 69. 
 
 Frances, 261. 
 
 Francis, 1st Earl of Shannon 
 
 Eton life, 308-327. 
 
 ' Sweet spirited,' 309, 320. 
 
 Love of outdoor sports, 320. 
 
 Holidays at Lewes, 323. 
 
 Danger from falling house, 325. 
 
 Backs a bill, 327. 
 
 Removed to Mr. Douch's teaching, 327. 
 
 Kept from Scots war by illness, 328. 
 
 Marriage, 333'336, 34. 
 
 Sent to Geneva, 340. 
 
 Plans for rejoining his wife, 341-342. 
 
 Returns to Ireland, 403. 
 
 Gallantry at Liscarrol, 425. 
 
 Applies for troop of horse, 427-432. 
 
 Takes Cloghleigh, 436. 
 
 Letters to Robert, 448. 
 
 Carries invitation to Charles II., 453. 
 
 Earl of Shannon, 451. 
 
 Later life, 453, 469, 489. 
 
 Geoffrey, 52, 68. 
 
 Sir George, 103, 140, 497. 
 
 Hugh, 3 n. 
 
 Joan, m. George, Earl of Kildare, 51, 
 
 129, 152, 161, 216-217, 219-220, 223, 
 228, 248, 291, 384-385, 404, 498. 
 
 Joan (see Naylor). 
 
 John, Bishop of Cork, Cloyne, and 
 
 Ross, 3, 4, 41, 59, 60, 67, 106,171 ., 471.
 
 5 12 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Boyle, John, 69, 489. 
 Joseph, 108. 
 
 -Joshua, 371, 430, 494-495. 498, 500, 
 
 504. 
 Katherine, Countess of Cork (see 
 
 Fenton). 
 m. Arthur Jones, 2nd Viscount 
 
 Ranelagh, 51, 140, 156-158, 165, 213, 
 
 233-234, 299, 308, 337-342, 364, 446- 
 
 448, 454. 
 . W. Tynte, 55, 69, 234, 299, 
 
 336, 400, 488-489. 
 
 Lettice, m. George Goring, 51, 56, 
 156, 160, 171, 222-233, 291, 301, 323- 
 324, 338, 360-361, 404, 433. 
 
 Lewis, Viscount Kinalmeaky 
 
 Educated atTrinityCollege,Dublin,3o8. 
 
 Grand tour, 299-301. 
 
 First Scots war, 330. 
 
 In London, 337, 342. 
 
 Wedding, 343. 
 
 Letters from second Scots war, 357-360. 
 
 Return to Ireland, 373-374. 
 
 Christmas at Youghal, 386. 
 
 Defence of Bandon, 408-411. 
 
 Takes Coolmaine and Kilbrittan, 410- 
 
 411. 
 
 Killed at Liscarrol, 425. 
 Burial, 426. 
 
 - Margaret, 52, 155, 171, 204, 259, 
 260, 291-292. 
 
 Mary, m. S. Crow, 69, 224, 289. 
 m. Pierce Power, 8, 42, 69. 
 
 - m. Charles Rich, 4th Earl of 
 
 Warwick, 52, 160, 222, 233, 289, 292, 
 
 296, 334, 341, 345-349, 363, 453-454, 
 
 503-504- 
 Michael, Dean of Cloyne, Bishop of 
 
 Cork, Archbishop of Dublin and Armagh, 
 
 371, 498. 
 Dean of Lismore, Bishop of 
 
 Waterford, 148, 267-270. 
 father of Sir George Boyle, and 
 
 Bishops of Waterford and Cork, 268. 
 son of Joshua, 384, 490. 
 
 Richard, 1st Earl of Cork 
 
 Historical sequence of career. 
 Birth and education at Canterbury 
 
 and Cambridge, xii, 3, 4. 
 Enters Middle Temple; earns his 
 
 living as clerk, 4. 
 
 Boyle, Richard, ist Earl of Cork : His- 
 torical sequence of career continued 
 Arrives in Ireland, i, 2, 4. 
 Becomes deputy to Excheator General, 
 
 7- 
 Accused of forgery, and imprisoned 
 
 under various charges, 8, 9, 10. 
 Marriage, II. 
 Imprisoned again, 12. 
 Escapes to England from Munster 
 
 rebellion, 12. 
 Introduced to Essex, 13. 
 Imprisoned, and appeals to Queen 
 
 Elizabeth, 14, 15. 
 Made Clerk to the Munster Council 
 
 and returns to Ireland, 16-18. 
 Carries news of the victory of Kinsale 
 
 to Elizabeth, 27, 28. 
 Second mission to England, 29. 
 Buys Ralegh's Munster estates, 31, 38, 
 
 455- 
 
 Second marriage, 33. 
 Settles at Youghal, 47. 
 Member of Parliament of Ireland for 
 
 Lismore, 85. 
 
 Commanded to Court by James I., 88. 
 Privy Councillor for Ireland, 52, 91. 
 Created Baron of Youghal andGovernor 
 
 of Lough Foil, 92. 
 Created Viscount Dungarvan and Earl 
 
 of Cork, 96. 
 
 Entertains Ralegh on Guiana Expedi- 
 tion, 123. 
 
 Visit to England with his family, 161. 
 Lawsuits, and admitted Bencher of 
 
 Middle Temple, 165-169. 
 Lord Justice of Ireland, 171. 
 Wrangles with his fellow Lord Justice, 
 
 178-179, 240, 241. 
 Lord Treasurer of Ireland, 189, 
 Reproved by Wentworth, 199. 
 Lady Cork's death and funeral, 205. 
 Marriages of his children, 147-148, 
 
 216-217, 256. 
 Struggle with Wentworth, 210-214, 
 
 245-247, 262-287. 
 Paralytic stroke, 279. 
 Retires to Stalbridge, 292. 
 Gracious reception by Charles I., 293. 
 Equips sons for first Scotch war, 329- 
 
 330. 
 Winter at the Savoy, London, 337.
 
 INDEX 
 
 5*3 
 
 Boyle, Richard, 1st Earl of Cork : His- 
 torical sequence of career continued 
 Fears for his Connaught estates, 354-5. 
 Made Privy Councillorfor England, 355. 
 Sends ^1000 to the king for second 
 - Scotch war, 357. 
 Spends the winter in London with his 
 
 daughter Goring, 362-363. 
 Permitted to sit in Long Parliament, 
 
 362. 
 Vindicates himself at Strafford's trial, 
 
 367. 
 
 Returns to Ireland, visiting Stalbridge 
 
 and Marston, 374-375. 
 Receives news of Irish rebellion, 376- 
 
 377. 
 Fortifies Lismore and Youghal, 382, 
 
 390, 418, 437. 
 Supplies funds for war, 399, 417-419, 
 
 436-437. 
 
 Poverty, 341-342. 
 
 Appeal to Speaker of Long Parlia- 
 ment, 415-423. 
 
 Death and epitaph, 441. 
 
 Personal characteristics. 
 
 Administration of justice, 70-73, 193- 
 
 194. 
 Affection for family, 52, 65-66, 137- 
 
 138, 144, 148. 
 Affection for wife, 33, 205. 
 Ambitions, vii, 70. 
 Benevolence, 43, 81, 107, no, in, 
 
 "2, 375, 383-384. 
 Character, ix. 
 
 Churchmanship,43, 162,217, 266-267. 
 Clergy, treatment of, ix, 78-79. 
 Commerce, capacity for, 100-106. 
 Education, views on, 78, 306, 478. 
 Efficiency in public service, vii. 
 Finance, private, 109, 180, 226-229, 
 
 303, 340; public, 183-185, 188, 203. 
 Forbearance, 75-76. 
 Free trade principles, 106. 
 Government ideals, 181. 
 Household discipline, 302. 
 Ill-health, 70, 90, 289. 
 Industries, fostering of (see Ireland, 
 
 Industries). 
 Lawsuits, obstinacy in conducting, 
 
 x, 165-170, 173, 241-242. 
 Loans to Crown, no, 172, 272-273. 
 
 Boyle, Richard, ist Earl of Cork : Personal 
 characteristics continued 
 
 Loyalty,32,i74, 283,390,394, 415, 439. 
 Matchmaking, taste for, 128-129, 299. 
 Religious feelings, x, 16, 96, 205, 
 
 287, 441, 471. 
 
 Religious intolerance, viii, 188-192. 
 Religious toleration, 136. 
 Servants, kindness to, v, 129-130, 
 
 500-501. 
 Social formalities, carelessness of, 91, 
 
 93- 
 
 Social formalities, pleasure in, 208. 
 
 Social views, ix, 181. 
 
 Splendour, love of, 47, 163, 294. 
 
 Sport, love of, 238. 
 
 Stock and horse-breeding, 131-133. 
 
 Tenants, care of, 73-77, 502. 
 
 Tudor traditions, viii, 58. 
 
 Unforgiving, 174, 247, 367-368. 
 Boyle, Richard, Estates, 33, 173, 240, 
 290-291, 336, 350, and see App. n., in. 
 
 Church property held by Boyle, 33, 43, 
 58, 68, 79, 163-165, 270, 274 n. See 
 also Abbeys, Youghal, and App. 
 II., III. 
 
 Ralegh property bought by Boyle 
 (see Ralegh). 
 
 True Remembrances, xi, 52. 
 
 Viscount Dungarvan, 2nd Earl 
 
 of Cork, 51, 56, 96. 
 
 Knighted, 139. 
 
 Portrait painted, 152. 
 
 Marriage plans, 141. 
 
 Christ Church, Oxford, 161. 
 
 Marriage negotiations, 249-256. 
 
 Interview with Charles I., 250-251. 
 
 Letters, 249, 250-251, 254-255. 
 
 Journey to Flanders, 255. 
 
 Marriage, 256. 
 
 Endeavours to mediate between his 
 father and Strafford, 257, 280. 
 
 Raises forces for first Scots war, 229. 
 
 Letters from the army, 331. 
 
 Member for Appleby in Long Parlia- 
 ment, 361. 
 
 House in St. Martin's Lane, 365. 
 
 Witness at Strafford's trial, 367. 
 
 Returns to live at Youghal, 373. 
 
 Goes to England to beg for reinforce- 
 ments, 387. 
 
 Lives on his pay, 401. 
 
 2 K.
 
 5 i4 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Boyle, Richard (Viscount Dungarvan), and 
 Earl of Cork continued 
 Battle of Liscarrol, 424-426. 
 Inherits Bandon property and troops, 
 
 429. 
 
 Goes to England to canvass for presi- 
 dency, 430. 
 Brings back royal desires for a truce, 
 
 438. 
 
 Serves under Inchiquin, 443. 
 Succeeds to title, 443. 
 Notes from diary, 445. 
 Friendship with Henry Cromwell, 445. 
 Made Lord Clifford and Earl of 
 
 Burlington, 452. 
 Later life and prosperity, 452. 
 Legacies to (see Appendix in.). 
 Boyle, Richard, 4th Earl of Cork, 452. 
 
 cousin, 54, 108. 
 
