Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/79

 conspicuous gallantry, and was remarkable for his quickness of eye and readiness of resource. At Albuera he distinguished himself by galloping between two regiments, the British 57th and a Spanish regiment, and stopping the fire which by mistake they were exchanging—a feat which he performed without receiving a single wound. In the same battle, at a critical moment, he was enabled by his quickness of sight to discern a retrograde movement on the part of the French, which Marshal Beresford had not perceived, and induced the latter to recall an order which he had just given for the retirement of two batteries of artillery. At an earlier period, in South America, when he and General Beresford were prisoners in the hands of the Spanish, and when all the officers were about to be searched for papers, he contrived by a clever stratagem to secrete in an orchard an important document, viz. the convention which had been executed between General Beresford and the Spanish general Linieres, and of which the Spanish were anxious to regain possession.



ARBUTHNOT, THOMAS (1776–1849), lieutenant-general, was the fifth son of John Arbuthnot, of Rockfleet, county Mayo [see, and , lieutenant-general]. He entered the army as an ensign in the 29th foot in 1794, and after serving in that and other regiments joined the staff corps under Sir John Moore in 1803. He subsequently served as quartermaster-general at the Cape of Good Hope, whence, in 1808, he joined the army in the Peninsula, and was assistant quartermaster-general to General Picton's division during the greater part of the war. He was twice wounded, once in the West Indies and again in one of the latest actions in the Peninsula. He was appointed an aide-de-camp to the queen in 1814, and a K.C.B. in 1815. After commanding a regiment for some years, he was sent, in 1826, to Portugal in command of a brigade. He afterwards commanded a district in Ireland, and, having attained the rank of lieutenant-general in 1838, was appointed, in 1842, to the command of the northern and midland districts in England, which command he retained until his death in 1849. Sir Thomas Arbuthnot had a considerable military reputation. Sir Thomas Picton held him in high esteem, and the good opinion which the Duke of Wellington entertained of his judgment and efficiency was proved by his having selected him for the newly constituted command at Manchester at a time when the chartists were causing a good deal of anxiety in that part of the country.



ARCHANGEL,. [See .]

ARCHDALL, MERVYN, M.A. (1723–1791), Irish antiquary, was descended from John Archdall, of Norsom or Norton Hall, in Norfolk, who went to Ireland in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and settled at Castle Archdall, co. Fermanagh. He was born in Dublin 22 April 1723. After passing through the university of Dublin with reputation, his antiquarian tastes introduced him to the acquaintance of Walter Harris, Charles Smith, the topographer, Thomas Prior, and Dr. Pococke, archdeacon of Dublin. When the latter became bishop of Ossory, he appointed Archdall his domestic chaplain, bestowed on him the living of Attanagh (partly in Queen's County and partly in co. Kilkenny), and the prebend of Cloneamery in the cathedral church of Ossory (1762), which he afterwards exchanged (1764) for the prebend of Mayne in the same cathedral. Archdall was also chaplain to Francis Pierpoint, Lord Conyngham, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Having married his only daughter to a clergyman, he resigned part of his preferments in the diocese of Ossory to his son-in-law, and obtained the rectory of Slane in the diocese of Meath, where he died, 6 Aug. 1791.

His works are:
 * 1) 'Monasticum Hibernicum; or an History of the Abbies, Priories, and other Religious Houses in Ireland.' Dublin, 1786, 4to, pp. 820. This work was the result of forty years' labour. The collections for it filled two folio volumes, but the author was obliged to abridge them considerably. Compared with Dugdale's 'Monasticon Anglicanum,' it is a weak and feeble production, and eighty-two mistakes in it are rectified in Dr. Lanigan's 'Ecclesiastical History of Ireland.' An interleaved copy, with numerous manuscript additions by W. Monck Mason, is preserved in the Egerton collection in the British Museum (Nos. 1774, 1775). Considerable portions of the work appear to have been contributed by Edward Ledwich. The publication of a new edition, with notes by the Rev. Patrick F. Moran, D.D., and other antiquaries, was commenced, in parts, at Dublin in 1871.
 * 2) An edition of Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, 'revised, enlarged,