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Why was Ormond dismissed in 1669?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

J.I. McGuire
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Extract

On 14 February 1669 Charles II informed the committee of foreign affairs that he intended to remove the duke of Ormond from the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland. This announcement ended eighteen months of intrigue, speculation and rumour, and Orinond’s second period in office as viceroy. It seemed to contemporaries that the fickle king had again yielded to the pressure and importunities of his ambitious and politically ascendant courtiers. On hearing the news of Ormond’s dismissal Pepys commented that it showed ‘the power of Buckingham and the poor spirit of the king’. Few of Pepys’s contemporaries would have quarrelled with that judgment and few historians have seriously questioned it since.

Type
Articles
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 71 , March 1973 , pp. 295 - 312
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1973

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References

1 Carte, T., Life of James, duke of Ormond (Oxford, 1851), 4, 351 Google Scholar

2 Ormond was appointed lord lieutenant by Charles I in 1643 and, despite handing over the regalia of government to parliamentary commissioners in July 1647, he remained the king’s chief governor In February 1649 Charles II renewed his patent, continuing him in the office. In December 1650 the marquis of Clanricarde was appointed lord deputy and there was no further royal appointment until Albemarle became lord lieutenant after the restoration. (Lib. mun. pub. Hib., ii, 7–8, Handbook of British chronology (1961), pp 159–60.)

3 Pepys, Samuel, Diary, ed. Wheatley, Henry B. (London, 1896), 8, 226.Google Scholar

4 Carte, , Ormond, 4, 312.Google Scholar Finch was solicitor-general of England at the time.

5 Carte, , Ormond, 4, 311–3.Google Scholar

6 Witcombe, D.T., Charles II and the cavalier house of commons 1663–74 (Manchester, 1966), p. 88.Google Scholar

7 Carte, , Ormond, 5, 318, 326.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., pp 314–18, 326.

9 Ibid., p. 328.

10 H.M.C., Ormond MSS, new series, iii, 281–2 (1904).

11 Carte, , Ormond, 4, 328–9, 333,Google Scholar

12 Ibid., iv, 333.

13 Diary (1897 ed.), viii, 21.

14 Browning, A., Thomas, earl of Danby (London, 1951), 1, 61 Google Scholar ; Richard Jones to Sir Arthur Forbes, 10 June 1668 (Bodleian Library, Carte MSS, 36, f. 375).

15 Commons’ jn., ix, 97.

16 List of bills for an Irish parliament, 18 May 1668 (Carte MSS, 36, f. 326).

17 R. Jones to Sir Arthur Forbes, 21 July 1668 (Carte MSS, 36, f. 418).

18 Carte, , Ormond, 4, 336–7.Google Scholar

19 Ibid, p. 336.

20 Anglesey was vice-treasurer and receiver-general of Ireland from 1661 to 1667, when he exchanged positions with Sir George Carteret, treasurer of the navy; Lib. mun. pub. Hib., pt ii, 45; D.N.B.

21 Twomey, M., ‘The financial and commercial policy of the English administration in Ireland, 1660–70’ (National University of Ireland, M.A. thesis, 1954), p. 260,Google Scholar

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25 Duchess of Ormond to Capt. George Mathew, 22 Nov. 1668, in H.M.C, Ormond MSS, new series, iii, 439–40 (1904).

26 Diary, viii, 173.

27 Duchess of Ormond to Capt. George Mathew, 5 Feb. 1669, in H.M.C, Ormond MSS, new series, iii, 441.

28 Ormond to Ossory, 9 Feb. 1669, quoted in Carte, Ormond, iv, 348.

29 Carte, Ormond, iv, 348.

30 Ibid, p. 355.

31 Browning, Danby, i, 66.

32 Carte, Ormond, iv, 355. Carte described him as ‘uncomplaisant in his address and reception of persons’

33 See article by C. H. Firth on Buckingham in D.N.B.; Ormond considered it highly unlikely that Buckingham would be prepared to absent himself from the excitements of court to be viceroy of Ireland; Ormond to the earl of Carlingford, 15 Aug. 1668 (Carte MSS, 49, f. 596).

34 Duchess of Ormond to Capt. George Mathew, n.d, Feb. 1669, m H.M.C., Ormond MSS, new series, iii, 442 (1904).

35 Piero Mocenigo to doge and senate, 8 Mar. 1669, in Cal. S.P. Venice, xxxvi, 26.

36 Pepys, , Diary, 8, 226.Google Scholar

37 Colbert de Croissy to Lionne, 28 Feb. 1669 (P.R.O, Baschet transcripts, 31/3/121, f. 53; the original is in Ministère des Affaires étran-gères, Correspondance politique, Angleterre, 94, ff 99–102).