 Dean of Lismore, Bishop of Cork, 
 
 and Archbishop of Tuam, 138, 269, 283. 
 
 of Maisemore, 7. 
 
 son of Joshua, 496. 
 
 Robert, 52. 
 
 Put out to nurse, 307. 
 
 Educated by the chaplain, 307. 
 
 Accidents, 83, 258, 325. 
 
 His father's favourite, 307. 
 
 Truthfulness, 307. 
 
 Eton, 249, 275, 300, 308. 
 
 Petted by head-master, 311. 
 
 Bad health, 324-325. 
 
 Removed to Mr. Douch's teaching, 
 
 327-328. 
 
 Goes to Geneva, 340. 
 Letters from, 405, 450. 
 Objects to becoming a soldier of 
 
 fortune, 403-405. 
 Returns to England, 447. 
 Refuses to be Provost of Eton, 449. 
 Later life, 448-450, 501. 
 
 Autobiography, xi, 306-307. 
 
 Roger, father of 1st Earl of Cork, 3, 
 
 171 n. 
 
 eldest son of Earl of Cork, 51. 
 
 Sent to England, 58. 
 To Deptford, 59. 
 Dress, 60. 
 Letter, 60. 
 Death, 161. 
 
 Epitaph and tomb, 63, 171. 
 the grocer, 137, 490. 
 
 Boyle, Roger, Baron Broghill and Earl of 
 Orrery, 52, 57. 
 
 Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, 
 
 308. 
 
 Grand tour, 299-301. 
 Scots war, 330. 
 Brings news of peace, 332. 
 London life, 342. 
 Duel, 344. 
 Marriage, 349-35- 
 To Egham with Lord Cork, 356. 
 Carries gold to the king, 357. 
 Returns to Ireland, 374-375. 
 Defence of Lismore, 391-393, 398-400. 
 Letters, 393, 395. 
 Redshard expedition, 395. 
 Detects forgery of Irish Commission, 
 
 397- 
 
 Applies for pay, 411. 
 
 Liscarrol, 424-425. 
 
 Petitions king to disavow Irish, 443. 
 
 Joint Commissioner for Munster, 431. 
 
 Stopped by Cromwell on his way 
 abroad, 444. 
 
 Returns to Ireland in Cromwell's 
 interest, 445. 
 
 Supports Richard Cromwell, 450. 
 
 Sends to Charles II., 451. 
 
 Earl of Orrery, 451. 
 
 Later life, 451. 
 
 Sara, m. Lord Digby, i, 51, 148, 151- 
 
 156, 165, 223-224, 235, 482. 
 
 Thomas, 496. 
 
 Lady Una Bourke, m. Sir G. Boyle 
 
 and R. Fisher, 497. 
 Boyles, Lives of the, Budgell, xi. 
 Brady, Luke, 103-104. 
 Bramhall, Bishop, 209, 263, 266. 
 Breda, siege of, 230. 
 Bridge Street, Dublin, 189. 
 Bridges 
 
 Bandon, 83, 458, 492. 
 
 Bennett, 494. 
 
 Cappoquin, 83. 
 
 Fermoy, 495. 
 
 Four mile Water, 82, 493. 
 
 Mallow, 83. 
 Brien, Barnaby (see O'Brien). 
 
 Thomas, 112. 
 
 Bristol, 12, 27, 106, 459. 
 
 George Digby, Earl of, 155, 290, 
 
 297-298, 359-
 
 INDEX 
 
 Brodripp, Captain, 437-438. 
 
 Broghill, 77. 
 
 Brown family, 134. 
 
 or Browne, Sir John, II, 69, 285, 
 
 298, 468, 472. 
 
 William, 146. 
 
 Browne, Christopher, 59, 60, 61. 
 
 Mrs. (Thamsine Gonson), 59, 60, 62. 
 
 Sir Richard, 59, 60. 
 
 Sir Thomas, n ., 51, 109. 
 
 Sir Valentine, II, 72. 
 
 Bruerton, Lord, 226. 
 
 Bryde river, 72. 
 
 Bryskett, Ludovic, 3. 
 
 Buck, 64, 131-133, 499. 
 
 Buckingham, Duchess of, 170. 
 
 George Villiers, Duke of, 94, 146, 
 
 161, 162, 166, 172-173. 
 Mary, Countess of (mother of the 
 
 Duke), 94. 
 
 Budgell, Lives of the Boyles, xi. 
 Building, 41, 126-127, 217-218, 266, 294- 
 
 295, 456, 460, 469. 
 Bulkley, Archbishop of Dublin, 2 1 1. 
 Burgh, Captain, 105. 
 
 Lord Deputy (see Deputy). 
 
 Burt, Dorothy (see Dorothy Smyth). 
 Butler, family, 381. 
 
 John of Cloghbready, 494. 
 
 Richard of Kilcash, 416. 
 
 Buttevant, 12, 481. 
 
 David Fitzjames Barry, Viscount, 144. 
 
 Button, Admiral, 25, 112, 115. 
 
 CADIZ EXPEDITION, no. 
 
 Cahir, T. Butler, heir of Viscount, 416. 
 
 Calvert, Sir George, IO2. 
 
 Secretary, 93. 
 
 Camphire, 74- 
 
 Cambridge, 80. 
 
 Canterbury (see Abbot and Laud). 
 
 Cape Clear, 115, 117. 
 
 Cappoquin, 80, 141, 437. 
 
 Carbery, 115. 
 
 Carew MSS. , Lambeth Library , xi. 
 Sir George, Earl of Totness, Presi- 
 dent of Munster, 16-27, 31-33, 36, 40, 
 43, 71, 74, 84, 90, 1 68, 249, 271, 337, 
 382, 465. 
 
 Lady, 102. 
 
 Carleton, Sir Dudley (Lord Dorchester), 
 
 106, 175, 179, 181-183, 190. 
 Carlisle, Earl of, 156. 
 Carriages 
 
 Coach, v, 338, 377, 497. 
 
 Hackney coach, 356. 
 
 Horse litter, 497. 
 
 Sedan chair, 433, 499. 
 Carrick, 27. 
 
 Carrigaline, 43, 457, 469. 
 Carrigfoyle, 19, 20. 
 Carrigtohill, 475-476. 
 Carrol, Sir James, 240. 
 Carter, T., 406. 
 Cartwright, Bishop, 263 n. 
 Gary, Frangois de, 307. 
 
 Lucius, Lord Falkland, 139-140, 342, 
 
 446-447. 
 
 Robert, 311-323, 327. 
 
 Lady Victoria, 343. 
 
 Cashel, 389. 
 
 > Archbishop of, 22. 
 
 Castle Connagh, 82. 
 
 Connel, Baron of, 416. 
 
 Haven, 49, 115. 
 
 Audley, Earl of, 163, 207, 290. 
 
 Countess of, 291. 
 
 Lyons, 149, 202, 379-381, 475- 
 
 Mahon or Mahown, 457. 
 
 Castlemaine, 395. 
 Castle Rackrent, 36. 
 Castletown Kinneagh, vii, 45-46. 
 Cathedrals 
 
 St. Carthage, Lismore, 43, 266-267, 
 
 425, 463- 
 
 Christ Church, Dublin, 158, 185, 240, 
 263. 
 
 St. Patrick's, Dublin, 206, 209-214. 
 
 St. Paul's, London, 158, 252, 293-294. 
 Cattle thieves, 70-72, 385. 
 Caulfield, Lord, 205. 
 Cave, cousin, 96. 
 Cavendish, Lady Anne, 453. 
 
 family, 452. 
 
 Cecil, Sir Robert, 22, 27-30, 71, 100, 209. 
 
 Cessation of Munster War, 449-450. 
 
 Chamberlain, Harry, 15. 
 
 Champion, Arthur, 504. 
 
 Channel Row, London, 161. 
 
 Chapel Izod, 206. 
 
 Charles I. 
 
 Opinion of John Boyle's sermon, 65.
 
 5 i6 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Charles \.<o*tinued 
 
 Proclaimed king, 97-98. 
 
 Claims on Desmond lands, 104, 166-167. 
 
 Admires Danish medal, 112. 
 
 Grants audiences to Cork, 162, 175. 
 
 Commands corn from Ireland, 184. 
 
 Negotiates with Irish Catholics, 186- 
 187. 
 
 Policy in Ireland, 198. 
 
 Refuses to receive Kildare, 219. 
 
 Letters from Wentworth, 243, 272. 
 
 Kindly interview with Dungarvan, 
 250-251. 
 
 Cork's confidence in, 275-276. 
 
 Re-grants Youghal, 286-287. 
 
 Affability to soldiers, 331. 
 
 Makes matches, 333-336, 340, 423. 
 
 Godfather to Dungarvan's son, 344. 
 
 Dissolves Short Parliament, 355. 
 
 Excuses Cork from forced loan, 356. 
 
 A game at chess, 359. 
 
 Affability to officers, 358. 
 
 Consideration for Strafford, 359. 
 
 Criticism of Scots, 360. 
 
 End of personal rule, 365. 
 
 Hears Cork's vindication, 367. 
 
 Endeavours to treat with Scots, 373. 
 
 Offers arms to Munster English, 387. 
 
 Forged commission, 396-397. 
 
 Negotiation with Irish, 398. 
 
 Appoints Portland President of Mun- 
 ster, 431. 
 
 Treats with Irish, 438-440. 
 
 Effect on Ireland of his death, 444, 447, 
 Charles n., 444, 448, 452. 
 Chester, 27, 106. 
 
 Water, 176. 
 
 Chillister, John, 465. 
 Christ Church College, Oxford, 161, 165. 
 Christening cups, 59, 62, 220. 
 Christenings, 55, 59, 68, 214, 261. 
 Christopher, Mr. Robert, 292, 297. 
 Church in Ireland 
 
 Laud's reforms, 263. 
 
 State of, 79, 371. 
 Clancarty, Lady, 33. 
 Clandeboye, James Hamilton, Lord, 345- 
 
 346. 
 
 Clanrickard, Earl of, 26, 118, 287, 290. 
 Clarendon, Lord, Great Rebellion, 222. 
 Clayton, Anne Herring, Lady, 58, 58 ., 
 288, 289, 291, 345. 
 
 Clayton, Sir Randall, 58, 66, 105, 258-259, 
 292. 
 
 Clifford, Elizabeth, Viscountess Dungarvan 
 and Countess of Cork and Burlington, 
 51, 229, 248-257, 259-261, 271-273, 292, 
 
 317, 337, 356, 387, 432, 473- 
 
 Lady, 248, 257, 271. 
 
 Lord, 250, 252-257, 271, 274. 
 
