Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/66

 Albemarle over the heads of Ormonde and Rivers to the command of the first troop of life guards. Ormonde then resigned his command of the second troop; whereupon not only did fifty members of parliament join in expressing to him their sympathy, but there was talk of bringing in a bill to exclude all foreigners from official employment. The affair was, however, arranged by a compromise, and Ormonde magnanimously withdrew his resignation (, viii. 341–2). It had been further hoped that of the Irish forfeitures resumed by parliament those in Tipperary would be bestowed upon him; but instead of this a proviso forgiving him the debts owed by him to persons whose property had been confiscated by the crown was introduced into the abnormal arrangements forced upon both king and lords by the spleen of the commons. These transactions, however, seem to have occasioned no personal estrangement between William III and Ormonde; for in March 1702 the latter was among the Englishmen who stood by the deathbed of the king.

Such was the popularity of Ormonde, that when in the new reign war had been actually declared, general satisfaction was caused by his appointment, 20 April 1702, to the command of the English and Dutch land forces which accompanied Sir George Rooke's fleet on the expedition against Cadiz (August). In June he was further gratified by being made lord-lieutenant of Somersetshire. His hope to prevail by pleasant words upon the governor of Cadiz, his former companion in arms in Flanders, proved as futile as his grandiloquent proclamation to the inhabitants. His plan for seizing the city by a coup de main having been outvoted, he assented to a counter-proposal that the troops should be landed midway between the towns of Rota and Puerto de Santa Maria. The former fell at once into the hands of the allies, and Santa Maria too was easily taken. Ormonde, whose headquarters were at Rota, failed to repress the excesses which followed on the part of his soldiery, though he held a court of inquiry into the conduct of his lieutenants. The attempt to capture Fort Matagorda failed, and discretionary powers having arrived, leaving it open to Rooke and Ormonde either to winter in Spain or to send part of the ships and troops to the West Indies and return home with the rest, a long series of bickerings ensued, which ended in the defeat of the general's wish to effect another landing in Spain. On 30 Sept. the fleet ingloriously weighed anchor; but a fortunate accident enabled the commanders before their return home to cover their discomfiture by a brilliant success. The land forces under Ormonde had a share in the operations, which, after the taking of the batteries at Redondela, ended in the destruction of many Spanish and French ships, and the capture of part of the treasure of the Plate fleet, in Vigo harbour (12 Oct.). After this victory Ormonde would gladly have attempted to seize Vigo and hold it during the winter, but Rooke refused his co-operation, and both returned to England. Here they were most warmly received, and their achievements joined with Marlborough's in the vote of thanks from the two houses, and in the thanksgiving ceremony at St. Paul's, where Ormonde was hailed with special acclamations. He, however, notwithstanding the objections raised by his friends, insisted upon and ultimately obtained a parliamentary inquiry into the Cadiz miscarriage. It ended honourably for Rooke, Ormonde generously abstaining from taking any part in the final decision. The queen had sought to soothe him by naming him a privy councillor; and in 1703 he was appointed to the government of Ireland, which his father-in-law, Rochester, the queen's uncle, had just wrathfully resigned. Ormonde had a kind of ancestral claim to the lord-lieutenancy, and the history of his house was closely bound up with the protestant and loyal interest in Ireland. It is therefore not wonderful that he should have been enthusiastically received by the Irish parliament, which he opened 21 Sept. and which speedily voted the necessary supplies. But the session after all proved an unfortunate one. The cruel intolerance of the act against popery was little to the taste of the lord-lieutenant, though he promised to do his best for it in England; here, however, much to the vexation of the Irish parliament, a clause devised on the principle of the Test Act was added which bore hardly upon the presbyterians. Furthermore, some of Ormonde's subordinates were believed to have cooked the public accounts, and he was supposed to have held but a slack rein over the cupidity of those who surrounded him. The parliament, which had become violently incensed against him, was abruptly prorogued. In 1705, when a dispute raged between the commons and the lower house of convocation, he twice resorted to the same expedient, and in June he embarked for England. He was in April 1707 superseded in the government of Ireland by the Earl of Pembroke. On the overthrow of the whigs in 1710 he was reappointed to the same post, but in less than two years he was called away from the exercise of its duties, and retired 22 Sept. 1713. In December 1711 Marlborough had been dismissed from all