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Why was Ormond dismissed in 1669?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
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.
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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
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10 H.M.C., Ormond MSS, new series, iii, 281–2 (1904).
11 Carte, , Ormond, 4, 328–9, 333,Google Scholar
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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.
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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.
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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
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43 Ibid, p. 417
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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
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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
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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.
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83 Mant, R., History of the Church of Ireland (1840), 1, 654.Google Scholar
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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.
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