 Clonakilty, vii, 45, 76, 80, 81, 85, 101, 
 
 no, 114, 115, 408, 410, 502. 
 Clonmell, 35, 55, 82, 117, 198, 389. 
 Cloyne, 120. 
 
 Bishopric of, 65. 
 
 George Synge, Bishop of, 371-372, 
 
 498, 505- 
 Cockington, 16. 
 Coke, Secretary, 44, 207, 242. 
 Cole, Mary, 499. 
 
 Thomas, 477. 
 
 Coleorton, 33. 
 Coleshill, 165. 
 Colmen, Martin, 410. 
 Colthurst of Lyffynnen, 465. 
 Columbus, 113. 
 ' Commission of grace, 355. 
 Committee from Irish parliament, 369. 
 Commonwealth, 70, 81. 
 Condon, Honora, 481. 
 
 Morris, 481. 
 
 Patrick, 72. 
 
 Richard, 480. 
 
 William, 480. 
 
 Condon's Country, 72, 436. 
 Condrop, Mr., 167. 
 Connaie, Teague, 98. 
 Connaught settlement, 90, 194. 
 Conway, 175. 
 
 Lord, 163. 
 
 Cook, a clothier, 80. 
 
 Sir John, 164. 
 
 Coolmaine Castle, 41 1. 
 Coote, Sir Charles, 102. 
 Coponger, E., 461. 
 Coppinger, Edmund, 465. 
 Cork City 
 
 Carew's winter quarters, 26. 
 
 Disloyalty of, 34-36, 457. 
 
 Forts, in. 
 
 Harbour, 27, 113, 120. 
 
 Indefensible, 382. 
 
 Siege of, 399. 
 
 Visits to, 55, 75-
 
 INDEX 
 
 5*7 
 
 Cork, Bishopric of, 65-66. 
 
 Bishops 
 
 Boyle, John (see Boyle). 
 
 Richard (see Boyle). 
 
 Chappell, William, 371, 498. 
 Cork and Orrery, Countess of, Orrery 
 
 Papers, xi. 
 
 9th Earl of, vi. 
 
 Correction, houses of, 193-194. 
 Corsairs, Algerine, 116-118, 237. 
 Cotteswold Games, 130. 
 Cottington, Sir Francis, 201, 239, 355. 
 Council, English, 172, 180, 184, 189, 191, 
 
 203, 355-356. 
 Courthorp, Peter, 474. 
 Courtiers, grants and bribes to, 38, 66, 77, 
 
 94-96, 109, 162, 164, 166. 
 Courtney, George, 499. 
 Coventry, Lady, 204. 
 
 Lord Keeper, 91, 167, 169, 204, 356. 
 
 Cox, Sir R. , History of Ireland, 457, 458 n. 
 
 Regnum Corcagiensis, 97 n. 
 
 Cranfield, Sir Lionel, Earl of Middlesex, 
 
 101, 459-460. 
 
 Cre, or Ballymore, Eustace, 173, 240, 498. 
 Cripps, Sir Edward, 138. 
 Crofton, Henry, of Mohill, 135. 
 
 John, Excheator General, 7. 
 
 William, 86, 239. 
 
 Croker, Captain Hugh, 437, 456, 502. 
 
 Mr., of Ballyanchor, 398, 407. 
 
 Lieut. Walter, 503. 
 
 Crome Castle, 420. 
 Cromwell, Henry, 445. 
 
 Oliver, vi, 198, 444"445- 
 
 Richard, 450. 
 
 Crookhaven, 67, 88, 102. 
 
 Croon, cousin, the Vintner, 137, 175, 369, 
 
 401-402. 
 
 Crosbie, 9, 14, 29. 
 Crosby, 56. 
 
 Sir Piers, 174, 297, 366. 
 Crow, Mary (see Boyle). 
 
 Sir Sackville, 102. 
 
 Stephen, 69, 224, 298, 427. 
 
 Cullen, Dean of St. Patrick's, 205. 
 Cumberland, Francis Clifford, 4th Earl of, 
 
 243- 
 
 Henry, 5th Earl of (see Clifford, Lord). 
 
 Cupse, Cousin Mary, 496. 
 Custom House 
 
 Bill of Impost, 305. 
 
 Custom House continued 
 Dues, 167. 
 Farming, 172. 
 Officers, 162. 
 
 D 
 
 DABORNE, Dean of Lismore, 163. 
 Daniel, William, Archbishop of Tuam, 
 
 Translator of Irish Testament, 79. 
 Dansk, Stephen, 101. 
 Danvers, Sir Harry, 26. 
 D'Aubignie, Lord, 349. 
 Daunt family, 136. 
 Daventry, 91. 
 Davis, Sir John, 86-87. 
 Dawpool, Chester, 176. 
 Deane, 10. 
 
 Richard, 505. 
 
 Dean Forest 
 
 Collieries, 102. 
 
 Deer, 130. 
 
 Debtors' prisons, 107-108. 
 Decon, Monsieur, architect, 294. 
 Delaney, Mrs., 27. 
 Denbigh, Countess of, 342-343, 356, 374, 
 
 434- 
 Earl of, 52, 250, 252, 342-344, 358- 
 
 359- 
 Denham, Baron, 167. 
 
 Sir John, 94. 
 
 Denmark, King of, III. 
 Deptford, 59, 91, 171, 176. 
 
 Church, 59, 63, 452. 
 
 Deputies, Lords 
 
 Burgh, 12, 24. 
 
 Chichester, 86-87,90-92, 116, 145,268. 
 
 Falkland, 89, 98, 114, 139-140, 166- 
 167, 173. 177-178, 185, 187, 244, 256. 
 
 Fitzwilliam, 9. 
 
 Mountjoy, 25, 26, 35, 249. 
 
 Perrott, 2, 346. 
 
 St. John, 124. 
 Desmond, Gerald, Earl of, 19, 166, 465. 
 
 James, the Queen's Earl of, 19, 21-24. 
 
 Rebellion, 18, 97, 266. 
 
 Sugan Earl of, 19. 
 
 Thomas, Earl of, 273. 
 
 Devonshire, Duke of, vi, xii. 
 
 William, 4th Duke of, 452. 
 
 Digby, Katherine, 156, 235, 330,483, 488- 
 
 489. 
 Kildare, 2nd Baron, 235, 483, 489.
 
 518 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Digby, Lady, 297: 
 
 - Lattice, 235, 330, 483, 488-489. 
 
 Robert, Baron, 51, 142, 155-156, 217, 
 
 234, 238, 243, 426, 482-483. 
 
 Sara, Lady (see Boyle). 
 
 loth Baron of Geashill and Sher- 
 
 borne, vi. 
 Dillon, James, 234. 
 Dingle, 12, 36, 99, no, 246, 458. 
 
 pearls, 159. 
 
 Dobson, a tailor, 47-48. 
 Docwra, Lady Anne, 484, 498. 
 
 Lord, 207. 
 
 Donal Duff O'Cahill, 109, 1 10, 287. 
 
 Doneraile, 104, 377, 469. 
 
 Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, 137. 
 
 Dorset, 77. 
 
 Douche, Vicar of Stalbridge, 237. 
 
 Dowdall, Elizabeth (see Lady Waller). 
 
 - Sir John, 54-55, 463. 
 Drake's Pool, Cork, 120. 
 Dress 
 
 Bands, falling, 47. 
 
 laced, 311. 
 
 Beaverhal, 237. 
 
 Belt, 163. 
 
 Bills, 48, 260. 
 
 Bodice, 48-49. 
 
 Breeches, 438. 
 
 Brogues, no. 
 
 Brush and combs, 319. 
 
 Buttons, 10, 57, 108, 435, 498. 
 
 Cassock, 64, 162. 
 
 Cloaks, 47, 49, 108, 130, 438, 500. 
 
 Cloth of gold, 164. 
 
 Coats, 438, 500. 
 
 Doublets, of cloth of gold, 500 ; cloth 
 of silver, 31 1 ; of French green satin, 
 130; of tawny satin, 108, 130, 438. 
 
 Fan, 149 ; fan handle, 434. 
 
 Garters and roses, 60, 204, 499. 
 
 Gascony hose, 47. 
 
 Gloves, 138, 140, 176, 304. 
 
 Gowns, 47, 48, 60, 259, 497'498, 
 499- 
 
 Handkerchiefs, 204. 
 
 Hatbands, 10, 498. 
 
 Kirtle, 48. 
 
 Mantle, 64. 
 
 Nightcaps, 170, 176, 222. 
 
 Pantables, 89, 304. 
 
 Petticoat, 48. 
 
 Dress continued 
 Pickadel, 60. 
 
 Plush, 345. 
 
 Spurs, 129, 499. 
 
 Stockings, 61, no, 238. 
 
 Stomacher, 47. 
 
 Suits, 307, 499, 500. 
 
 Sword and belt, 499. 
 
 Waistcoat, 296. 
 Dromany, 73. 
 Drunkards, king of, 76. 
 Dublin, 1-3, 7, 12, 32, 35, 53, 55, 81, 91, 
 129, 152, 191, 217, 221, 223, 235, 241, 
 256, 283, 377, 385. 
 Castle, 185, 207, 220, 237. 
 Dunboy, 27. 
 
 Dunboyne, Lord, 390, 416. 
 Duncannon fort, 383. 
 Dungarvan town, 37, 141, 246, 423. 
 
 Lord (see Boyle). 
 
 Dunkirk, 390. 
 Dunluce, Lord, 275. 
 Durham, Bishop of, 65. 
 
 EDGEHILL, battle of, 394. 
 Edgeworth family, 135. 
 
 Miss, novels, 221. 
 
 Egham, 356. 
 
 Eliot, Sir John, 351. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, 134, 229- 
 
 230. 
 Queen of England, vi, 10, 15 21, 
 
 28-32, 34, 93. 
 Elwell, James, 493. 
 England, change after Long Parliament, 
 
 365. 
 
 prosperity in 1630, 186. 
 
 Enniskeane, vii, 45-46. 
 Eppesley, Gabriel, 473, 503. 
 
 Sir John, 350, 473, 503. 
 
 Esmond, Lawrence, Lord, 145, 174, 243, 
 
 297-299, 472, 498. 
 Essex, Robert, 2nd Earl of, 13, 14, 17. 
 
 3rd Earl of, 298, 394. 
 
 Eton College, 146-147, 165, 306-310, 448. 
 
 Evans, Morgan, 496. 
 
 Evelyn, John, vi, 34 ., 59, 452. 
 
 Mrs., 59. 
 
 Everard, Sir John, 86, 239. 
 Eyres, Edward, 490. 
 Eyries (see Hawks).
 
 INDEX 
 
 5*9 
 
 FALKLAND (see Gary and Deputy). 
 
 Fanshaw, Lady, Memoirs, 222. 
 