38 Richard Jones, third Viscount Ranelagh and first earl of Ranelagh. Ranelagh’s involvement in anti-Ormond intrigue is unlikely at this stage for the breach between them did not take place till some time after 1670. (D.N.B.; see also friendly letters from Ranelagh in Carte MSS 36. passim.)

39 Later earl of Tyrconnell and James IVs viceroy in Ireland. He was α younger brother of Peter Talbot, Roman catholic archbishop of Dublin, and acted as a promoter of Irish Roman Catholic land interests while the act of settlement was being drawn up. He took up the same cause again in 1670. He was on poor terms with Ormond after the restoration.

40 Burnet, G., History of my own time, ed. Airy, O. (Oxford, 1897), 1, 480.Google Scholar

41 Carte, Ormond, iv, 344.

42 Ibid, p. 348.

43 Ibid, p. 417

44 Lingard, J., History of England (London, 1850), 5, 83–4.Google Scholar

45 Osmund Airy wrote of the king giving way to the ‘constant insistence’ of Buckingham and, probably Arlington (see Airy’s article on Ormond, D.N.B.). Bagwell gave an account of the dismissal without interpreting or explaining it, but he did quote Pepys’s comment that it showed Buckingham’s power and the king’s lack of spirit ( Bagwell, , Stuarts, 3, 88).Google Scholar Robert Dunlop considered the circumstances surrounding Ormond’s removal were similar to those surrounding Clarendon’s fall; see Dunlop’s article in the Cam. mod. hist. (1908), v, 305. Similarly David Ogg wrote of Ormond as ‘the most eminent of Ciarendonians’ necessarily incurring the enmity of Buckingham and Arlington, so that it was not unexpected when he was recalled ( Ogg, D., England in the reign of Charles II (Oxford, 1967), p. 396).Google Scholar For Andrew Browning, Charles was at length ‘brought to the point’ of dismissing Ormond (Browning, Danby, i, 66). C. H. Hartmann in his popular work on Charles II’s relations with his sister, the Princess Henriette Anne, considered that Charles supplanted Ormond ‘to gratify the vanity and ambition of the duke of Buckingham, who had been urging this course since the previous autumn’ ( Hartmann, C.H., The king my brother (London, 1954), p. 246).Google Scholar Similar accounts are to be found in Roberts, Clayton, The growth of responsible government in Stuart England (Cambridge, 1966), p. 180,Google Scholar Witcombe, , Charles II and the cavalier house of commons 1663–1674, p. 91,Google Scholar and Haley, K.H.D., The first earl of Shaftesbury (Oxford, 1968), p. 271 Google Scholar

46 Smith, W.H.C., ‘The removal of the duke of Ormond from the government of Ireland, 1669’, summarised in I.C.H.S. Bull., new series, 1, 6–9 (1952).Google Scholar In The making of modern Ireland 1603–1923 (London, 1966), p. 129, Professor J. C. Beckett commented that it was at least doubtful that Charles would have changed the government of Ireland ‘had he not hoped for some financial advantage’. More recently, however, Professor Beckett has analysed in some detail the circumstances surrounding Ormond’s removal in an important article on ‘The Irish viceroyalty in the restoration period’, in R. Hist. Soc. Trans., 5th series, x, 53–72 (1970). In this he makes three important points (i) the threat to Ormond came from a shift in the balance of influence at court and not from any weakness in Ormond’s administration or from any change in royal policy, (ii) the king’s ‘ultimate surrender’ does not indicate any weakness on the part of the crown, since the king would not have given in had he any real interest in holding out, (iii) that his ‘surrender’ in 1669 was only a surrender, since Robartes was the king’s own choice (pp 60–2). Professor Beckett considers that it took sixteen months to answer the question : ‘was the king’s personal regard sufficient to protect his representatives against a determined attempt by a powerful court faction to unseat him?’ (p. 57).

47 Twomey, M., ‘The financial and commercial policy of the English administration in Ireland, 1660–70’, p. 292.Google Scholar

48 Mr Twomey has pointed out to me recently that with the Irish revenue moving out of deficit for the first time in three hundred years, the question of to what uses the surplus should be put, public or private, Engish or Irish, inevitably arose. In Mr Twomey’s view Ormond would have wished to retain it in Ireland. It seems that it was quite extensively put to Charles’s own uses in the succeeding years. The Irish parliament, dissolved in 1666, voted so considerable a hereditary revenue to the crown that no further parliament was summoned in this reign; see Clarendon, R.V., A sketch of the revenue and finances of Ireland (1791), pp 18, 25, 26Google Scholar; SirSinclair, John, The history of the public revenue of the British Empire (London, 1804), 3, 168–9Google Scholar; O’Brien, G., Econ. hist. Ire. 17th cent., pp 202–3Google Scholar; Kiernan, , Finan, admin., p. 114.Google Scholar

