Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/46

 for service in Ireland (Calendar of State Papers, Dom. 1623–5, pp. 334, 371, 375, 380, 501).

Lord Wentworth, appointed lord deputy in July 1633, some months before his arrival in Ireland, commissioned Fortescue to raise for him a troop of horse, of which he was to have the command. The commission brought with it nothing but heavy expenditure and a long series of personal differences with Lord Strafford, of which Fortescue gives a pathetic account in a ‘Relation of Passages of the Earle of Strafford’ (, History, pp. 179–82). His troubles began as soon as Lord Wentworth landed in Ireland, when he immediately dismissed, without any pay, forty of the newly enrolled troopers, to make room for the gentlemen and servants he had brought with him; difficulties about payments followed, then refusals to promote Fortescue and his sons, then scandals about his lordship's visits to a ‘noble lady,’ then a personal quarrel in which Fortescue ‘could not hold from passionately speaking’ his mind; the whole ending in a letter from Lord Strafford, after he had left Ireland and was imprisoned in the Tower, ordering his steward to discharge Fortescue from the command of his troop, as if, Fortescue says, ‘I had beene his mercinary servant or scullion of his kitchin (and not the king's officer), to bee throwne owt by the tounge of his steward.’

In 1640 or 1641 Fortescue petitioned the House of Commons for promotion to the rank of lieutenant-colonel on the Irish establishment. On 27 Jan. 1641–2 this petition came before the house; on that day a report was received from Pym, on behalf of the committee for Irish affairs, to the effect that the king had commanded the lord-lieutenant, the Earl of Leicester, to recommend seven officers to the house for commands in Ireland. The committee ‘earnestly recommended’ Fortescue, the house ‘being very well satisfied that he is a man of honour and experience and worthy of such an employment’ (House of Commons' Journals, ii. 398, 407).

Fortescue received the appointment of governor of Drogheda during the summer of 1641. In October of that year the rebellion in Ulster broke out. The insurgents were able, without resistance, to seize at once upon Newry, Carrick, Charlemont, and other places, and threatened Drogheda, the only fortified town between them and Dublin. The place was entirely ungarrisoned, and the only troops Fortescue was able to obtain consisted of sixty-six horse and three companies of foot, raised hurriedly by his brother-in-law, Viscount Moore. Finding this small body of men totally inadequate to the defence of the place, and receiving no reply to his appeals to the lords justices, Fortescue threw up his commission and passed to England to endeavour to raise troops to serve against the rebels. Dean Bernard, who was in Drogheda during the siege which followed, says of Fortescue on this occasion that, ‘though willing to hazard his life for us, yet he was loath to lose his reputation also.’ Although he abandoned his post, Fortescue left behind him his eldest son, Chichester, who was in command of a company in Lord Moore's regiment, and who died during the siege, and his second son, John, who was slain by the rebels. Shortly after his departure Sir Henry Tichbourne was appointed by the lords justices governor of the place, and brought to its relief a force of a thousand foot and a hundred horse (, Whole Proceedings of the Siege of Drogheda;, Hist. of Drogheda, vol. ii.)

The commissioners of parliament appointed to raise a force for the suppression of the Irish rebellion selected Fortescue in June 1642 for the command of the third troop of horse to serve under Lord Wharton, lord-general of Ireland. In addition to this body of cavalry, Fortescue also raised for service in Ireland a company of infantry, which was attached to the Earl of Peterborough's regiment, and was compelled to serve with the parliamentary army in England during the civil war (List of the Field Officers chosen for the Irish Expedition, &c., pp. 18, 28).

While waiting at Bristol to cross to Ireland, Fortescue's troop was placed under the command of the Earl of Essex, and marched to the midlands to take part in the campaign on the side of the parliament. There can be no question that this action on the part of the parliamentary leaders constituted a distinct breach of faith. Charles issued a protest against the proceedings of the parliament on this occasion, in which he says ‘that many soldiers raised under pretence of being sent to Ireland were, contrary to their expectation and engagement, forced to serve under the Earl of Essex,’ and names especially Fortescue and his troop of horse (, History, Oxford ed., 1704, ii. 120–1). On the eve of the battle of Edgehill, Fortescue, who was acting as major in Lord Wharton's regiment of horse, is said to have entered into negotiations with Prince Rupert, and to have promised to desert the army with which he had been against his will compelled to serve on the first opportunity (, Hist. of the Parliament, Oxford ed., 1854, p. 256).

On the next day, when Prince Rupert charged the left wing of the parliamentary army, Fortescue with his troop drew off from