 Farming, 131, 133, 150, 499. 
 
 Fast days, 136, 205, 314, 319-320, 35 6 - 
 
 Feathers (Fethard?), 389. 
 
 Fenton, Alice Weston, Lady, 41, 50, 51, 
 
 56, 59, 61, 64, 184, 471. 
 
 Captain Edward, 59, 63, 171. 
 
 Sir Geoffrey, 2, 6, 32-33, 40, 50, 59, 
 
 10 1, 206-209, 345, 474. 
 
 Katherine, Countess of Cork, 33, 41, 
 
 53-58, 61, 95, 205, 307. 
 
 Margaret (see Margrett neen Gibbon). 
 
 Notts, 33. 
 
 Randall, 492. 
 
 - Sir William, 50, 54, 73, 88-89, 93-94, 
 
 104, 109, 147, 285, 432, 468, 472, 495, 
 
 499- 
 
 Fermoy, 377, 382. 
 Ferrers, Mr., 238. 
 Ferry, 495. 
 Fielding, Lady Anne, 249. 
 
 Lady Elizabeth, Viscountess Kinal- 
 
 meaky and Countess of Guildford, 340, 
 343-344, 366, 374, 3^6, 39', 426, 433- 
 434, 453, 498. 
 
 Lady Marie (Henrietta Mary?), 304. 
 
 Lady Mary, Marchioness of Hamilton, 
 
 251. 
 Finance 
 
 Bills of Exchange, 109, 303. 
 Interest or usage, 108. 
 Money Angels, 60, 235 ; French 
 crowns, 123; horn pennies, 54; 
 marks, 67 ; ninepences, 54 ; pieces 
 and pounds, 66 ; scarcity of coin, 
 108, no, 163. 
 Statute staple, 485, 500. 
 Finch, James, Lieut, and Captain, 130, 
 
 221, 407, 500, 501. 
 Fingal, Earl of, 246. 
 Fisher, Richard, 495. 
 Fitz Edmonds, Sir J., 147. 
 Fitzgerald, Edmund, of Ballymallow, 504. 
 
 Lady Ellen, 73. 
 
 Garrett Fitzjohn, 73-74. 
 
 George (see Earl of Kildare). 
 
 Gerald Fitzjohn, 117-118. 
 Lady Honora, 118. 
 
 James, 461. 
 Maurice, 170. 
 
 Fitzgerald, Redmond Fitzjohn, v, 113, 124. 
 
 Thomas, of Rostellan, 119. 
 
 Mrs. Thomas, mother of George, 
 
 Earl of Kildare, 216. 
 
 Tom, 73. 
 
 Fitzgibbon, Edmund, the White Knight, 
 
 266. 
 Fitzwilliam of Meryion, Viscount, 482. 
 
 (see Deputy). 
 
 Flanders, 255. 
 Fleming family, 136. 
 John, 477. 
 
 a pirate, 115. 
 
 / loyd, John, Constable of Beleek, 254. 
 
 Mr., 217. 
 
 Food 
 
 Ale and beer, 123, 135. 
 
 Aquavitae, 135, 398. 
 
 Bacon, 301. 
 
 Beef, fresh, 135 ; powdered, 301 ; 
 
 salt, 434. 
 Biscuit, 123, 434. 
 Butter, 434. 
 Cheese, 128, 135. 
 Cinnamon water, 135. 
 Cockles, 123. 
 Cost at Eton, 319. 
 Fat oxen, 304, 361. 
 Fish for fast days, 136. 
 Fish, fresh water, 257 ; Fumados, III. 
 Marchpane, 214. 
 Marmalade, 133. 
 Pepper, 114. 
 Pilchards, 401. 
 Salmon, 301. 
 Salt, 421. 
 
 Scallops, 157-158, 304. 
 Usquebaugh, 135, 162. 
 Venison, 64, 73, 257, 499. 
 Wine, 123, 292, 401. 
 Fords 
 
 Blackwater, 436. 
 Four-mile Water, 81-82, 258. 
 Lismore, 75. 
 Forest, Mrs., 77. 
 
 Fosterage, 58, 306; brother, 24; sister, 298. 
 Fotherly, Sir Thomas, 473, 503. 
 Fowle, Sir Robert, 354. 
 Freke, Arthur, 69, 130, 500. 
 
 Dorothy (see Smyth). 
 
 - Mr., 331. 
 William, 69, 131, 298.
 
 520 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Frey, Mr. , 249. 
 Fuel 
 
 At Eton, 319. 
 
 For brewing, 102. 
 
 For smelting, 102. 
 Fullerton, Sir James, 465. 
 Funerals, 62, 141, 206, 427, 471. 
 Furniture 
 
 Beds, feather, 319, 336; flock, 319, 
 
 336- 
 
 Bedcurtains, 258, 296, 319, 346, 396. 
 Bedstaff, 128. 
 Bedsteads, 47, 127. 
 Blankets, 319. 
 Cabinet, 222. 
 Caddows, 296. 
 Carpets, 127, 294, 296, 319. 
 Chairs, 127, 194, 336. 
 Couch, 296. 
 Coverlid, 289. 
 Cradles, 58, 307. 
 Cushions, 127, 222. 
 Linen for beds, 258, 319. 
 Napkins, 319. 
 Rug, 3I9- 
 
 Stools, 127, 296, 336. 
 Tablecloth, 319. 
 Tapestry, 47, 127. 
 
 GAGGRY, CORNELIUS, 76. 
 Galbally, 12. 
 Galway, 80, 113. 
 Games 
 
 Chess, 358. 
 
 Dicing, 135, 238. 
 
 Gleek, 135. 
 
 Mall, 322. 
 
 Mawe, 135, 238. 
 
 Quaiterlo dicing, 237. 
 
 Tennis, 322. 
 Games, Materials for 
 
 Bale of dice, 304. 
 
 Bowling green, 295. 
 
 Pack of cards, 304. 
 Games Dotage on play, 326. 
 
 Immoderate play, 233, 339. 
 
 Losses at play, 238, 259. 
 Gardens 
 
 Apple, Harvey, 296. 
 
 Apple-trees, 56. 
 
 Gardens continued 
 
 Cane-apple or Arbutus, 296. 
 
 Cherries, Affane, 135. 
 
 Elm 'Career,' 295. 
 
 Hop Gardens, 336. 
 
 Orchards, 105, 295, 336, 350, 437. 
 
 Pears, Bergamot, Bon Chretien, 296. 
 
 Pleasant walks, 350. 
 
 Potatoes, 135. 
 
 Terraces, 41, 294. 
 Gardiner, Sir Robert, 9-10. 
 Garrard, newswriter, 230, 256. 
 Gatehouse prison, 14. 
 Geashill, 155, 234, 235. 
 Gerald, Maurice Fit/Edmund, 465. 
 Gerard, young Mr., 445. 
 Geroit Oge, Great Earl of Kildare, 217. 
 Geyrie, Morishe, 467. 
 Gibbon, Margrett neen Morris, 50, 73, 
 
 384- 
 
 Gilbert, Robert, 474. 
 Gilby, William, 49. 
 Glannabwy, 130. 
 Glanville, Mr., 165, 167. 
 Glyn, 20. 
 Goden, Mr., 56. 
 Goodwin, Dr., 67, 503. 
 Gookin, Mr. F. W., 457 . 
 Gooking or Gookin, Sir Vincent, 44 ., 
 
 179-180, 245, 408, 457. 
 Goring, George, 51. 
 
 Marriage, 156. 
 
 Character, 222-223. 
 
 Escapes from family party, 224. 
 
 Liked by Strnfford, 224-225. 
 
 Commands a regiment in Flanders, 
 225. 
 
 Borrows money, 224-226. 
 
 Meets his wife in London, 230. 
 
 Wounded at Breda, 230. 
 
 Governor of Portsmouth, 231. 
 
 Letter from Cork, 231-233. 
 
 Makes mischief with Lord Clifford, 
 252-253. 
 
 Returns from Scotch war, 332. 
 
 Cork wishes for him, 392. 
 Goring, Lady, 228-233. 
 
 Lord, Earl of Norwich, 156, 226-229, 
 
 232, 233, 348, 363, 388, 433, 485. 
 Gormanston, Viscount, 150. 
 Gough or Goffe, Sir James, 117. 
 Gowran, 55.
 
 INDEX 
 
 521 
 
 Graces promised to Irish, 187, 199, 200, 
 
 440. 
 Grand Jury, 190. 
 
 Tour, 152, 299, 300. 
 
 Grandison, Lord, 161. 
 Grammar Schools 
 
 Bandon, 78, 458. 
 
 Lismore, 42, 78. 
 
 Youghal, 78. 
 Gratrikes, John, 474. 
 Gravesend, 228. 
 Greenwich Palace, 105, 249. 
 Grenville or Granville, Sir Bernard, 37, 
 459-460. 
 
 Sir Richard, 459. 
 
 Grosart, Dr. Alexander, x, 3 . 
 Gwyn, Arthur, 264-265. 
 
 Cousin Joan, 226. 
 
 Gwyr, George, 157. 
 
 H 
 
 HACKWELL, WILLIAM, 478. 
 Hadsor, king's lawyer, 165, 167. 
 Hague, The, 134, 229-230, 433. 
 Hall, Mr., 66. 
 
 Hals, Halse, or Halce, Captain, 175. 
 Hamilton, Sir Claude, 189, 191. 
 Sir George, 189, 191. 
 
 Mr. James, 345-346- 
 
 Marquis of, 343, 358. 
 
 Sir William, 189, 191. 
 
 Hampton, 348. 
 
 Court, 90. 
 
 Harris, Sir E., 106, 459. 
 
 - Sir John, 459. 
 Harrison, John, Head-master of Eton, 309, 
 
 311-312, 315, 319, 3 2 7. 
 Mrs., Maid of Honour, 344, 347'34 8 . 
 
 374- 
 
 Hatfield, 252. 
 
 Hawkins, Captain John, 79. 
 Hawks 
 
 Falcons, 88-89, 94. *47- 
 
 Goshawk, 88, 147. 
 
 Merlin, 88. 
 
 Tercel gentle, 88, 94, 139. 
 Heath, Attorney-General, 167. 
 Hedges, Robert, 481. 
 Henrietta Maria, Queen, 164, 192, 333- 
 335. 34, 342-343. 433. 453- 
 
 Hereford, 8. 
 
 Herefordshire, 3. 
 
 Hervey, Roger, 24. 
 
 Hewitt family, 136. 
 
 Highwaymen, 64. 
 
 Hillbree Island, 91. 
 
 Hillier, George, of Bristol, 292, 469. 
 
 Hoggen Green, Dublin, 190, 190 . 
 
 Holderness, Earl of, 38. 
 
 Holford, Thomas, 490. 
 
 Holland, Earl of, 249-250, 251, 348. 
 