49 Hartmann, C.H., Clifford of the cabal (1937), p. 142,Google Scholar Bryant, A., King Charles II (1968), p. 162.Google Scholar

50 Bryant, , Charles II, p. 161 Google Scholar; Hartmann, . Charles II and Madame (London, 1934), p. 233.Google Scholar

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52 Bryant, , Charles II, pp 161–2Google Scholar ; Hartmann, , Clifford of the cabal, p. 233,Google Scholar Barbour, V., Henry Benet, earl of Arlington (Washington, 1914), pp 154–5.Google Scholar

53 Hartmann, , Charles II and Madame, pp 233–4Google Scholar ; Browning, Danby, i 78–9.

54 Ibid.

55 Bryant, , Charles II, p. 164.Google Scholar

56 Barbour, Arlington, pp 158–9; Wilson, J.H., A rake and his times (London, 1954), p. 117.Google Scholar Quite plausibly J. H. Wilson saw Robartes’s appointment as an interim measure until a safe man with catholic sympathies could be found.

57 Colbert de Croissy to Louis XIV, 22 Jan. 1669 (P.R.O., Baschet’s transcripts, 31/3/121, f. 9).

58 Quoted in Hartmann, , Charles II and Madame, p. 204.Google Scholar

59 Ibid, p. 227.

60 Colbert de Croissy to Lionne, 7 Mar. 1669 (P.R.O, Baschet’s transcripts, 31/3/121, f. 59, original in Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Correspondance politique, Angleterre, 94, ff 110–11).

61 Colbert de Croissy to Louis XIV, 7 Jan. 1669 (P.R.O, Baschet’s transcripts, 31/3/121, f. 3; original letter in Ministère des Affaires étran-gères, Correspondance politique, Angleterre, 94, ff 5–8v).

62 Quoted in Hartmann, , Charles II and Madame, p. 218.Google Scholar

63 Carte, Ormond, iv, 705.

64 Trevelyan, G.M., England under the Stuarts (London, 1947), p. 302.Google Scholar

65 Ranke’s comment is worth quoting. ‘The Anglican tendencies, gained especial strength by the relations with Ireland, where the organ- \ isation which secured the dominion of protestantism bad been carried out ; by the chancellor’s influence, and where Ormond, the lord lieutenant, Clarendon’s friend, guided the administration according to the chancellor’s ideas’ ( von Ranke, L., A history of England principally in the seventeenth century (Oxford, 1875), 3, 483).Google Scholar

66 Lee, M., The cabal (1965), pp 11–12,Google Scholar has some in/teresting general comments.

67 Bodleian Library, Carte MSS, 49, f. 137, and quoted in Bosher, R.S., The making of the restoration settlement (London, 1951), p. 257.Google Scholar

68 Carte, Ormond, iv, 100. The duke of York was temporarily out of favour with the king at this time as well.

69 Feiling, Keith, A history of the tory party 1640–1714 (Oxford, 1959), p. 135.Google Scholar

70 Carte, Ormond, iv, 361–4.

71 Feiling, , Tory party, p. 136.Google Scholar

72 See footnote 46.

73 Hartmann, , Charles II and Madame, p. 254.Google Scholar

74 Colbert de Croissy to Louis XIV, 13 Nov. 1669. It is printed in French in Mignet, M., Négociations relatives â la succession d’Espagne sous Louis XIV (Paris, 1842), pp 100–5.Google Scholar A translation is in Dalrymple, J., Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1773), 2, 37–44.Google Scholar

75 A collection of the state letters of Roger Boyle, the first earl of Orrery . . together with some other letters and pieces of a different kind: particularly the life of the earl of Orrery (London, 1742), pp 37–42. Morrice’s narrative takes little account of chronology an’d is extremely confused.

76 Ibid, p. 41.

77 Browning, Danby, i, 66.

78 Lee, The cabal, p. 12.

79 Lodge, R., The history of England, 1660–1702 (London, 1910), 8, 312.Google Scholar

80 Beckett, , art. cit. in R. Hist. Trans. Soc., 5th series, 10, 61–2 (1970).Google Scholar See footnote 46.

81 p Talbot to Nuncio, 15 Feb. 1669, in Moran, PF. (ed.), Spicilegium Ossoriense, 1, 471,Google Scholar quoted in J. C. Beckett, art. cit., p. 62.

82 Reid, , Presb. ch. in Ire., 1, 312.Google Scholar

83 Mant, R., History of the Church of Ireland (1840), 1, 654.Google Scholar

84 Carte, Ormond, iv, 429–56, passim.

85 Carte, Ormond, iv, 436.

86 Camb. mod. hist., v, 305. When writing of Ormond’s dismissal, Duniop stated that the circumstances surrounding it were similar to the intrigues which led to Clarendon’s fall and left it at that; see footnote 45.