Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/86

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for them, whereby, although managing to keep up an appearance of war, he gave to it the character of a freebooting campaign, which caused as much harm to his own party as to the enemy. Meanwhile, the lord-lieutenant, having been foiled in his efforts to recruit his army through the obstinacy of the citizens of Limerick refusing to receive a garrison, and seeing no hope of effecting a compromise with the extreme Irish, had come to the determination to quit the kingdom. Castlehaven did his utmost to combat his resolution, urging him to ‘make friendship with the bishops and the nation.’ But his overtures were treated with disdain; ‘the bishops and the nation’ were bent on managing their affairs in their own way, and so, having appointed Clanricarde his lord-deputy and Castlehaven commander-in-chief in the province of Munster and county of Clare, Ormonde sailed from Galway Bay for France in December. The approach of Ireton, however, causing the citizens of Limerick somewhat to relax their opposition, they admitted Castlehaven himself ‘with the matter of one troupe of horse’ (Contemporary Affairs, ii. 113). The concession enabled him to transport two thousand men into Kerry and clear that county almost entirely of the enemy (Gilbert, Confederation, vii. 364). Returning for Christmas to Portumna, he early in the following year (1651) crossed the Shannon into co. Tipperary; but the object of the expedition was frustrated by the plundering propensities of his officers, and, being compelled to retreat before Ireton and Broghill, he recrossed the Shannon at Athlone. Failing to prevent Ireton sitting down before Limerick, the capitulation of that city on 27 Oct., followed by the loss of co. Clare, forced him and Clanricarde into Iar Connaught. But, the situation growing daily more desperate, he was on 10 April despatched by Clanricarde to France for the purpose of soliciting aid to enable the latter to maintain ‘a mountain war.’

Reaching Brest after a sharp encounter with an English vessel in the Channel, he posted to St. Germain, but, failing to obtain the supplies required, he was granted permission to enter the service of the Prince of Condé in the war of the Fronde. Being appointed to the command of a regiment of horse, he was present at the fight in the Faubourg St.-Antoine on 2 July, and, quitting Paris with Condé, he was taken prisoner by Turenne at Comercy. Owing to the intervention of the Duke of York he was shortly afterwards exchanged, and being placed at the head of the Irish regiments in the Spanish service with the rank of maréchal-de-camp or major-general, he was present at the siege of Rocroy (1653), of Arras (1654), the relief of Valenciennes and the capture of Condé (1656), the siege of St. Guislain and the relief of Cambrai (1657), and the battle of the Dunes on 14 June 1658. The peace of the Pyrenees putting an end to the war in the following year (7 Nov. 1659), and Charles II being shortly afterwards restored, he returned to England. But the confiscation of his property by the Commonwealth rendering it impossible to support his dignity, he obtained a grant in September 1660 of all wastes and encroached lands to be discovered by him in the counties of Surrey, Berks, Stafford, Devon, and Cornwall (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1, p. 289), and either then or subsequently received a pension out of the Irish establishment (Dartmouth MSS. i. 121). On the outbreak of the war with Holland (1665–7) he served as a volunteer in several naval actions, and in June 1667 landed at Ostend with 2,400 recruits for the old English regiment of which he was appointed colonel. His men were used to strengthen the garrisons at Nieuport, Lille, Courtrai, Oudenarde, and other places; but, the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (2 May 1668) putting ‘an end to our trouble, for it cannot be called a war,’ he shortly afterwards returned to England. Peace being concluded between Holland and England in 1674, he again repaired abroad, and was present at the battle of Senef on 11 Aug. He commanded the Spanish foot in 1676, and served in the trenches at Maastricht, ‘by much the bloodiest siege that I ever saw.’ The following year he was at the siege of Charleroi, and on 14 Aug. 1678 at the battle before Mons; but returning to England after the peace of Nimeguen, he published in 1680 his ‘Memoirs,’ ‘from the year 1642 to the year 1651.’

The book, a small octavo volume with a dedication to Charles II, is, on the whole, what it claims to be, a trustworthy account of the war in Ireland from a catholic-royalist standpoint. But, being written from memory, it is not wholly free from accidental inaccuracies, while the very biassed view taken of the conduct of the lords justices Parsons and Borlase at the beginning of the rebellion, and of the peace of 1643, renders a circumspect use of it necessary. Appearing as it did during the heat of the ‘popish plot,’ ‘a very unseasonable time,’ remarks Carte (Ormonde, ii. 521), ‘for reviving or canvasing such a subject,’ it was attacked by Arthur Annesley, earl of Anglesey [q. v.], at that time lord privy seal, in ‘A Letter from a