 Hooker, George, 501. 
 
 Hooper of Killeigh, 75. 
 
 Horoscopes, 52. 
 
 Horses 
 
 Coach, 363. 
 
 Gelding, 153. 
 
 Hackney, 75. 
 
 Horse-breeding, 131, 298, 449. 
 
 Mares for riding, 139, 163, 432. 
 
 Oats for, 435. 
 
 Post, 291. 
 
 Saddle, 291. 
 Names of 
 
 Bay Audley, 133. 
 
 Bay Eddow, 133. 
 
 Bay Thomond, 148. 
 
 Black Carew, 133. 
 
 Grey Brown, 224. 
 
 Grey Coote, 330, 357. 
 
 Grey Eddow, 133. 
 
 Grey Muskerry, 330. 
 
 Grey Purdan, 357. 
 Horsie, Mr. Ralph, 152. 
 Howard, Mrs. Anne, 432, 449, 485. 
 
 (see Harrison). 
 
 Margaret, Lady Broghilland Countess 
 
 of Orrery, 349-35. 3^5. 3^7. 39*> 399. 
 43 1 * 432> 45 J 497- 
 
 Mr. Thomas, 344, 347-348- 
 
 Hull, Lady (see Mrs. John Boyle). 
 
 Mary (Mrs. Edward Boyle), 67. 
 
 Mr., of Clonakilty, 114. 
 
 Sir William, 67, 101, 114, 289, 
 
 53- 
 Hunt, Mr. John, 404, 500. 
 
 Huntingdon, 65. 
 Hurstmonceau, 230. 
 Hy Brasil or O Braseel, 112-113. 
 Hyde family, 136. 
 
 Freemason of Sherborne, 294-295. 
 
 Judge, 164.
 
 522 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 i 
 
 IKERIN, PIERCE BUTLER, VISCOUNT, 380, 
 
 416. 
 
 lies, Dr., Principal of Hart Hall, 175. 
 Ilfordcombe (Ilfracombe), 309. 
 Inchiquin, Murough O'Brien, Earl of, 397, 
 
 407, 412-414, 424-426, 430, 435, 437.443- 
 
 Elizabeth St. Leger, Countess of, 384. 
 
 Inniskeane, 75. 
 Interpreter, 73. 
 Ireland 
 
 Condition in 1588, xii, 4-6, 455. 
 1614, 87. 
 
 1630, 192. 
 
 1631, 205. 
 1633, 209. 
 1644, 376, 383. 
 
 Established Church in, 79, 84, 186, 
 
 188, 190, 191, 263, 270. 
 Imports 
 
 Bath stone, 105. 
 
 Corn, 402. 
 
 Fruit, 401. 
 
 Iron, loo. 
 
 Wine, 401-402. 
 Industries 
 
 Bone-lace, 81. 
 
 Corn exports, 184. 
 
 Fisheries, vii, 67, 99, 101-102, 401, 
 461. 
 
 Glassworks, 106. 
 
 Hides and tallow, 99, 401. 
 
 Marble quarries, 105. 
 
 Mines and Smelting Copper, 105, 
 122 ; iron, vii, 90, 101, 141, 267, 
 456,500; lead, 105; silver, vi, 105. 
 
 Timber and pipe staves, 90, loo, 
 IOI, 401, 459. 
 
 Tobacco, 105-106. 
 
 Weaving, linen, 100. 
 
 woollen, 98, 106, 157, 162, 438. 
 Rebellion of 1598, 12, 13. 
 
 of 1641, 376-377. 
 
 Rebels' reasons for taking up arms, 6, 
 
 74, 379. 396. 
 Rebels' treatment of English, 13, 383- 
 
 385, 409. 
 
 State Papers for Ireland, vi. 
 Taxation 
 
 Recusancy fines, 188, 200, 201. 
 
 Subsidies, 186-187, 199, 201, 242, 
 245-247 (see also under Boyle's 
 Public Finance). 
 
 J 
 
 James I, 
 
 Proclaimed outside Cork, 35. 
 
 Irish opinion of, 34. 
 
 Claims Ralegh's property, 38. 
 
 Pain in his toe, 65. 
 
 Lectures Irish legislators, 86. 
 
 Plans Ulster settlement, 87-88. 
 
 Accepts Irish hawks, 88-89. 
 
 Grants audiences to Boyle, 90-91. 
 
 Borrows money, no. 
 
 Patronises Cotteswold games, 130. 
 
 Kindness to Lord Barry, 146. 
 
 Death, 97. 
 
 Jephson, Captain, 397, 407, 431. 
 Jermyn, Mr., 224. 
 
 Sir Thomas, 485. 
 
 Jesuits, 189-190. 
 Jewels 
 
 Agate, 158. 
 
 Diamond fan handle, 434. 
 - hatband, 498. 
 
 lucky ring, 6, 498. 
 memorial rings, 498. 
 
 ring, 432. 
 Diamonds, unset, 158. 
 
 Feather of diamonds and rubies, 49- 
 
 50. 
 
 Gold ring with arms, 7. 
 Jewel of Lady Coventry, 204. 
 Pearls, Irish, 50, 259; Orient, 50; 
 
 Necklace, 343. 
 
 Sir Walter Ralegh's stone, 125, 497. 
 Jobson, Humphry, 45. 
 
 Margaret, 45. 
 
 William, 45. 
 
 John, King of England, 149, 158. 
 Jolliffe, Captain Richard, 500. 
 Jones, Sir Arthur, afterwards 2nd 
 Viscount Ranelagh, 51, 158, 215, 233- 
 234, 299, 339, 446. 
 
 Frances (ffrank), 339. 
 
 Lessee of Youghal College House, 
 
 274. 
 
 Sir William, 125. 
 
 Joslen, Dr., 146. 
 Judges' circuits, 72, 224. 
 Justices, Lords, Boyle and Loftus, 175 et 
 seqq., 207-208. 
 
 Sir W. Parsons and Sir J. 
 
 Borlase, 369, 372, 376, 378-379, 383, 
 386, 412, 413, 431.
 
 INDEX 
 
 5 2 3 
 
 K 
 
 KEMYS, CAPTAIN, 121, 124. 
 Kendall, Mr., 75. 
 Kenland, John, 462. 
 Kent, 3. 
 
 Kentish patriotism, 309. 
 Ker, Lord Henry, 310. 
 Kerry, vii, 18, 71. 
 
 cows, 76. 
 
 Kettlewell, Michael, 14. 
 
 Kilbolan bog, 425. 
 
 Kilbree, 270. 
 
 Kilbrittan Castle, 410. 
 
 Kilcolman Castle, 13. 
 
 Kilcullen, 55. 
 
 Kildare, George Fitzgerald, i6th Earl of, 
 
 5i- 
 
 Orphan childhood, 215-216. 
 
 At Oxford, 165, 216. 
 
 Wardship passed to Lord Cork, 216. 
 
 Marriage arranged, 175. 
 
 Wedding, 217, 248. 
 
 Maynooth restoration, 217. 
 
 Builders not paid, 218. 
 
 Batters silver plates, 219. 
 
 Quarrels with Strafford, 219. 
 
 Flight to England, 219. 
 
 Imprisoned, 220-221. 
 
 Debts, 216, 220, 503. 
 
 Dowers gentlewoman, 129. 
 
 Visits Lord Cork in sickness, 289. 
 
 ' Little mad Lord,' 331. 
 
 Refuses offers of insurgent Irish, 
 
 384- 
 
 Governor of Dublin, 385. 
 Kildare Hall, Dublin, 190. 
 Kilfenora, Bishop of, 191. 
 Kilfinny Castle, 420. 
 Kilkenny, 76. 
 Killala, Archibald Adair, Bishop of Killala 
 
 and of Waterford, 370. 
 Killeen, Lord, 92, 170. 
 Killigrew, Elizabeth (Mrs. Francis Boyle, 
 
 afterwards Countess of Shannon), 52, 
 
 333. 336, 339, 340-342, 356, 365, 375, 
 
 45, 453- 
 
 Sir R., Vice- Chamberlain, 52, 333. 
 
 Thomas, 341. 
 
 Kilmacke, 80. 
 Kilmainham, 190. 
 Kilmallock, 23. 
 
 Kilmallock, Sir W. Sarsfield, Viscount, 
 
 48, 415, 474. 
 Kilmolish, 270. 
 King, Captain, 124. 
 Kingston-on-Thames, 174. 
 Kinsale, 25, 26, 98, 119, 161. 
 Kirke, Mrs., 344. 
 Knevett, Randall, 466. 
 
 LACEY FAMILY, 134. 
 Lambert, John, a slater, 372. 
 
 Lord, 354. 
 
 Lambeth, 293. 
 
 Lancaster, John, 79, 503. 
 
 Lanester, Colonel, 399. 
 
 Langton, J., Mayor of Bandon, 409-410, 
 
 492-493- 
 Laud, Archbishop, vii, 78, 136 ., 162, 
 
 206, 209-213, 252, 256, 261-263, 266- 
 
 271, 293-294, 352. 
 Learn Con Caslle, 67, 114. 
 Leap River, 45. 
 Ledbury, 3 n. 
 Lee, Sir Henry, of Ditchley, 137. 
 
 Mr. Sidney, 165. 
 
 Leech, Ancient, 445. 
 Leeke, Biddy, 298-299. 
 
 -Sir John, 73, 94, 132, 146, 149-150, 
 
 154, 164, 220, 226-227, 234, 256, 338, 
 
 346, 371, 374, 378, 386, 432-433, 495- 
 
 496. 
 
 Leger, Mr., 54. 
 Leicester, Earl of, Lord - Lieutenant of 
 
 Ireland, 372, 378, 387. 
 Leinster, 72. 
 
 6th Duke of, vi. 
 
 Leitrim, 102. 
 Lem Con, 67, 114, 115. 
 Lennox, Duke of, 358. 
 Lever, Charles, 71. 
 Lewes, 322-323. 
 Ley, Manor of, 220. 
 Limerick, II, 35, 72. 
 Liscarrol, battle of, 52, 424-426. 
 
 castle of, 424. 
 
 Lisfinnon, 8, 132. 
 
 Lisle, Philip, Viscount, 431. 
 
 Lismore 
 
 Almshouses, 42, 492. 
 Bishop of, 461.
 
 5 2 4 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Lismorc continued 
 
 Boyle, M.P. for, 85. 
 
 Cathedral, 43, 266-267, 463. 
 
 Chapter of, 267, 270. 
 
 Charles I. proclaimed at, 98. 
 
 Free school, 492. 
 
 Markets, 461. 
 
 Poor, legacy to, 502. 
 
 Taxation of, 246. 
 
 Threatened by Irish, 389. 
 Lismore Castle, 42, 56, 126-128, 136-137, 
 141, 156, 221, 224, 237, 437. 
 
 ford, 75. 
 
