1669 constant importunity had had its usual effect upon Charles, and on the 14th of March Ormonde was removed from the government of Ireland and from the committee for Irish affairs. He made no complaint, insisted that his sons and others over whom he had influence should retain their posts, and continued to fullil with dignified persistence the duties of his other offices, while the greatness of his character and services was recognized by his election as chancellor of Oxford University on the 4lh of August. In 1670 an extraordinary attempt was made to assassinate the duke by a ruffian and adventurer named Thomas Blood, already notorious for an unsuccessful plot to surprise Dublin Castle in 1663, and later for stealing the royal crown from the Tower. Ormonde was attacked by this person and his accomplices while driving up St James’s Street on the night of the 6th of December, dragged out of his coach, and taken on horseback along Piccadilly with the intention of hanging him at Tyburn. Ormonde, however, succeeded in overcoming the horseman to whom he was bound, and his servants coming up, he escaped. The outrage, it was suspected, had been instigated by the duke of Buckingham, who was openly accused of the crime by Lord Ossory, Ormonde’s son, in the king’s presence, and threatened by him with instant death if any violence should happen to his father; and some colour was given to these suspicions by the improper action of the king in pardoning Blood, and in admitting him to his presence and treating him with favour after his apprehension while endeavouring to steal the crown jewels.
In 1671 Ormonde successfully opposed Richard Talbot’s attempt to upset the Act of Settlement. In 1673 he again visited Ireland, returned to London in 1675 to give advice to Charles on affairs in parliament, and in 1677 was again restored to favour and reappointed to the lord lieutenancy. On his arrival in Ireland he occupied himself in placing the revenue and the army upon a proper footing. Upon the outbreak of the popish terror in England, he at once took the most vigorous and comprehensive steps, though with as Uttle harshness as possible, towards rendering the Roman CathoKcs, who were in the proportion of 15 to i, powerless; and the mildness and moderation of his measures served as the ground of an attack upon him in England led by Shaftesbury, from which he was defended with great spirit by his son Lord Ossory. In 1682 Charles summoned Ormonde to court. The same year he wrote “A Letter . . . in answer to the earl of Anglesey, his Observations upon the earl of Castlehaven’s Memoires concerning the Rebellion of Ireland,” and gave to Charles a general support. On the 9th of November 1683 an English dukedom was conferred upon him, and in June 1684 he returned to Ireland; but he was recalled in October in consequence of fresh intrigues. Before, however, he could give up his government to Rochester, Charles II. died; and Ormonde’s last act as lord lieutenant was to proclaim James II. in Dubhn. Subsequently he lived in retirement at Cornbury in Oxfordshire, lent to him by Lord Clarendon, but emerged from it in 1687 to offer a firm and successful opposition at the board of the Charterhouse to James’s attempt to assume the dispensing power, and force upon the institution a Roman Catholic candidate without taking the oaths according to the statutes and the act of parliament. He also refused the king his support in the question of the Indulgence; notwithstanding which James, to his credit, refused to take away his offices, and continued to hold him in respect and favour to the last. Ormonde died on the 21st of July 1688, not having, as he rejoiced to know, "outlived his intellectuals"; and with him disappeared the greatest and grandest figure of the times. His splendid qualities were expressed with some felicity in verses written on welcoming his return to Ireland and printed in 1682:
“A Man of Plato’s grand nobility.
An inbred greatness, innate honesty;
A Man not form'd of accidents, and whom
Misfortune might oppress, not overcome . . .
Who weighs himself not by opinion
But conscience of a noble action.”
He was buried in Westminster Abbey on the 1st of August.
He had, besides two daughters, three sons who grew to maturity. The eldest of these, Thomas, earl of Ossory (1634–1680) predeceased him, his eldest son succeeding as 2nd duke of Ormonde. The other two, Richard, created earl of Arran, and John, created earl of Gowran, both dying without male issue, and the male descent of the 1st duke becoming extinct in the person of Charles, 3rd duke of Ormonde, the earldom subsequently reverted to the descendants of Walter, 11th earl of Ormonde.
Authorities.—Life of the Duke of Ormonde, by Thomas Carte; the same author’s Collection of Original Letters, found among, the Duke of Ormonde’s Papers (1739), and the Carle MSS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford; Life of Ormonde, by Sir Robert Southwell, printed in the History of the Irish Parliament, by Lord Mountmorres (1792), vol. i.; Correspondence between Archbishop Williams and the Marquess of Ormonde, ed. by B. H. Beedham (reprinted from Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1869); Observations on the Articles of Peace between James, Earl of Ormonde, and the Irish Rebels, by John Milton; Hist. MSS. Comm. Reps, ii.-iv. and vi.-x., esp. Rep. viii., appendix, p. 499, and Rep. xiv. App.: pt. vii., MSS. of Marquis of Ormonde, together with new series; Notes and Queries, vi. ser. v., pp. 343, 431; Gardiner’s Hist. of the Civil War; Calendar of State Papers (Domestic) and Irish, 1633–1662, in introductions; Biographia Britannica (Kippis); Scottish Hist. Soc. Publications: Letters and Papers of 1650, ed. by S. R. Gardiner, vol. xvii. (1894).
ORMONDE, JAMES BUTLER, 2nd Duke of (1665–1745), Irish statesman and soldier, son of Thomas, earl of Ossory, and grandson of the 1st duke, was born in Dublin on the 29th of April 1665, and was educated in France and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford. On the death of his father in 1680 he became earl of Ossory by courtesy. He obtained command of a cavalry regiment in Ireland in 1684, and having received an appointment at court on the accession of James II., he served against the duke of Monmouth. Having succeeded his grandfather as duke of Ormonde in 168S, he joined William of Orange, by
whom he was made colonel of a regiment of horse-guards, which he commanded at the battle of the Boyne. In 1691 he served on the continent under William, and after the accession of Anne he was placed in command of the land forces co-operating with Sir George Rooke in Spain. Having been made a privy councillor, Ormonde succeeded Rochester as viceroy of Ireland in 1703, a post which he held till 1707. On the dismissal of the duke of Marlborough in 1711, Ormonde was appointed captain general in his place, and allowed himself to be made the tocl of the Tory ministry, whose policy was to carry on the war in the Netherlands while giving secret orders to Ormonde to take no active part in supporting their allies under Prince Eugene. Ormonde’s position as captain-general made him a personage of much importance in the crisis brought about by the death of Queen Anne. Though he had supported the revolution of 1688, he was traditionally a Tory, and Lord Bolingbroke was his political leader. During the last years of Queen Anne he almost certainly had Jacobite leanings, and corresponded with the duke of Berwick. He joined Bolingbroke and Oxford, however, in signing the proclamation of King George I., by whom he was nevertheless deprived of the captain-generalship. In June 1715 he was impeached, and fled to France, where he for some time resided with Bolingbroke, and in 1716 his immense estates were confiscated to the crown by act of parliament, though by a subsequent act his brother, Charles Butler, earl of Arran, was enabled to repurchase them. After taking part in the Jacobite invasion in 1715, Ormonde settled in Spain, where he was in favour at court and enjoyed a pension from the crown. Towards the end of his life he resided much at Avignon, where he was seen in 1733 by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Ormonde died on the 16th of November 1745, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
With little of his grandfather’s ability, and inferior to him in elevation of character, Ormonde was nevertheless one of the great figures of his time. Handsome, dignified, magnanimous and open-handed, and free from the meanness, treachery and venality of many of his leading contemporaries, he enjoyed a popularity which, with greater stability of purpose, might have enabled him to exercise commanding influence over events.
