Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/417

 Doyle was appointed an aide-de-camp to the prince regent, and promoted to the rank of colonel in the English army. He continued in Spain till the end of the war in 1814, but in the distribution of honours which followed he was unable to obtain the distinction of K.C.B., because he had not the gold cross and clasp for commanding a regiment or being on the staff in five general actions. He was, however, knighted and made a C.B., and was allowed to wear the Spanish order of Charles III. In 1819 he was promoted major-general, made colonel of the 10th Royal Veteran battalion, and created a K.C.H. From 1825 to 1830 Doyle commanded the south-western district of Ireland; in 1837 he was promoted lieutenant-general, and in 1839 he was made a G.C.H. He died at Paris on 25 Oct. 1842, leaving by his first wife, Sophia, daughter of Sir J. Coghill, bart., three sons: Lieutenant-general Sir [q. v.], Colonel the Right Hon. J. S. North (who took the name of North in 1838, after marrying the Baroness North of Kirtlington, and who was sworn of the privy council in 1886, after sitting for Oxfordshire for over forty years), and Percy William Doyle, C.B., British minister in Mexico.



DOYLE, JAMES WARREN (1786–1834), Roman catholic bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, whose polemical and political writings under his episcopal initials of ‘J. K. L.’ exercised in their day an enormous influence, was born near New Ross, Wexford, in the autumn of 1786. He was the posthumous son of James Doyle, a farmer in reduced circumstances, who occupied a holding at Donard or Ballinvegga, about six miles from Ross on the Enniscorthy side, by his second wife, Ann Warren of Loughnageera, a Roman catholic but of quaker extraction. He was from early life designed for the priesthood, and at nine years of age was prophetically pointed out by a flattering female beggar as predestined to the episcopacy. When eleven years old he witnessed all the horrors of the battle of New Ross in the rebellion of 1798, and on one occasion had a narrow escape. Doyle was indebted to his mother for his earlier instruction, but was afterwards sent to a school conducted by Mr. Grace, near Rathnarague, where both protestants and Roman catholics sat side by side. In 1800 he entered a seminary in New Ross kept by the Rev. John Crane, a zealous member of the order of St. Augustine, and as soon as he had attained the canonical age, in June 1805, he commenced his noviciate in the convent of Grantstown, near Carnsore Point. In January 1806 he made his profession, and took the vows of the order. A few weeks later he passed thence to the university of Coimbra in Portugal; but his studies were soon interrupted by the invasion of Portugal under Napoleon. He joined the army of Sir Arthur Wellesley as a volunteer, and, young as he was, acted as interpreter for part of the forces. After the defeat of the French at Vimeira, 21 Aug. 1808, Doyle accompanied Colonel Murray with the articles of convention to Lisbon. During his sojourn in that city he had confidential interviews with the members of the royal junta. It was there, it is supposed, that tempting proposals were made to him by the government, who had formed a high opinion of his talent for diplomacy. In a pastoral charge which he addressed to his flock in 1823 he made interesting allusion to this epoch of his life. Doyle returned to Ireland at the close of 1808, having spent only about two years at Coimbra, and was welcomed back by his old preceptor at Ross. He was ordained at Enniscorthy in 1809, and returned to his convent, where he was appointed to teach logic. Here he remained until 1813, when he removed to Carlow College to fill, first, the chair of rhetoric, then of humanity, and finally of theology. Some eccentricities of dress and demeanour disposed the students to ridicule the new professor. ‘There was a tone of authority in his voice, however, which at once arrested attention and imposed something like awe,’ wrote one of his pupils years afterwards. ‘The success of his inaugural oration rendered him at once the most popular professor in the house and the college itself famous throughout Ireland.’ In the spring of 1819 Doyle was elected by the clergy as Dr. Corcoran's successor in the see of Kildare and Leighlin. The career of Doyle as a bishop is identified with the history of the social struggles which were checked for a while by the passing of the first Reform Bill. For ten years he stood forth as the champion of the Roman catholic cause, which he defended with unrivalled ability. His first care, however, was to reform the discipline of his diocese, which a succession for a century of old and infirm bishops had allowed to fall into a state of utter confusion. He established schools in every parish; he personally visited the districts disturbed by ribbonism and Whitefeet; ‘and it was,’ relates his biographer, ‘no unusual sight to see the bishop, with crozier