 Papers, xxi. 
 
 Litchfield, 59. 
 
 Little Island, 105. 
 
 Liverpool, 106. 
 
 Loddon, John, the freemason, 82, 493- 
 
 494- 
 Loftus, Sir Adam (Viscount Ely), 159, 
 
 172-174, 177-179, 185, 237-243, 270, 
 
 280-282, 285, 497-499- 
 Sir Arthur, 51, 159, 161, 165, 215, 
 
 222, 503. 
 
 Sir Nicholas, 503. 
 
 Sir Robert, 208. 
 
 Loghgirr Castle, 421. 
 
 Loghmay, Baron of, 389. 
 
 Loghmoe, Theobald Purcell, Baron of, 
 
 416. 
 London, 88, 90, 161, 249, 293, 338, 356, 
 
 362, 365. 369, 374, 432, 444, 446-448. 
 
 Bridge, 344. 
 
 Londonderry, 445. 
 Loughfoil, 92. 
 Louth, Lord, 92. 
 Lownt, David, 461. 
 Lowsie Hill, Dublin, 207. 
 Lowther, Mr., preacher at Youghal, 79. 
 Sir Garrett or Gerard, 104, 260, 
 
 278-280, 499, 504. 
 Lyons, 403. 
 
 M 
 
 MACAULAY, LORD, 357. 
 Macroom, 469. 
 Madrid, 182. 
 Maguire, Manus, 120. 
 Mahaffy, Irish State Papers, vi. 
 Mahaffey, Greek Civilization, 163. 
 Mahomet, 214. 
 
 Maidenhead, 165. 
 Maid, Mr., of Currypool, 131. 
 Mallow, 141, 469. 
 Manchester, Countess of, 304. 
 
 Earl of, 356. 
 
 Mansfield, Anne (see Naylor). 
 
 Manwood, Sir Richard, 4. 
 
 Marcombes, Mr., the tutor, 299, 300, 340- 
 
 342, 347, 375, 402, 405, 448, 451. 
 Marston Bigot, 350, 375. 
 Martell, Alderman Thomas, 476. 
 May, Sir Humphry, 89, 91. 
 Maynard, Captain, 445. 
 Maynooth, 385. 
 
 Castle, 206, 217-218, 220-221. 
 
 M'Carthie, 136. 
 M'Carthy, Donough, 71. 
 
 Florence, 74 . 
 
 Reagh, 107, 408. 
 
 McCragh, Daniel, 494. 
 
 Philip M 'Daniel, 493. 
 
 Roger, 493. 
 
 McSheye, Manus, 465. 
 McSweeny, Owen O'Loghie, 496. 
 Mead, George, 77. 
 
 Recorder of Cork, 34. 
 
 Robert, 77, 504. 
 
 Mears, John, 121, 169. 
 Medicines 
 
 Bezoir stone, 61, 162, 304. 
 
 Chenery roots, 1 14. 
 
 Country 'yeartar,' 304. 
 
 Sarsaparilla, 115. 
 
 Spirits of amber, 304. 
 
 Unicorn's horn, 61. 
 Mellifont Abbey, 7, 151-155. 
 Meredith, Lady, 204. 
 
 Sir Robert, 178. 
 
 Milford, 106, 161. 
 
 Milton, John, 432, 446-447. 
 
 Minehead, Somerset, 161, 309, 330, 336, 
 
 375, 384- 
 
 Waterford, 105. 
 
 Moaky, John, 410. 
 
 Mogeely, 57, 121. 
 
 Moore, Edward, of Bandon, 86. 
 
 Sir Edward (afterwards Lord Moore), 
 
 7, 92, 135, I5I- 
 
 Lady (Mary Colley), 7, 151-155. 
 
 Sir Thomas, 51, 151-155. 
 
 Mordaunt, Lord, 310, 314. 
 Morgel, cousin, 54.
 
 INDEX 
 
 525 
 
 Morley, Edward, 475. 
 
 Mountgarret, Edmund Butler, Viscount, 
 
 380, 389, 390. 
 
 Mounlnorris, Sir F. Annesley, Viscount, 
 89, 140, 180-181, 183, 185, 191, 202, 
 242-243, 283, 297-298. 
 Music 
 
 Blind harper, 135. 
 
 Irish harp, 91, 109, 204. 
 
 Musicians, 135, 303. 
 
 Queen Anne's harper (see Donal Duff). 
 
 Singing lessons, 317. 
 
 Viol, 317. 
 Muskerry, Lady, 446. 
 
 Viscount, 376, 379-380, 416. 
 
 Munster 
 
 Condition in 1600, vii. , 12, 36-37, 455 ; 
 in 1641, 370, 389. 
 
 Doubtful progress, 74. 
 
 Elizabethan settlement, 87, 455-456. 
 
 Farmers, 77, 183. 
 
 Gentry, 136. 
 
 Merchants, 49. 
 
 Rebellion under Desmond, 12, 18, 42, 
 67, 99, 266. 
 
 Rebellion of 1641, 379, 385, et seqq. 
 
 Roads in, 43, 81. 
 
 Romanist gentry, 416. 
 Murray, Will, 358. 
 Muschamp, Sir Agmondsham, 408. 
 Myagh, Garrett, 475. 
 Myn, Colonel, 438. 
 
 N 
 
 NAYLER OR NAYLOR, JOAN, 3, 171. 
 
 John, of Lincoln's Inn, 478. 
 
 Robert, of Canterbury, 3. 
 
 Robert, Dean of Lismore and 
 
 Limerick, 129, 496. 
 Thomas, 496. 
 
 Naylor, Anne Mansfield, wife of Dean, 138. 
 Neville, Ann, 129. 
 
 Mr., 347. 
 
 Newburgh, Lord, 362. 
 Newburn, Battle of, 360. 
 Newbury, Battle of, 447. 
 Newcastle, Duke of, 356. 
 
 Co. Limerick, 420. 
 
 Newce, Captain, 43, 457. 
 William, 492. 
 
 Newcestown, 457. 
 
 Newington Green, 174. 
 
 Newmarket, 56, 71. 
 
 Newport, Earl of, 298. 
 
 Newton family, 475-476. 
 
 Nicholas, Herbert, 492. 
 
 Nigel, Fortunes of, 89. 
 
 Norris, Sir Thomas, 24, 40, 274. 
 
 Northall, house of Earl of Bedford, 165. 
 
 Northampton, sons of Spencer Compton, 
 
 2nd Earl of, 310. 
 Northumberland, Earl of, 89. 
 Norton, Captain, 139. 
 
 Sir Dudley, 154. 
 
 Norwich, Earl of (see Goring). 
 Noye, Attorney-General, 167. 
 Nuce (see Newce). 
 Nuns, 190. 
 
 OATLANDS, 175, 251, 356. 
 
 O'Brian, Darby, 493-494. 
 
 O'Brien or Brien, Barnaby, 6th Earl of 
 
 Thomond, 86, 98 . , 239. 
 O'Broder, Thomas, 490. 
 O'Byrne, clan, 180. 
 O'Conner, clan, 71. 
 O'Donnell, Red Hugh, 18, 25, 26. 
 O'Dullany, Teige, 72. 
 O'Feighe, John, 462. 
 Offaley, Lettice Fitzgerald, Baroness, 155, 
 
 163, 235. 
 
 Ogle, Sir William, 421. 
 O'Grady, Hugh, Bishop of Meath, 50. 
 Oisin, 112. 
 
 O'Leary's country, 88. 
 O'Mahony, Teague, 67. 
 O'More, clan, 71. 
 O'Mulcaghie, David, 496. 
 
 D enough, 496. 
 
 Philip, 482. 
 
 O'Neil, Con, heir of Lord Tyrone, 182, 
 
 3"- 
 
 Owen Roe, 397. 
 
 Orange, Prince of, 402-403. 
 
 Ormond, Lady Elizabeth Preston, 
 
 Baroness of Dingwall, Countess of, 
 
 297, 389- 
 
 Lady Helen Barry, Countess of, 
 
 144-146. 
 
 James Butler, Earl, Marquis and
 
 526 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Duke of, 27, 196-198, 238, 243, 353, 
 
 387, 427, 439, 444, 494. 
 Ormond, plantation in, 196-198. 
 O'Rourk's country, 99. 
 Orrery Papers, xi. 
 
 John, 5th Earl of, 452-453- 
 
 Roger, 1st Earl of (see Boyle). 
 
 Roger ; 1st Earl of , Life of, xi. 
 
 Roger, 2nd Earl of, 451. 
 Osborne, Dorothy, Letters, 347. 
 
 Nicholas, 494. 
 
 Richard, 494. 
 
 Ossory, Lord of Upper, 389. 
 O'Sullivan, Daniel, of Bere, 296, 408. 
 Owens, Captain, 292. 
 Oxford, 165, 175, 216. 
 
 PAGE, MR., 80. 
 Painting 
 
 Chapel at Lismore, 266. 
 
 Portraits, 152. 
 
 Palmer, Dean of Peterborough, 270. 
 Parliament of England, Long 
 
 Demands of, 186. 
 
 Summoned, 360-361. 
 
 Meets, 365. 
 
 Refuses to convey royal arms to 
 Munster, 385. 
 
 Is begged for help, 390. 
 
 Sends money, 401. 
 
 Receives Cork's letter to Lenthall, 
 
 414-424. 
 Parliament of England, ' Short,' 355. 
 
 - of Ireland, 85-86, 186-187, 242- 
 
 244, 257, 351. 353- 
 
 of Scotland, 332. 
 
 Parr, Henry, 475. 
 Parsons, Lady, 56, 238. 
 
 Sir Laurence, 56-57, 90, 95-97, 115, 
 
 121, 146, 153, 273. 
 
 - Oliver, 475. 
 
 Richard, 484. 
 
 Sir William, Lord Justice, 243, 270, 
 
 282, 285, 430, 468, 472, 498, 499, 504 
 
 (see also Justices, Lords). 
 Pawlett, Sir J., 421. 
 Pedlar, 81. 
 
 Peers, Mr. Henry, 94. 
 Pembroke, Philip, 4th Earl of, 131, 275. 
 Pennington, Captain, 124. 
 Penruddock, Sir Thomas, 75. 
 
 Pepys Diary, 239, 310. 
 Percival, Sir Philip, 484. 
 Perkin Warbeck, 35. 
 
 Perkins, the tailor, 134, 165, 230, 293-294, 
 304, 310, 313, 331, 402, 404. 
 W., Lord Mayor, 297, 308. 
 Perrott (see Deputy). 
 Pewter, 319, 336. 
 
 Philaretus (see Robert Boyle's Biography). 
 Physicians 
 
 Eton doctor, 325. 
 
 Dr. Higgins, 291. 
 
 Jacob Longe, 289. 
 
 London doctors, 61-62, 324. 
 Piers, Rev. W., D.D., Canon of Christ 
 
 Church, Oxon., 175. 
 Pirates, 64, 72, 113-116, 161, 214, 217. 
 Pixley, 3 . 
 Plate 
 
 George Goring's, 363. 
 
 Gold, 256. 
 
 Gilt salt-cellar, 498. 
 
 Sale of, 127, 402. 
 
 Silver, 105, 127, 276, 449, 497'499- 
 
 White plate, 472. 
 Plymouth, 49, 119. 
 Poer (see Power and Barry). 
 Pope, blesses Irish cause, 440. 
 Porter, Endymion, 95, 166. 
 Portland, Sir Richard Weston, Earl of, 
 
 33, 184, 213, 431. 
 Portsmouth, 231-232. 
 Poultry prison, 107. 
 Power, Dick, 69, 297, 330. 
 
 Edmund Og, 461. 
 
 Pierce, 8, 69, 109. 
 
 Roger, 69, 161, 477, 499. 
 
 Sir William, 173-174, 425. 
 
 Poynings' Law, 243. 
 Presbyterians, 181, 191, 329. 
 Presents, 60, 153, 157, 162, 164, 165, 167, 
 176, 204, 235, 276, 289, 292, 304, 432, 
 
 435- 
 
 Preston, 3. 
 Price, Captain, 22, 204. 
 
 Dr., 75. 
 
 Protestants in Ireland, viii, 45, 84, 86, 
 
 392, 417- 
 
 Pruddenragh, 496. 
 Purcell, General, 437. 
 
 Major, 396. 
 
 Purse, 61, 129, 162, 294.
 
 INDEX 
 
 527 
 
 Pursuivant at Arms, 206. 
 
 Pym, John, 264. 
 
 Pyne, Henry, of Mogeeley, 57, 100, 121. 
 
 John, 56-57. 
 
 QUIN, COUSIN ANNE, 228. 
 
 RAFFINGTON, HENRY, 502. 
 Ralegh, Carew, 123, 170. 
 Lady, 165, 168-169. 
 
 or Raleigh, Sir Walter, 21, 37-3 8 , 
 
 102, 105, 209. 
 Sells ship to Boyle, 19. 
 House at Youghal, 39, 57, 121. 
 Grants of Munster land, 40, 166, 268, 
 
 466. 
 
 Conditions of grants, 454. 
 List of lands, 461-465. 
 Sells to Boyle, 31-32, 463. 
 Receives purchase money in prison, 
 
 ' 38, 124- 
 
 Sails on Guiana voyage, 1 19- 
 
 Farewell visit to Munster, 120-124. 
 
 Return, 124. 
 
 Death, 121, 125. 
 Ralegh, Walter, 123. 
 
 Ramsey, Sir John, Earl of Holderness, 38. 
 
 Ranelagh, Sir Roger Jones, 1st Viscount, 
 
 215, 247, 249, 255, 260, 278-279, 338, 
 
 367, 389, 497-498, 503. 
 
 Ratcliffe, Sir George, 104, 241, 260, 278- 
 
 279, 282-284. 
 Rathcormac, 108. 
 Rathfarnham, 159, 222. 
 Rathkeele, 420. 
 Rawson, 10. 
 Raylton, Mr., 353. 
 Red Shard Pass, 395-397. 
 Reed, Mr., 276. 
 Renny, 139. 
 Rice, Captain, 176. 
 Rich, Charles, 4th Earl of Warwick, 52, 
 
 347-349. 453, 455-456, 503-504- 
 Richardson, Chief Justice, 164, 212. 
 Richesis, Abraham, 484. 
 Richmond, Mary, Duchess of, 374. 
 Ridgeway, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, 89. 
 Ringsend, 176. 
 
 Roberson, 253. 
 
 Roche, 94. 
 
 David, Viscount, 109, 123, 146-147, 
 
 408, 416. 
 
 David FitzEdmund, 462. 
 
 Edmund, 461. 
 
 Eustace, 461. 
 
 Mr. James, 492. 
 
 John FitzThomas, 461. 
 
 Redmond, 69, 481. 
 
 Sir Tibbott, 137. 
 
 - Ulick, 481. 
 Rochelle expedition, in. 
 Rolls, Master of (England), 362. 
 Romanists, vii, 44-45, 84, 188-190, 201, 
 
 379- 
 
 Friars and priests, viii, 74 ., 136, 
 188-191, 390. 
 
 Grievances, 186-187. 
 
 Loyalty in England, 439. 
 
 Pilgrimages, 192-193. 
 Rooth, Mr., 494. 
 
 Roscommon, Earl of, 261, 503-504. 
 Rosmayne, 109. 
 Ross, Mr., 49. 
 Rossington, Henry, 481. 
 Rostellan, 120. 
 Rowley, Mr., 49. 
 Royston, 65, 91. 
 Ruffen, Mr., 152. 
 Rugg, Mr., 285. 
 
 SALISBURY, WILLIAM CECIL, 2nd EARL 
 
 OF, 49, 248, 252-254, 256. 
 Sareen, 69. 
 Sarsfield (see Kilmallock). 
 
 Justice, 98. 
 
 Savoy Chapel, 261. 
 
 Palace, 337-339, 342, 361-362. 
 
 Says Court, 59. 
 Scariff, 102. 
 Scots 
 
 Opposition to king, 328. 
 
 First Scots war, 330-333. 
 
 Second Scots war, 357-360. 
 
 Invasion of England, 361. 
 
 King turns to, 373. 
 Sculptors 
 
 Tingham, 206, 217-218. 
 
 Watts, Christopher, 294.
 
 528 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Seckerstone, Elizabeth (see Boyle). 
 
 Roger, 138. 
 
 Septpartite settlement, 260, 349. 
 Servants 
 
 Badnedge (see Badnedge). 
 
 Beecher, Lionel, 505. 
 
 Booth, Gerrard, 386. 
 
 Britton, W., 175. 
 
 Gary (see Gary, Robert). 
 
 Chettle, William, 130, 304, 343, 500, 
 
 SOI, 53- 
 
 Cross, Thomas, 301-303. 
 Dauntsey, T., 386. 
 Deys, Richard, 505. 
 Eddow, John, 130, 501, 505. 
 Evesham, Mrs. Mary, 129. 
 Forster or Foster, James, 152, 161, 
 
 500. 
 
 John, 500. 
 
 Gibbons, Davy, 129, 130, 134, 501. 
 
 Hooker, Charles, 501. 
 
 Hopwood, Mrs. Letitia, 128. 
 
 Howard, Epinetus, 128. 
 
 Hynson, Mr., 277. 
 
 Jackson, John, 500. 
 
 Langdale, Clerk of the Kitchen, 301, 
 
 337, 5oi, 505- 
 
 Malperos, 148. 
 
 Mansfield, Mrs. Anne, 129. 
 
 M'Carthy, Donough, 129. 
 
 Moore, Mr. Thomas, 502. 
 
 Murray, Steward, 382. 
 
 Naroon, John, 130. 
 
 Neville, Mrs. Anne, 129. 
 
 Pompfret, Thomas, 501. 
 
 Prust, Abraham, 501. 
 
 Raffington, Mr. Henry, 502. 
 
 Roseen, Nan, 291. 
 
 Smethwick, Henry, 501. 
 
 Turlogh, 249. 
 
 Vaughan, 128. 
 
 Watt, John, 88. 
 
 Wilmot, John, 303. 
 Seymour, Mr. Edward, 131. 
 Shandon Castle, 27. 
 Shannon, ist Earl of (see Francis Boyle). 
 
 6th Earl of, vi. 
 
 Henry, Earl of, 451. 
 - Park, 453. 
 Shelbury, Captain, 125. 
 'old Mr.' 125, 169. 
 Sherbome, 161, 290, 294-295, 297-298. 
 
 Sherburne, 169. 
 
 Sherlock, Mrs. Elles (see Barry). 
 
 Margaret, 147, 292. 
 
 Patrick, 145. 
 
 Ships 
 
 Biskaner, 1 60. 
 Lion's Whelps, 175, 292. 
 The Pearl, in. 
 The Pennington, 401. 
 The Ruth, 421. 
 Shortred, Zachary, 477. 
 Shylock, 66. 
 Sidney, Sir Henry, 50. 
 
 i Sir Philip, 109. 
 
 Skipton Castle, 256-257. 
 Slingsby, Mr., 101. 
 I Smallpox, 56, 137, 300, 421. 
 1 Smerwick massacre, 2. 
 ; Smith, Dr. Charles, History of Co. Cork, 
 xi. 
 
 ! Mr. James, of Torrington, 303. 
 
 John, 484. 
 
 SirT., TOI. 
 
 i widow, 480. 
 
 , Smyth or Smith, Alice, m. W. Wiseman 
 and Redmond Roche, 69, 469. 
 
 Boyle, 69, 300. 
 
 Boyle (son of Sir Percy), 497. 
 
 Dorothy, m. T. Burt and A. 
 
 Freke, 69, 298. 
 
 Katherine, m. W. Supple, 69, 
 
 138, 298, 497. 
 
 Lady (Mary Mead), 497. 
 
 Sir Percy, 69, 152, 435, 446, 
 
 468, 472-473, 482, 497, 499- 
 
 Sir Richard of Ballynetra, 8, 69, 
 
 140, 465, 497. 
 
 family, 292. 
 
 Snell, Rev. William, 503. 
 
 Somerse* Sir Thomas, Viscount Cashel, 
 
 68, 145-148. 
 Southampton, sons of Thomas Wriothsley, 
 
 4th Earl of, 314. 
 Southwell, Sir Richard, 129. 
 Spa, 444. 
 Spain 
 
 Armada of, I. 
 Exiles in, 74, 74 ., 182. 
 Infanta of, 34. 
 
 Invasion of Munster, 25-26, 182. 
 Philip, king of, 9, 19, 26, 35. 
 Spectacles, 498.
 
 INDEX 
 
 529 
 
 Spenser, Edmund, 3, 8, 13, 69, 74, 79, 
 109, 121. 
 
 Elizabeth (see Boyle). 
 
 Hugolin, 139. 
 
 Katherine, 69. 
 
 Peregrine, 139. 
 
 Sport 
 
 Hunting, 13, 127, 131-133, 445- 
 
 Mastiff dog, 167. 
 
 Races, 238. 
 
 Wolf-hounds, 133-134, 230. 
 
 St. James's Palace, 249. 
 
 St. John (see Deputy). 
 
 St. John's College, Cambridge, 268, 270. 
 
 Oxford, 268, 270. 
 
 St. Leger of Annory, 336. 
 
 Anthony, 7. 
 
 family, 134. 
 
 Gertrude de Vries, Lady, 384, 391. 
 
 Sir Warham, 3, 7. 
 
 Sir William, President of Munster, 
 
 104, no, 114, 131, 166, 191, 377-378, 
 382, 384, 386, 388, 395-397, 399, 400, 
 412. 
 
 St. Patrick's, Dean of, 206, 21 1. 
 
 Purgatory, 192-193. 
 
 Stafford, Lady, 304, 333, 334, 340, 348. 
 
 Sir Thomas, 18 ., 90-91, 93, 97, 
 
 137, 164, 227, 229, 231, 233, 238, 293- 
 294, 297, 299, 301, 333, 337, 340, 344, 
 361, 387, 433, 478, 498. 
 
 Staines, 161. 
 
 Stalbridge, 233, 290-297, 301, 327-328, 
 
 332-333, 336, 374-375, 385. 448. 
 
 Stanhope, Sir John, 29, 30. 
 
 Stanmore, 59. 
 
 Star Chamber, Court of, 258, 265, 276. 
 
 Stevens, Thomas, 170-171. 
 
 Steward, Thomas (see Howard). 
 
 Stone, 91, 175. 
 
 Stoughton, Nathaniel, 105. 
 
 Strafford, Sir Thomas Wentworth, Earl of, 
 v, vii, 89, 104, 181, 192-193, 198-199, 
 200-207, 219, 223-225, 230, 236-239, 
 241-250, 252-256, 260-272, 350, 353, 
 359, 366-368, 417. 
 
 Stafford's Letters, 158. 
 
 Strongbow's tomb, 158. 
 
 Strongman, Captain, 500. 
 
 Jack, 73. 
 
 Suffolk, 164. 
 
 Supple, Katherine (see Smyth). 
 
 Supple, Morrice, 473. 
 
 William Fitzedmund, 58-59, 69, 73, 
 
 298. 
 Synge, George, Bishop of Cloyne, 371-372, 
 
 498. 
 
 TAILOR, NED, Lady Barrymore's, 345. 
 
 Talbot, 51. 
 
 Tallagh or Tallow 
 
 Assizes, 74. 
 
 Building of, 43, 462. 
 
 Charles I. proclaimed, 98. 
 
 Church and town, 43. 
 
 Ironmines, 102, 456. 
 
 Lawsuits, 460. 
 
 Overtaxed, 246-247. 
 
 Parliamentary franchise, 85. 
 
 Poor, legacy to, 502. 
 
 Religious teaching, 79. 
 
 Trainband musters, 75. 
 
 War-time, 382, 407, 438, 456. 
 Tara Brooch, 49. 
 Taunton, 161. 
 Taylor, Mrs., 77. 
 Temple, Middle, 4, 12, 167, 169. 
 
 Sir William, 347. 
 
 Tenby, 88. 
 Terry family, 475-476. 
 Theatricals, 135, 237-238. 
 Theobalds, 97, 184. 
 
 Thomond, Donatus O'Brien, Great Earl of, 
 50, 56, 60-6 1, 72, 94, 97, 106, 139-140, 163. 
 Henry O'Brien, afterwards 5th Earl 
 
 of, 85, 98. 
 
 7th Earl of, 346. 
 
 Thornhill, Captain, 432. 
 Thornton, Sir George, 23. 
 Ticknor, 77. 
 Timoleague, 74 . , 438. 
 Tircullen, 76. 
 Tombs, Boyle 
 
 At Preston, 171, 472. 
 
 St. Patrick's, 206, 209-214, 235-236, 
 256, 471. 
 
 Youghal, 41, 67, 205, 427, 441, 471. 
 Tompkyns, Cousin James, 128, 226, 298. 
 Torys, 445. 
 
 Trained bands, 74-75, 89, 385-386, 455'456. 
 Tralee, 246. 
 Trant, Garret, 458. 
 Trapboys, old, 95. 
 
 2 L
 
 530 LIFE OF THE GREAT EARL OF CORK 
 
 Travers, Jack, 357, 393. 
 
 Trevor, Baron, 167. 
 
 Trim, 261. 
 
 Trinity College, Dublin, 190. 
 
 Tunbridge Wells, 156. 
 
 Tutors (see Gary, F. de Frey, Marcombes). 
 
 Tynt, Lady (see Elizabeth Boyle). 
 
 Richard, 108. 
 
 Sir Robert, 69, 1 19, 147, 297, 400, 
 
 489. 
 
 William, 69, 299, 400, 489. 
 
 Tyrell, Henry, 406. 
 
 Tyrone, O'Neil, Earl of, 6, 13, 25-26, 
 
 182. 
 
 U 
 
 ULSTER, REBELLION OF, 370, 377. 
 
 settlement of, 87-89, 90. 
 
 Ussher, Isabella, 69. 
 
 Lord Primate, 125, 188-190, 210-213, 
 
 235. 277, 281, 367, 497. 
 Mr., 190. 
 
 VALENTIA, 115. 
 
 Valentines, 204 ; 'Vocal wife,' 304. 
 
 Vandyke, 222. 
 
 Vaughan, Henry of Mocas, 131. 
 
 Roger of Mocas, 128. 
 
 Vavasour, Sir Charles, 391-392, 407, 421, 
 425, 435. 482. 
 
 Vere of Tilbury, Horatio, Lord, 225. 
 
 Verney family, 234-235, 338. 
 
 Sir Edmund, 94, 132, 151, 171. 
 
 Lady, 164, 346. 
 
 Memoirs, xi. 
 
 Sir Ralph, 296. 
 
 Vigors's, Urban, Narrative, 149, 399. 
 
 Villiers (see Buckingham, Duke and Coun- 
 tess of). 
 
 Mrs. Anne, 141, 251-252. 
 
 Sir Edward, President of Munster, 
 
 94-96, 103, 140-141, 152, 252, 459. 
 
 Lady, 96, 141, 165. 
 
 Richard, 142. 
 
 W 
 
 WAGKRS, 50, 113, 373. 
 Wale, Ulick, 465. 
 
 Waller, Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Sir 
 
 John Dowdall, 170, 482. 
 George, of Groombridge, 170 . 
 
 Sir Hardress, 170, 432, 473, 482. 
 
 Robert, 119. 
 
 Wallop, Sir Henry, 9, 10, 14, 16. 
 Wally or Whalley, John, 54, 57, 68, 135, 
 160, 349, 350. 375. 492, 494, 495, 497, 
 500, 502. 
 
 Walsh, Patrick, 395-396. 
 Wandisford, Sir George, Master of the 
 
 Rolls, 239, 278-279. 
 War- 
 Barbarities, 361, 407, 409. 
 Mutinies, 399, 406, 422. 
 Raids, 385, 435. 
 Ruses, 399. 
 
 Scouting, 20, 393, 405. 
 Sickness among soldiers, 25, 421, 
 
 434-435- 
 
 Sow, use of, 410-411, 436. 
 Temper of Bandon men, 408, 410. 
 
 of English reinforcements, 407. 
 
 Traitors, 26, 406. 
 Wards, Court of, 71. 
 
 Master of, 196, 242, 278, 280. 
 
 Wardship, 50, 96, 147, 216, 298, 431. 
 
 Warrington, 128. 
 
 Warwick, Charles, Earl of (see Rich). 
 
 Mary, Countess of (see Boyle). 
 
 Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of, 347, 348, 
 
 400, 401, 409. 
 
 Waterford, 27, in, 384, 390. 
 Watson, James, 484. 
 Wear, Sir James, 499. 
 Weddings, 138, 148, 170, 299, 340, 343, 349. 
 Wentworth, Sir George, 244. 
 
 Sir Thomas (see Stratford). 
 
 West Carbery, vii, 474. 
 
 Weston, Rev. John, D.D., Canon of Christ 
 
 Church, 165, 175. 
 Sir Richard, Dean of St. Patrick's, 
 
 50, 205. 
 
 Wexford, 90, 423. 
 Wheeler, Mrs., 384. 
 Whetcombe, John, 481. 
 Whitchurch, 70. 
 White, Sir Nicholas, 173, 240. 
 Whitehall, 433. 
 Whitney, Captain, 123. 
 Wilkins, Rev. Mr., 207. 
 Wilmot, Sir Charles, 35.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Wilmot, Lord, 178, 198, 362, 366. 
 
 Wimbledon, Lord, in. 
 
 Winchester, Bishop of, 65. 
 
 5th Marquis of, 358-359. 
 
 Windibank, Secretary, 276. 
 
 Windsor, 165. 
 
 Wingfield, Marshal, 26. 
 
 Wiseman, Alice (see Smyth). 
 
 Katharine (see Spenser). 
 
 S.,69. 
 
 William, 69, 244, 468, 482. 
 
 Witherhead, Thomas, Bishop of Water- 
 ford and Lismore, 463, 466. 
 
 Wood, George, 75. 
 
 Woodstock, 175. 
 
 Wooton, Sir Henry, 275, 300, 308-309, 
 313-315, 317, 320-323, 326. 
 
 YORK, 357-358. 
 
 James, Duke of, 331. 
 
 Youghal, Books on 
 
 Council Book, Caulfield, xi. 
 Handbook, Hayman, xi. 
 Youghal College, 39, 40, 245, 270, 273, 
 286-287, 367, 464, 466-467. 
 
 House, 41, 47, 56, 68, 127, 
 
 139, 140, 147, 160, 273-274, 382, 386. 
 
 Youghal town 
 
 Almshouses, 81, 491-492. 
 Assizes, 72. 
 
 Blackfriars Priory, 465, 
 Boyle property in, 467-468. 
 Charles I. proclaimed, 98. 
 Church, 41, 51, 372, 498. 
 Danish ship shelters, 111-112. 
 Defence of, 382, 388, 392, 418, 424, 
 
 434- 
 
 Fishcuring house, 76. 
 Free school, 40, 491. 
 Fortifications, 382, 392. 
 Funerals, 141, 427, 441. 
 Mayors, 41, 99, 112, 135, 382, 498. 
 Members of parliament, 85. 
 Poor, legacy to, 502. 
 Poorhouse, 112. 
 Preachers, 79. 
 Ralegh's house, 39, 57, 121. 
 
 property, 465-466. 
 
 Refuge for English, 383-384, 457. 
 
 South Abbey, 384. 
 
 Stapletown, 106. 
 
 Strand, 8, 41. 
 
 Trade, 99, 102, 401-402. 
 
 Visits John Boyle, 64 ; Falkland, 
 
 139 ; Ralegh, 122, 124. 
 Walls, 41, 392. 
 
 Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Press
 
 ERRATA 
 
 Page 69, line io,for Mary Boyle read Elizabeth Boyle. 
 22, for Elizabeth Boyle read Mary Boyle. 
 141, 20, for Lady Barbara Villiers read Mrs. Anne Villiers. 
 216, 7, for Lady Kildare read Mrs. Fitzgerald.
 
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 ^ COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 
 r This book is'due'ori the last date stamped below. 
 
 
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